Homeschooling Days

Our son's senior year photo

The decision to homeschool our son was monumental and yet the easiest decision to make. I later realized that from the beginning I was teaching our son at home. Reading, craft activities, nature studies, museums, games, educational magazines, and making up stories were part of our daily activities.

One day while driving in the countryside he asked me what the road signs said. I explained the no passing and passing zones. He started reading the signs and telling me, "You can pass now." He's been a back-seat driver ever since!

So, we knew he was reading before he started kindergarten. At Kindergarten Roundup he was put in Pre-K. He came home from Pre-K disappointed, and asked when he was going to learn "real science."

In Kindergarten he was inattentive. The teacher asked me to come to class and observe.

Hillsdale was a rural community with a good deal of poverty. The classroom was geared for children who did not come from enriched lives. The teacher read a book, explained the book, told the students how to draw a picture relating to the book. And after that, she discussed the book again. After the first reading, Chris lost attention. He whipped off his drawing and went back to wandering around. I saw that he was bored.

First Grade was promising at first. The young teacher was resolved to challenge our son and keep him busy. Day after day when we picked him up from school she complained about his lack of attention. The school assigned an aid to offer our son special one-on-one activities, mostly reading on a higher level.

We went to a family counselor who told us that our son needed to be in "his proper peer group." He encouraged us to have the school test him.

The principal agreed to the testing, but warned that jumping grades was rarely successful. In October of his First Grade year Chris underwent testing. The principal was surprised by the results. Our son was reading on a Fifth Grade, second semester level and had the math skills of a Second grader. We agreed to jump him to Second Grade after winter break. At first, he was to spend only half days in the new class. But once he was there, he would not leave. He knew it was where he belonged.

His Second Grade and Third Grade teachers were great, and he worked hard to stay in the top of the class. He encountered teasing and rejection at first, but in Third Grade that was all behind him. The teacher was great; he sent home weekly letters to parents, took the class on a nature walk, and taught special units on interesting subjects like Great Lakes Shipwrecks. Our son made friends and joined Cub Scouts and Little League.

Then we were moved to Lansing. It was a very different environment from that of a small town.

The Fourth Grade teacher was not as interactive with parents as we were used to. In fact, she seemed detached and burnt out. He was in a pull-out program for the gifted, but the program did not give him what he needed, and it made him a target for teasing. There were not enough math books for the students and they could not be taken home to study.

Our son tried to make friends, using techniques that had worked for him when he jumped from First to Second grade. But the cliques were set and closed. Our son also had to deal with a very different social atmosphere than the small town he had known. The school included kids from the upscale neighborhood we lived in, and from the poor neighborhood just south with many children from troubled families or with fathers in jail.

Our son was depressed. We found a family counselor who spoke with our son privately. The counselor suggested homeschooling to our son at that time, as had the counselor in Jackson, MI who had encouraged the academic testing.

Chris and his friend 'pigging out'

Fifth Grade went better, with a more involved, positive teacher. Our son met another new boy in school and they became best friends.

Chris and Marianna, his exchange student sister

When Chris was in Fifth Grade we hosted an exchange student. Mariana was the oldest daughter of my high school exchange student sister, Elina. The first months they got along quite well. But when Chris and Mariana went trick and treating an argument broke out. Suddenly they were acting like a 'real' brother and sister! Before long they were fighting like real siblings, vying for my attention.

Sixth Grade brought a school change to junior high school. At first everything seemed to be going great. Chris was in a group of boys and they had a lot of fun. But when he had classes with older kids they made him uncomfortable. He asked me why they were allowed to wear clothing with bad messages and allowed to use foul language. He encountered problems with teachers who insisted on his writing reports by hand; his fine motor skills were not good and writing was hard. He wanted to use the computer and type his reports.

One day our son corrected the social studies teacher who said WWII started in 1942. That's when America entered the war, but Chris knew the war started in 1939. The teacher did not like his correcting her!

A boy was bullying our son, and one day Chris picked up a stick to keep the the boy away. There was a no-violence policy and the boy turned our son in; he ended up in detention after school, removing graffiti from the walls.

After the Columbine school shooting, mimics were everywhere. One day our son didn't want to go to school because of rumors that a boy had threatened to bring a gun to school. He was literally afraid.

Our son's MEAP score took a dip and his grades were slipping. Chris asked us if we would homeschool him. Two counselors had said he was a good candidate for homeschooling.  A science teacher told us about his daughter who had 'dual exceptionalities', being both gifted and learning disabled. He was wary of our taking on homeschooling.

I found a distance school for gifted children out of Chicago that provided oversight, curriculum ideas, records keeping, and testing for homschooling. We signed up beginning in Seventh Grade. We took our son to a local testing service and discovered his strengths and weaknesses in learning and his I.Q. score. The school counselor advised us on courses and curriculum and handled paperwork and records.

That first year involved adjustment. I was suddenly our son's mother and teacher and friend. He wanted me to keep the roles separate. I saw everything as a teachable moment.

I was in my second year working from a home office for Jostens. So I was working 30 hours a week and homeschooling and a homemaker and a minister's wife! Gary's flexible schedule meant he could teacher several subjects, including logic and mathematics. I oversaw history, science, English, Latin, and gave I Chris piano lessons.

We decided not to continue with the oversight school for Eighth Grade. Jostens wanted the Office Manager to be available more hours and they wanted me to be more active in outside and inside sales. I quit the job to homeschool full time.

We joined a homeschool group. Every fall they had a series of Field Days with games and learning activities at a park.

While some moms organized and ran the activities, along with older homeschool students as helpers, the rest of us moms visited.

The Moms

Our family was concerned that our son would not be in 'the real world,' but even the homeschool group had differences in religious and political thinking that involved getting along and respecting others, as did our church.

The homeschool group sponsored educational trips, such as visiting the local GM plant, the Lansing State Journal, and the Kalamazoo Air Museum. We took advantage of classes that taught art and pottery. I offered classes to the homeschool group teaching some basic needlework skills including coloring on fabric and Redwork quilting.

I loved teaching. I loved relearning. I loved researching curriculum and setting lesson plans. I focused on curriculum to suit his learning style. We did hire a tutor for Algebra II and a mathematics review to prepare for standardized testing. By Senior High, our son could determine his own elective subjects and set his own plans.

Since the whole family was writing, we would read and critique each other. We were sure our son was going to be 'the writer' in the family. Both Gary and I had written as kids, and of course Gary wrote sermons and articles in his work and I wrote poetry and short stories for myself.

Homeschooling was efficient time-wise. Our son was able to complete his school work in four days. Gary had Fridays off, so we would schedule family activities for Friday afternoons, going to movies and dinner, taking day trips to museums, or having a family game and pizza nights. Homeschooling made us a closer family.

A homeschool group member, Jacob, organized a role playing gaming group which met at our house. Friday evenings brought a troop of boys coming in the front door, saying 'hi', and going to the finished basement for a few hours of gaming.

Chris and Gary had been playing the Magic:The Gathering card game and even taught me. So when Chris got to college, the first thing he did was to join the Alternate Reality gaming club. He made friendships there that have lasted to this day.

We made sure our son took the PSAT test available through local homeschool groups, and the ACT and the SAT.

Sunday School class play

Angel Alert Christmas Play

Our son was active at church and in community volunteering. He worked at the Lansing library resale store, and all summer volunteered as a counselor in training at the Woldumar Nature Center. His Senior year, he won a Target scholarship for college, based on his volunteer work.

The Youth Group raked leaves at the homes of the elderly

During our son's junior and senior year in high school I was the Senior High Sunday School Teacher. I had a great deal of fun. I think the kids did, too.

Senior High Sunday School Class kids hanging in the Youth Building

When it came time to apply to college he decided to apply to Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in Allendale, MI and Albion College, a small Methodist liberal arts college with scholarships for clergy children. We visited other colleges as well, including Alma and Western.

With his applications I submitted a summary of the entire homeschool records, including course descriptions with texts and reading materials. Albion College told us he was already working on a college level. He was accepted by both schools.

He was leaning toward Albion, which was close to Lansing and smaller. We suggested he visit each school again, this time to sit in on a class. Albion suggested he would have a lot of experience in journalism and the school paper there. He sat in on a literature class. But when he sat in on a writing critique class at GVSU he came out excited. That was what he wanted! And he accepted GVSU.

My homeschool mom friends 

Chris graduated a few weeks before we were moved again. The Bishop had informed Gary at the last moment that he was needed elsewhere. There was to be no questioning or disputing the move.

Our son at his graduation party with church friend Stacy

I had planned to return to work full time after our son graduated, sure I had contacts for good jobs. While homeschooling I worked several part-time jobs including a temp editing job, filling in when the church secretary was on leave, and scoring standardized tests for the Educational Testing Service from home. I continued to hone my desktop publishing skills through volunteer work as the quilt guild newspaper editor as as a school records keeper.

We thought we knew what our future was going to look like, but in the itinerant ministry, you can never be sure about anything.

Chris

Talking with Joan Dempsey, Author of This Is How It Begins

I had the privilege to converse with author Joan Dempsey whose first novel This Is How It Begins was published October 3, 2017.

By sharing the story of Holocaust survivors whose gay grandchild loses his teaching position over his sexual orientation, Dempsey addresses relevant issues: How can conflicting belief systems learn to live together? What does it mean to be protected under the law?

In the novel, we meet Professor Ludka, an artist who hid Jews in Poland under the Nazis, and her Jewish spouse Isaac. Their son Lolok rose to be the first Jewish State Attorney General, a man who championed gay marriage rights. Their grandson Tommy one of thirteen teachers fired on the same day. The only thing the teachers have in common is their sexual orientation. A local popular Christian pastor and radio show host have plotted to make public education a 'Christian friendly' place. But their careful plans go awry as escalating violence against Tommy reaches his grandparents.

Nancy: When I read your blog post about your personal encounter with bigotry I was very moved and sad. Then I thought about how you had to research radical Christian groups for Pastor Royce and Warren Meck, et. al. And your portrayal was generous.

Joan: Thank you. Warren Meck was the most challenging character to write, but I ended up feeling really good about him. So far I am hearing from readers, especially Christian readers, that I did a good job with the balance. That was certainly my goal.

Nancy: He seemed to have a core value that allows self-judgment and to see the evil in violence used for 'righteous ends.'

Joan: Yes, exactly right. Meck has all the right intentions, and I wanted to really get inside and understand him. It was mostly hard because, like any character, I had to find what made him tick.

Nancy: So there is an objectivity in writing when you are delving into a character?

Joan: Yes, definitely an objectivity. I feel it is critically important to understand the characters on their own terms and keep myself completely out of it.

My closest readers told me at some point that he would have a wife and children. And they were exactly right! Once he had a wife and kids, he came fully alive. Before that, he was eluding me. I think he was just waiting for his family to show up!:-)

Sometimes I need to find something we have in common in order for me to understand more deeply, But that's as far as our similarities go. It's simply a way to enter into the character more deeply.

Nancy: So characters are to be discovered, as opposed to being invented?

Joan: I would say characters are equally discovered and invented. It is a rare character that shows up fully formed. I have had several characters who have done that and it's always a gift. Others are harder work and take longer to figure out. For Warren Meck in particular, what he and I have in common is our love of lobbying and legislation.

Nancy: There are a lot of legal discussions going on, which isn't often encountered in fiction that is not 'crime' oriented.

Joan: This novel started out as a political novel starring Lolek, the state senator. I knew I wanted to write about politics of the Massachusetts Statehouse. I was a lobbyist there for many years, and loved that job. So this novel gave me a chance to relive some of that work and those exciting times.

Nancy: That is something I enjoyed about the novel, there are so many 'sides' that are all part of the story: the Polish/Jewish/Nazi experience; Ludka and the stolen painting of Chopin; the legal battle with Tommy and Lolek--it was very rich, but I did not feel it slowed anywhere.

Joan: I absolutely adore looking at all sides of issues. I am a shades of gray kind of thinker. And as a lobbyist, it's really important to understand where everyone is coming from. I was known for being able to bring disparate groups of people together and find common ground, even when it seemed impossible. I loved doing that!

I'm so glad to hear you feel like it did not slow down. With all that legislative detail, it was definitely a concern. Lots of paring back of prose!

Nancy: We need more people like you, especially in religion and government!

Joan: Thank you. It does drive me crazy to see the dogmatic divisions. Politics is not about drawing a line in the sand but figuring out how you can come to some common understanding. I think we forget that at our peril.

Nancy: How long did you spend writing the first draft; how long to edit?

Joan: I revise as I write. So my "first" draft is really more like a 20th! I cannot pinpoint when I finished the first draft. The whole book took seven years to write.

Nancy: Wow, a labor of love for sure.

Joan: Most of that time I was working full-time and writing in the margins. The final year I focused almost completely on finishing the book. And the first year-and-a-half were largely research.

I sometimes wished that I wasn't so dogged on this book. Think of all the short stories I could have written and published in that time! But seriously, I love the form of a novel and loved spending so much time with these characters

Nancy: Did you have the plot outline before you started?

Joan: No plot outline. I knew that towards the end of the book I would find Ludka crawling through smoke with a canvas under her arm, But I have no idea why. The rest of the plot evolved as I wrote and rewrote.

Nancy: I wanted to mention that early on I noted Ludka had these spiked galoshes. She was so careful about hiding the Chopin. She kept secrets even from Isacc. But I noted those spiked galoshes and then there came the time she went outdoors on the ice without them. That told me something about her. It may be small, but I just wanted to mention it.

Joan: How wonderful that you noticed those galoshes! It's all the small things that add up to a whole novel, and it's a real treat for me to have readers noticing the little things.

Nancy: I thought, so many of these characters had protective secrets. Oskar [whom Ludka had hidden from the Nazis], his son Stanley [who tries to steal the painting of Chopin]. Pastor Royce knowing his followers are using violence. Isacc's needing to pose as a Christian under the Nazis.

Joan: It's funny, because I didn't set out to write about secrets, But that's the magic of fiction. Several readers have mentioned "all the betrayals" and I have found myself thinking, "really?" Ha ha ha! But there you have it. That's what's wonderful about the book getting out into the world.

And of course I do know about all of the secrets and all of the betrayals, but I wasn't so much focused on those. Except of course for Oskar's.

Nancy: Of course under Nazi Germany there was a need for secrets, hiding the Jews, the Chopin, adopting alternate identities. And Pastor Royce and his group had to hide their real motives for firing the teachers.

Joan: Yes, absolutely. You may remember in the opening scene, I wrote that "Ludka was keenly aware of how she appeared to others, not because she was vain or insecure, but because she was long accustomed to the consequences of casting particular impressions."

Nancy: Yes. She and Isacc have a form of PTSD, learned behavior.

Joan: I'm delighted you see all of these connections.

Nancy: I just finished reading The World Spit in Two by Bill Goldstein about 1922 and the birth of Modern Literature, with T. S. Eliot, Woolf, and Forster. And of course, Forster could not be honest about his orientation. Even thirty years ago, twenty years ago, there was pressure to assume a false identity. And so it is wonderful that Tommy is who he is, so healthy.

Joan: There you are! I know. We really have come an awfully long way! And yet... In fact, several agents who really liked the book passed on it because they felt that after gay marriage passed, the dangers would not seem as real. The backlash, against people of color, other religions, sexual orientation. People hate change. And here we are ... they didn't anticipate the backlash!

Nancy: So, seven years ago you would not have anticipated how relevant your novel would be--

Joan: No, I didn't realize quite how prescient I would be. But I did know that bias and prejudice still clearly exist, and likely will never go away. It's so important to be vigilant about this kind of thing.

The Anti-Defamation League has something called the Pyramid of Hate. I will find a link for you. I thought about this a lot while I was writing.

https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/education-outreach/Pyramid-of-Hate.pdf

Interestingly, the title of this novel for most the entire seven years I was writing it was Prelude!

But then a literary agent who is a friend told me that was a terrible title and I went back to the drawing board. It didn't take long at all before I came up with This is Tow it Begins. I mean, it's right there in the book, staring out at me!

Nancy: When I was reading the ebook of your novel I was also reading David Samuel Levinson's Tell Me How This Ends Well, in which the near future world is Anti-Semitic. I laughed about how I was reading This is How It Begins and Tell me How This Ends Well at the same time! And both involve gay couples and hate crimes.

Joan: Oh wow! That's fascinating. I just checked it out on Amazon and can tell by the "cartoon" cover that it is a dark comedy. Interesting.

Nancy: What are some of your favorite books? Or, what books made you fall in love with fiction?

Joan: Oh boy! The big question! I fell in love with fiction as a kid. My favorite gifts to get for any event was a stack of books. One of my all time favorites was Harriet the Spy. Like so many other kids of my generation, I was Harriet! I have the notebook and the toolbelt and the desire to spy just like she did. And of course that book is all about learning about other people by spying on them. Which is what fiction writers do.

Nancy: Another thing I have thought about was the role of art in the novel. It brings Ludka back to her home in Poland, and there her illusions about Oskar, the "myth of a man forged from long memory," is broken.

Joan: Yes, her art brings her 'fame' late in life. It brings her home. And most of all it shatters "the myth of a man forged from long memory" as fake.

I was so happy that she came back to her art and began to draw again. I really wanted her to do that, and was so glad when she did. I'd love to see what happens after the end of the book with her drawing! I am not an artist, but I think I might have been one in another lifetime, because pieces of art come to mind fully formed and I just write them down. I love that. Like Alexander Roslin's most famous painting, Prelude 1939. I've had readers Googling it and feeling frustrated that they can't find it! Maybe I should commission someone to paint that painting.

Nancy: And that is where the first title came from--Prelude?

Joan: The first title came both from that painting, and the idea of that bigotry can be a prelude to war. You will see a hint of that on Page 2 in the first full paragraph

Nancy: I like that, bigotry as a prelude to war. And how the students reacted to that painting, what they saw in it, foreshadowed...

Joan: Exactly. The students could see what Roslin intended them to see when he painted it.

*****

You can find Joan Dempsey at
http://www.joandempsey.com/
https://www.facebook.com/joan.dempsey
https://twitter.com/LiteraryLiving
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16485006.Joan_Dempsey

"Beautifully written ... an ambitious and moving debut novel." —LILY KING, author of the award-winning national bestseller, "Euphoria"

“In a time when religious liberty is on trial, [this] is an extraordinarily pertinent novel dripping in suspense and powerful scenes of political discourse … a must-read ....” — FOREWORD (starred review)

“… Dempsey’s fine first novel [is] notable for the evenhanded way it addresses hot-button issues. The result is a timely and memorable story.” —BOOKLIST

“A gripping and sensitive portrait of ordinary people wrestling with ideological passions.” —KIRKUS

Interlude: Saying Goodbye to Philadelphia

The view from the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps
down the Ben Franklin Parkway towards Center City

A week before we moved from Philadelphia I spent a day alone at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was where I had fallen in love with the city back when we first came to Philly for Gary to interview with the Eastern PA Conference.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art
with the Schuylkill River and Water Works
Bicentennial era pamphlet

I stood on the steps of the art museum, looking past the Washington Monument fountain down the Ben Franklin Parkway to the Second Empire City Hall. Behind me in the art museum was "Sandy" Calder's mobile Ghost, at the far end of the parkway was Alexander Stirling Calder's Swann Memorial Fountain, and atop City Hall was Alexander Milne Calder's William Penn: three generations.

detail from a lithograph of Philadelphia

Philadelphia as we knew it when we moved

I recalled my first views of the city, coming in on the expressway along the Schuylkill. Across the ravine was the strange sight of Laurel Hill Cemetery, the white monuments gleaming.

Then came the view of the art museum and the water works in front of it. Going down the Ben Franklin Parkway, bedecked with flags, past fountain circles, and ending with the imposing City Hall. I knew my ancestors had come into this port, and that in some way I was coming home.

Rodin's The Thinker at the Rodin Museum on the Ben Franklin Parkway

Our first anniversary after moving to Philly we went to Old Original Bookbinders for our first lobster dinner. They put a plastic bib on our necks. The lobster was amazing, dipped in butter, and so rich.

Ads including Old Original bookbinders
Saladalley was one of my clients when I was in sales

One birthday I ordered poached salmon with dill sauce at The Fish Market

The Fish Market 

We shopped at the Reading Terminal Market where we bought fresh vegetables and whole fish, boned leg of lamb to grill, and home made cottage cheese.

Reading Terminal. Photo by Gary L. Bekofske

We had our first Tabouli at a lunch stand in the Reading Terminal Market. I felt vindicated for always eating the spring of parsley from my parent's plate at restaurants. Here was a whole salad of parsley! We now grow our own parsley to make this salad.

Ad for the Reading Terminal Market
Bicentennial pamphlet

Reading Terminal. Photo by Gary L. Bekofske

We went to the Old City festival and bought exotic foods from the Middle East restaurant and Indian food from Siva, some of our favorite cuisines to this day. We loved to eat in Chinatown, where we had Peking Duck. We enjoyed chicken mole' and authentic dishes at a Mexican restaurant that opened near the Academy of Music.

restaurant ads in Bicentennial pamphlet

We had dined at Dicken's Inn, run by Charles Dicken's grandson, and took my brother for Cajun food at an expensive restaurant on South Street. I accidentally ordered raw oysters while dining on the Moshulu, and Gary and I each tried one.

It was during the Avenue of the Arts on Broad street that I heard an orchestra play Vivaldi's The Four Seasons for the first time. Under a huge tent along the Delaware River at Penn's Landing at a free concert, we sang along with Pete Seeger, "Bit by bit, row by row, gonna make my garden grow."

We had gone to the Mummer's Parade on New Years Day, crushed in a crowd of thousands on South Broad Street. We heard the Beach Boys in a free concert on the steps of the art museum on a muggy July 4th.

I had stood in light-filled Christ Church where our patriot forefathers worshipped and supped by candlelight in the City Tavern where they broke bread.

Bicentennial Ads

We had seen the St. Lucia festival at Gloria Dei, the earliest church in Philadelphia when it was first settled by Swedes. I had worshipped at Arch Street Meeting House and in African American churches.

We had seen plays--from Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead to Dracula: A Pain in the Neck; George Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare; Jean Marsh in Too Good to Be True and Leonard Nimoy in a one man play about Vincent Van Gogh. We had seen Cats on Broadway and Candide at the New York City Opera.

And the concerts at the Academy of Music! The Christmas ballets of The Nutcracker and Coppelia. The outdoor concerts at the Robin Hood Dell and Mann Music Center. I remembered the cooling dusk, sitting on a blanket on the grass, transported by Scheherazade, white dining on brie and fruit and wine.

Riccardo Muti

We saw repertoire movies including the first time I saw Limelight and City Lights by Charles Chaplin, and Casablanca, and The Marx Brothers. We went to the Ritz and saw foreign movies with subtitles, and to the large downtown theaters for the re-release of Lawrence of Arabia and the premieres of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future.

The Liberty Bell in it Bicentennial location

I recalled the Bicentennial, history come alive for a whole year, the museums and free plays, the excitement and uplifting belief in America.

Scenes from around Philadelphia in a Bicentennial pamphlet

Goodbye to the many public statues: Emmanuel Frémiet's gilded Joan of Arc, Robert Indiana's LOVE statue and Claus Oldenburg's giant 'clothespin statue' that looked like lovers kissing, and the Lipchitz statue Government of the People which some thought looked like a pile of shit, and Henry Moore's Three-Way Piece. and the Pilgrim and Playing Angels and even the giant frog. Goodbye to one of only two statues ever made of Charles Dickens.

Dickens and Little Nell by Francis Edwin Elwell. Clark Park, Philadelphia
Photo by Gary L. Bekofske

Goodbye, walks along the Schuylkill where Thomas Eakins painted the scullers. Goodbye, Independence Hall and Carpenters Hall, to the second bank of the United States modeled on the Parthenon, to the Bourse and the Merchant's Exchange. Goodbye to Latrobe's Water Works and to Boathouse Row.

Goodbye to being surrounded by history, to walking past where Phillips Brooks wrote 'O, Little Town of Bethlehem,' the Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman Houses, Ben Franklin's grave and the first library which he founded. Goodbye to the 18th c houses and Elfreth Alley and New Market.

Goodbye to the 30th Street Train Station, place of the opening scene of Witness, and to John Wanamaker where a car drove into the display window in the movie Mannequin. I only have to watch Blow Out or Trading Places to revisit the city we knew.

Bicentennial ad for Wanamaker

And the shopping! The department stores, now gone: John Wanamaker, Strawbridge & Clothier, Gimbels, and Lit Brothers. The new Gallery and Gallery II. And Encore Books where I bought so many books for so few dollars.

The Gallery and John Wanamaker

We had gone to the amazing Philadelphia Flower Show and to Longwood Gardens.

At Longwood Gardens

And to the Tyler Arboretum and the Ambler Arboretum. And to the Tinicum Nature Preserve to see the migrating birds, where once we saw thousands of white egrets in the trees.

Tinicum Nature Preserve

Specters

A cluster of trees

            jade green fans brush-stroked against

            blue skies dappled with pearly gray clouds

stood lit by a noon-high sun.

Vivid and verdant, richness of growth,

nature's masterwork swathed in movement:

White flight checkering green 

like phantoms

or gathered angels.

Souls in gala celebration

saluting the season.

Egrets, white flames 

Leaping from cool still green,

darting from depths of green

into shadows of green.

Hovering, alighting.

Eternity's crown,

nimbus of elms.

The miracle of flight

visiting the permanence of roots.

It was where I finished my education. I remembered Professor Olshin who taught the Jane Austen seminar and how we were on campus and ran into her and within a year she had died of the cancer she had been battling.

photo by Gary L. Bekofske of Kensington. 

How many hours had I spent on mass transit? The subway and the El? Going to school, work, to shop, and for days spent walking around the city?

the new subway station

I said goodbye to the city that formed my twenties and was the background of my adulthood.

View of the Ben Franklin Parkway from the top
of City Hall

My footsteps echoed as I walked up the stairs under Augustus Saint-Gaudens's Diana with her bow and arrow to visit my favorite art: Fish Magic by Paul Klee. Carnival Evening by Rousseau. John Singer Sargent's Luxembourg Gardens. Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/44513.html?mulR=1263678720|8

I remembered when we brought Chris to the museum and how he was so interested in Salvador Dali's Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) and having to explain it to an eighteen-month-old.

I returned home to Gary and Chris, excited for the next big adventure waiting for us, but knowing that Philadelphia had left its mark on me.

Views of the City

I saw your familiar yet unnamed face
flicker across the movie screen’s blank stare
and every image burned with recollected stain
the wall-writings, the liter,
the detached reflected city streets
in the towered window’s glare.

Remembered
diesel perfume and urine-soaked stair,
the rapid rush of walkers
going somewhere, anywhere,
with intense vengeance.
The panhandler’s challenge, the derelict’s sleep
on steamy subway grate, the wind
whipping down manufactured canyons
with a whirlwind of refuse.

And yet among all this came creeping
the quiet vacuum
where small things took root:
the flower of a fountain,
the square of sycamore where a child played,
the balanced architecture of a hopeful past,
violin strings slicing air,
you were also this, and more----

A dreamed, racial memory,
the place where my ancestors first came ashore,
when baffled, tongueless, full of faith
they sought new life in a foreign place.

Recalled, my first view of you,
driving down the river’s gorge,
your ancient dead saluting on the far hill,
gleaming white in spring’s green leaves;
passing Eakin’s famous bridge,
turning our eyes to the temple
rising over falling water
where I would learn to worship
the craft of  human hands
and mortal imagination.

Distancing the parkway,
flag-full and fountain-embraced,
until reaching  your heartbeat,
the clash of ages
where generations of Calders and Rouse meet.
In that disconsonance, I knew
I’d returned to the home
I’d always dreamt I’d find.

I gave you my best years.
And you, you stamped your imprint
on my most tender and childish being.
Here I viewed the extremes humanity can achieve:
where the lame led the blind,
and the powerful bomb the children of the disinherited,
and subway tunnels echo with solemn saxophone  songs,
and shop windows beckon entrance
into organ-filled halls.
I memorized your every aspect and view,
walked you from South Street’s decay
to Kensington’s skeleton-lined avenues,
I knew your markets and your alleys.
The light-filled rationality of Christ Church
to the Occidental streets behind the Chinese gate.

I have been damaged
as by sunlight too bright,
too well observed,
and no one understands here
in this peninsular Midwest,
what I have seen
and what it meant
or why I dream of you yet.

Nancy Juggles Being a Minister's Wife and a University Student

Me and Gary 1975. I had a 'shag' haircut.

I was still twenty-three years old when I became a full-time minister's wife in June 1975. Gary had been accepted into the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church. His first full-time church appointment was at Morrisville United Methodist. As an Associate Pastor, Gary was in charge of Education and Youth ministires.

Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was one of the earliest settlements in the state. A few blocks away from the church was the Delaware River and across the bridge was Trenton, NJ. It was a lovely community.

Gary's salary of $7,400 more than doubled what we had jointly earned while at seminary! 

Our first parsonage 

We moved into the 'old' parsonage that had been designated for the senior pastor before a new parsonage for the senior pastor was built across the street. After living in a college dormitory and a two-room apartment we did not know what to do with all the space in the tri-level house!

We had a rocking chair, a record player, several hundred books, and a few bookcases. We were lucky that the parsonage was partially furnished. My folks bought a bedroom set from friends and hauled it to us. The Hostetters gave us a couch for the family room. We picked up rummage sale items, turned in Green Stamps for a lamp, and purchased a desk with a hutch.

Off the dining room was a screened-in porch. We spent most of our summer on the porch, listening to music and reading. The rest of the time, Nasturtium and I were in the family room, and I used the home office as my space for sewing. The house was surrounded by beautiful azaleas and rhododendrons.

Me and Nasturtium

That first July 4 a parish family invited us to join them for a picnic in a park. It was the kind of informal outing I had grown up with. We had our first Tastycakes and learned that out East no one knew what 'pop' was. It was 'soda' from now on!

Sid, Ellen and Mark Hostetter

Mark and Ellen Hostetter were from Pennsylvania Dutch country. This would be Mark's last pastorate before retirement. When he began his career a pastor made a few hundred dollars and was moved to a new appointment every year. Pastors would learn where they were being sent a few weeks before move-out! Mark had served across the country before returning to Pennsylvania.

Their only child, Sid, was our age and taught high school science. Summers he worked with the famous Jack Horner at his Montana dinosaur dig, and he loved spelunking. Sid's pet iguana had grown too large for his apartment so his parents kept Iggy in a huge aquarium in the parsonage. We had our litter box trained bunny. The congregation had great fun with their new ministers' strange pets!

Ellen took me to minister's wives meetings. Ellen had been a teacher when she fell for 'the reverend'. She loved being a clergy wife.

On holidays the Hostetters invited us to their home and we enjoyed Pennsylvania Dutch hospitality with seven sweets and seven sours. A few hours after gorging on dinner Ellen would serve sandwiches with the leftovers and a desert.

I found a fabric store just down the road. Also in town was a great mom and pop pizza place and a fish market where the owner helped us learn about Bluefish, Croaker, and Porgies and explained how to cook fish whole. I missed my garden fresh veggies, but we visited local farms to pick our own strawberries and peaches. We still baked our bread.

Gary and I are on the far right with the vacuum we won.
Gary and I both are wearing jackets I made.

We bought a microwave oven from Jerry Plavin's. It was large enough to cook a turkey, which we did once. When we bought the microwave we were entered into a giveaway and won a Hoover upright vacuum!

Across the street, next to the Hostetters, lived a childless Russian couple who had immigrated to America after WWII. Nadia was a teenager when she was taken to a Nazi farm as forced labor. She volunteered to go in place of her father, as he was needed to provide for the family. It appears she had been sterilized by the Nazis. After the war, she met her husband, who had also been in forced labor. They were given the choice of immigrating to Canada, the US, or South America.

Gary and I in front of the Morrisville UM Church

After Gary left for work in the morning, Nadia would rush across the street to visit with me. She asked, "why two priests" were needed at the church. And she insisted I have a child. She would tell me to ask my husband what to do to have a baby. She did not understand my plans for finishing my education. Nadia could not read, write, or drive.

Morrisville UMC

Gary had his own office with a Mr. Coffee machine. Doris Burkhardt, the church secretary, complained that he was so quiet in his rubber-soled shoes that he was always sneaking up on her. I wonder that the smell of the coffee he always had in hand didn't give him away!

Sanctuary of Morrisville UMC

Mark intended to share responsibilities with Gary, but the Staff-Parish had different expectations. They wanted Gary full time with the youth. Gary and Mark were concerned this would limit Gary's experience and preparedness for his own church.

The church had a huge youth and children's ministry that Gary was in charge of, including two youth groups, Sunday school classes, a mid-week program with a meal and Bible study, retreats, confirmation class, and a youth choir and youth musical! We loved the church youth, many of whom were my younger brother's age.

With the change in youth pastors many volunteers left and Gary had to rebuild the leadership. I helped out with the youth groups and mid-week program. I also played piano for the children's worship service on Sunday during adult worship service, sang in the choir with the youth musical, participated in Bible study classes led by Gary, and when not teaching, joined an Adult Sunday School class.

At times I came into conflict with church members. One time in Sunday School class we were discussing 'insiders who felt like outsiders' in the church and I mentioned that the youth felt that way. In particular, they wished worship was more joyful and upbeat. A youth parent scolded me saying the kids would grow up and accept tradition. And Gary was pressured to be like the last youth pastor, playing baseball with the youth. We learned how the idolization of a leader makes it difficult for their replacement who is compared instead of appreciated for the strengths that they bring.

I did not want to wait a year before returning to school and sent out applications in the fall for winter semester. My reference letters were from METHESCO professors who attested to my preparedness and participation as an auditor. 

It was very unusual for a married woman to return to school after a break in those days. Most women in their early twenties were eager to start a family.

I applied first to the University of Pennsylvania. They suggested I enroll in a special program for women returning to college, and if I succeded in it I could then apply as a regular full time student. I also applied to LaSalle University and Temple University and was accepted by both. Temple cost less, and I enrolled in classes to begin January 1976.

To commute to Temple, located in North Philadelphia, Gary drove me to the train station and I got off the train a few blocks away from campus. It was not a nice neighborhood, so I always was alert walking down that empty street. The campus was huge!

I had to juggle the role of pastor's wife and youth leader with a full college schedule. When I had breaks I spent my time feverishly sewing.

Temple University

My first semester I had Literary Criticism, which was very helpful to me as an English major. Studies in Shakespeare ended up being a Freudian approach. I loved Studies in the Victorian Age. I also had a history class on the Reformation. Professor Schwoebel broke the class into groups to research an aspect of the Reformation. We were to present what we had learned to the rest of the class using multi-media and non-lecture techniques. I was in the group studying John Calvin, but I became most interested in the Anabaptist movement. A year later I discovered that my Gochenour ancestors were Swiss Brethren, an Anabaptist group!

Gary's one year probation as a Deacon concluded with his ordination as an elder into the UMC.

Gary's ordination class June, 1976. Gary is fourth from the left.

Fall of 1976 I took The Novel from Defore to Austen, which was great. I enjoyed Modern British and American Poetry and made several friends. One was a gay Hispanic poet who told me horror stories of Catholic education in Philly. I needed a language and took Elements of Latin. The teacher said I had an odd pronunciation, and I realized I was influenced by how my choirs pronounced Latin when singing.

Spring semester 1977 I had an honors course on John Milton which required three papers; the professor really liked me and I got an A. I also had my second semester of Latin and a self-created class on writing curriculum in which I was mentored by a friend I had met in Victorian Studies class. Murray was fascinated to know a Protestant. So many of my classmates were Catholic and Jewish that I was often a novelty to them!

That fall I had Honors Topics in Religion which looked at Myth and History in the Old Testament; Studies in Drama in which we studied the first and last plays of three major playwrights; and an Honors English course on James Joyce's Ulysses for which I wrote a 50 page paper on Bloom in Nighttown from a Jungian approach, which got me an A. The professor had the class to his home for an Irish meal with Guinness Stout. I loved the course Folklore in America for which I wrote a paper on the culinary roots of American cooking. The professor encouraged me to consider grad school.

My last semester in Spring 1977 I had Colonial American History, American Indian Ethnology, Studies in Drama: Religion and Literature; and Advanced Honors Jane Austen--the class that really changed my life. The Studies in Drama was team taught with the professor who taught Myth and History. The class visited different churches, including Gloria Dei, the early Swedish church, Christ Church where our earliest Colonial ancestors worshipped, a Black Pentecostal church in North Philly, and Beth Sholom, a synagogue designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We also had a Seder meal.

I had a poem published in the literary magazine.

Our pet rabbit adjusted to the move nicely. Nasturtium loved the large family room as 'her place', with a litter box in the utility room. I would come home and find Nasty Buns sleeping on the end table next to the couch. She would wake and run circles around my feet. If I took her outside she was terrified and crawled on my shoulder, hiding her head under my hair.

Nasturtium

When we were away Ellen would take care of Nasturtium. But the bunny would attack Ellen, nipping at her ankles. Ellen always wore a dress, nylons, and high heels so she had no protection! Ellen had to come into the house with a broom to swish Nasty Buns away! When we cared for Iggy we had no such problems!

At Christmas break, Gary and I drove back to Michigan to see our families, first stopping at Tonawanda, NY to see my Grandmother Gochenour and family. Then we drove across Canada to Gary's folks home in Grand Blanc and then down to Clawson to see my family. The second Christmas trip, we left Tonawanda and drove into a heavy snow storm. We finally pulled into a hotel and went the rest of the way home the next day. That ended our Christmas homecomings.

Our first visit back to Michigan my Grandma Ramer was living with my folks. Mom put us in the hide-a-bed in the family room, which was open to the kitchen. Gary had forgotten his PJs that year, and when we woke my Grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table, eating her toast and tea, watching us. Gary couldn't get out of bed!

Before our first anniversary, my grandmother had been set up on a blind date with Milo Fisher, a widower of 25 years. He came to the door and Grandma answered, but he said, "I am here to see your mother." He thought Grandma was my mom! Grandma was only in her early fifties. Almost a year after Grandma had caught my wedding bouquet she married Milo.

Grandma and Milo Fisher at his Birmingham home

During our time in Morrisville, we loved to take the train into Center City Philadelphia and explore the city. We walked from one end of the city to the other, looking in the huge department stores--Gimbels, Lit Brothers, John Wanamaker's with it's inner court and organ concerts, Strawbridge & Clothier-- and shopping at Reading Terminal Market where we first ate Tabouli.

We visited the Philadelphia Art Museum and stood in line on Friday afternoons for cheap seats in the 'nosebleed gallery' to see Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

1776 musical program

The Bicentennial celebration in Philadelphia was exciting. We saw the musical 1776 for free. We visited the historical museums and Independence Hall.

1776 musical stage on Independence Mall

A new museum for Benjamin Franklin opened, and we visited his grave. We saw the Rodin Museum and I often went to the Free Library. There was the Edgar Allen Poe house, Betsey Ross House, and Elfreth Alley. At Head House Square's New Market we saw vendors selling crafts, including miniature quilts. I loved to have ice cream at Once Upon a Porch in Society Hill; the restaurant decor included porches were customer enjoyed their ice cream.

On the Fourth of July, we went downtown to see the fireworks and free concerts. One year we saw the Beach Boys perform on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

On Christmas Day we went to Washington Crossing State Park and saw a reenactment of Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Reenactment of Washington crossing the Delaware

Reenactment of Washington Crossing the Delaware

We visited the Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve and learned to identify Eastern wildflowers. We drove to Princeton, NJ, passing cranberry farms, to visit an antique and used book shop. Our first trip to New York City we took a bag lunch which we ate in Central Park, then we saw The Fantasticks. We also saw Yentl, visited the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Modern Museum of Art.

The youth group made trips to Asbury Park on the Jersey Shore and the Hostetters took us on day trips to Cape May and Ocean Grove. The Hostetters took us to Lancaster, County where we enjoyed family style meals.

The craft revival was in full swing during the Bicentennial. Gary and I took macrame classes and made hanging plant holders. I tried my hand at needlepoint, hooked rug making, and Crewel embroidery.

Gary and I in the Morrisville parsonage back yard, 1977

Our second year at Morrisville I wrote elementary school curriculum for Vacation Bible School with an ecology theme. Gary and I also helped create the church's first elementary school age retreat.

We had joined several small groups. One group met monthly for a world food dinner. The other was a support group. A man in that group was involved in Serendipity small group training and we took the training.

For summer vacation we went camping. We intended to go to Nova Scotia but fell in love with Acadia National Park in Maine. We made it to the Bay of Fundy. We saw the tide come in. But we also got soaking wet and spent a night in motel room drying out. Then we turned back for Maine.

Mark Hostetter suggested that Gary should not stay an associate too long. Gary let it be known to the District Superintendent that if the 'right church' came up he was willing to make a move. The Cabinet contacted him about going to a church in Darby, PA and Gary accepted.

It was a sad day when we left the great youth we had come to know and love, and the wonderful friends we had made.

After two years in Morrisville, we were moving again. I was 25 years old. We had no idea that two pastors had already turned down the Darby appointment.