Taking Flight

Libby asked me a year ago to tell her about my German boy friend.  All of the “letters” before this were a way of introducing you to my 20 year old me.

Although I dated a lot, I never had a boy friend until Tony Edwards, the English boy that I met when I was 19.  I realized I liked having a boyfriend who wasn’t an American:  someone who was more intelligent than I was, someone who was interesting, someone I could talk with for hours, someone who wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship because I had too much that I wanted to do, that I wanted to learn. 

Following Tony’s example, I applied to be an exchange student in Germany.  Before I was chosen, the other students had been males who had graduated from college.  I was the first female undergraduate. I contacted Dennis McClellan who had been the exchange student before to get information on what to expect.  He was eager to share his experiences and offered to introduce me to his closest friend in Memmingen, Reinhard.

I confidently got on that air plane in St. Louis on August 28, 1966 at 5 PM:  a 20 year old wearing a light weight 3 piece suit, heels, a hat and white gloves with a few small suitcases. (my trunk with most of my clothes had been sent earlier). My first flight was exciting.  I landed in New York City at 8PM, but had to get transportation to JFK Airport for my flight to Europe on Icelandic Air Lines at 1 AM.  I sat alone in a cafe sipping coffee and wondering if this was the cafe Tony had called me from a year ago.

Icelandic was the most inexpensive way so the flight had many students and young people like myself. We had to land in Iceland to refuel before taking off for Luxembourg. We boarded Icelandic but I no sooner closed by eyes than the sun rose and we were over a tree less land.  I thought we were going to crash because without trees, I couldn’t judge our height.  We landed safely in Reykjavik to refuel and were allowed to get off the plane.  Iceland looked no better on the ground than it did in the air.   I went to the hanger that had refreshments (not a real terminal). So, my first foreign country to visit was Iceland.

Landing in Luxembourg, at 8 PM, we boarded a bus that took us to Germany.  That was quite the rollicking bus ride with singing, laughter, jokes which even the bus driver got in on.  One girl shouted to him, “Ich bin heiss”.  He pulled off the road, slammed on the breaks and headed to the back of the bus with an exaggerated lear on his face.  Then, she realized her mistake.  She’d said, “I am hot” which has a more sexual connotation in German.  “Mir ist heiss” is more appropriate for someone who wants the heater turned down.

We arrived in Mannheim at 2 AM and joined several other American passengers for a train  to Munich where we arrived at 7 AM. I was exhausted from sleeplessness and yet I needed to see when a train left for Memmingen and I needed to find my hotel.

Unfortunately I was attracting too much attention. American girl, alone with white gloves and maps…. Men were everywhere offering help (???). I couldn’t understand a word they were saying and I just smiled which encouraged them.  Not wishing to appear unfriendly, I kept nodding and smiling which only made things worse—-one even grabbed my arm and tried to pull me into a building. 

Finally, I found my voice and said, “NEIN” (no).  I could speak only a few phrases fluently:  “Can you tell me where I can wash my hands”, “I don’t know why I’m so sad” and ”a girl without freckles is like the sky without stars.” The first phrase was fairly useful because I could change that last part of the phrase to the hotel I was looking for: “Can you tell me where Hotel Garni is?”  

Once at the hotel, I called my German benefactor who had set up the exchange program, Herr Doktor Maximillian Dietrich.  He was a grandfatherly man who owned the local newspaper. He met me the next day at the train station in Memmingen, introduced me around and filled up my “dance card” with several evenings of activities with some of Memmingen’s bachelors: the head master’s son and two former  exchange students I’d met in Cape when they lived there.  

All Peter wanted to do was go to his parents’ house to watch TV.  All Helmut wanted was to stay out partying until 3AM at the local disco. All Georg wanted was a relationship.  After several weeks of forced joviality and friendliness,  my anxiety level was building. Although I like a good party and I like to watch TV, day after day, week after week was not me. And I wasn't ready for a relationship.

And, then I got a phone call from Dennis’s friend Reinhard… ….

Love, 

Grandma

Near to the Heart of God

This week at McCrite at Briarcliff, where I live, we had a program about hymns presented by Donna and Gary Douglas.  Their singing and piano playing were wonderful:  his beautiful rich baritone and her piano with the embellishments were inspiring.

The first hymn,  Donna said we need to look at through a different lens:  "Joy To The World", a hymn that was never meant to be a Christmas carol but about the Second Coming. She asked us to close our eyes and listen to it as a meditation. 

"Joyful, joyful we adore Thee

God of glory, Lord of love

And hearts unfold like flowers before Thee 

 

Opening to the sun above"

Then they told some stories about some favorite hymns.  It was amazing how many hymns were written after a family tragedy.  One story that surprised me was "Near to the Heart of God" written by Cleland McAfee of Parkville, Missouri only a few miles from where I live.  Cleland was the son of one of the Park University's founders, John A. McAffee. 

His daughter Katharine wrote "One terrible week, just before communion Sunday, the two daughters of my Uncle Howard and Aunt Lucy McAffee died of diphtheria within 24 hours of each other.  The college  family and town (Parkville) were stricken with grief.  My father often told us how he sat long and late thinking of what could be said in word and son on Sunday. So, he wrote "Near To the Heart of God".  The choir learned it at Saturday night rehearsal and afterward went to Howard McAffee's house and sang it as they stood under the sky outside the darkened quarantined home.  It was sung again on Sunday."

Cleland McAfee went on to pastor several Presbyterian congregations, taught at McCormick Seminary and helped direct the Presbyterian foreign mission program.  But, I'll remember him and his family each time I sing this song "There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God". And I'll remember that God's hand is present inspiring us and supporting us even when we are feeling grief.

Jaclyn Morgan

Coming Undone

 Talking to various people whose spouses had to go to a nursing home, prepared me for
when the time came for Dave.  One woman had her daughters take her husband while she stayed home: she knew she’d break down.  Two men said taking their spouses to a nursing home was as heart-breaking as when their spouses died.

Fortunately my daughters are a lot like I am.  Moving Dave to the nursing home could have been the most awful day, but their upbeat humor got us through.  We were going just across the parking lot to another building where the nursing home is.  We put most of his things in tubs, but we were also taking a small wire shelving unit for his closet. Rebecca was pushing the tubs, hanging clothes and shelving on a large cart.  Brett (our grandson) was pushing Grandpa in the wheel chair. Rachel and I had rolling suitcases.

As we made the turn on the sidewalk to the nursing home, we noticed that a truck had backed in so far that he was blocking about half the sidewalk.  We could make it past, but Rebecca with the loaded cart could not.  So, she took off across the uneven parking lot and challenged us to a race.  She got about half way across when the cart tipped dumping everything in the middle of the parking lot with tub lids coming off and items rolling under parked cars.  

We entered the nursing home laughing and giggling as Rebecca came through the door looking like the Beverly Hillbillies with clothes off their hangers, the shelves on a slant followed by two laughing men who'd seen the whole situation unroll and were helping  Rebecca with items they'd rescued under parked cars.

The receptionist said she'd never seen such a happy group on move in day. On the elevator, we giggled at the scene we’d made.

Minutes after that, I saw Dave survey his stark room.  

That’s when my grieving began. ….

It's a Cinnamon Roll Day

 When word spread that my  husband Dave had died, people were so kind, comforting me and my family with flowers, cards and treats.   One of those treats was a pan of cinnamon rolls from a local cafe. Around Christmas, the last thing I needed was a pan of cinnamon rolls. So, I told Rebecca and Rachel to wrap them and toss them in the freezer.  They  broke each roll off, wrapped it tightly and put it in a bag that went in the freezer.

One of the things I dreaded about widowhood was the endless phone calls. With ten death certificates in hand, I made a long list of people I needed to contact.   I had one huge stumbling block:  I couldn’t call Boeing because I couldn’t find my secret “code”.  I remember getting it last spring, reading “guard this number carefully in order to communicate with us”.  My mind went into “secret code” overdrive. I took it and hid it in the file cabinet where no one breaking into our apartment would find it.  What was I thinking?  I spent two weeks searching the file cabinet and in other files trying to find that “secret code”.  

I had just about decided that I didn’t need that pension after all when I got a phone call from Boeing. The lady was just lovely, expressing her condolences followed by, “We were notified by Social Security that your husband has died.  Let’s talk about how you can get his pension.”  She calmly told me to the process I needed to go through. And when I asked her what my code was, she gave it to me (after a few security questions).  She told me how much I would get and that the first payment will be in a check for January and February with instructions on how to have it auto-deposited later..  When I hung up, I smiled in relief.  Remembering the cinnamon rolls, I heated one up in the microwave and marked off that item on my list of people/companies to contact.  MMM—-that cinnamon roll tasted so good with that difficult task done.

A month after Dave’s death, I thought I was doing so well with this long list of tasks when I got a letter in the mail, I hadn’t expected:  I no longer had health insurance. I spent all day on the phone with Aetna and Boeing, being on endless hold before talking to six people.  A mistake had been made on Boeing’s end and “We should have you entered in the system in 5 business days.”  “But, I have a doctor’s appointment in 3 days”.  “Well, you will have to pay and submit the bill” GROAN.

I checked the Aetna website repeatedly to see if I had insurance.  Three days later before my doctor’s appointment, I was finally re-instated.  I printed off the card with relief and then thought, “I think I can have a cinnamon roll”.

Next, I discovered that my credit card didn’t work.  Multiple phone calls later, I discovered that it had been in Dave’s name and I no longer had it.  When I called to open a new account, I was told, “I’m sorry we don’t have any empty applications.  Our applications all have names on them. Maybe you should try on-line”  On line worked very well and I had a new card within days.  When I told the daughters about this latest crisis, Leah said, “I think it’s another cinnamon roll day.”

One cinnamon roll day after another and I had depleted my supply.  This week we went to a local cafe where I bought several, brought them home cut them into bite size pieces and put them in the freezer. They aren’t for every day eating but for when I’ve completed a particularly difficult task. I no longer have daily tasks concerning Dave’s death but taxes are on the horizon. . . .I may need to go back for another dozen rolls.

Once Upon a Time.. . . .

 

Princess and the Pea

Although I've loved historical fiction my whole life, I was always especially fond of medieval history. As a child, Princess and the Pea was my favorite story and I often tried to prove I was a princess because my skin was so easily irritated by stiff fabrics, tags in the back and hair brushes. I even went so far as to put things under my mattress to see if I could feel them: I did not. Over the years, I leaned toward the King Arthur legend, Charlemagne and the Crusades.  

Although genealogy has been a hobby of mine for 50 years, I have never been on a quest to find famous people in our family. I was content with finding where our ancestor came from. Recently I've tried a new web site that I'd only "visited" briefly over the years.  It's the Wikitree site which has a "World Tree".  The concept is we all add to the same tree.  There are problems galore when thousands (millions?) of genealogists around the world are contributing. But, we are supposed to provide proof for our additions not hearsay or family legends.

So, I spent several weeks entering information (with sources), and then I found "gateway ancestors" which aligned my tree with royalty and nobility.  The royals have been genealogists for centuries so they aren't marrying too many cousins (like the Hapsburg line did).  With a "gateway ancestors", they've introduced me to family on every throne throughout Western Europe for centuries---most are cousins (King Charles III is our 16th cousin) and uncles, but several are indeed royal ancestors. 

Charlemagne

I think the first "royal" I found in our direct line was Charlemagne (748-814)  who is also known as Charles the Great.  It's been suggested that every person of European descent has Charlemagne as their ancestor. For many years, I've considered him the greatest king of all time. When I taught, I often told the story of Charlemagne learning to read because he knew the power of reading.  He encouraged education, opening schools and promoted legible writing including the widespread use of the question mark.  He always had a book under his pillow.  We have 76,759 paths to Charlemagne.He's my 33 and 36 great grandfather through my father LeRoy Long which makes him 35 and 38 greats for my grandchildren.  I sat stunned probably for about a week with the news.

He was the first emperor of the Carolingian empire consisting of what is today France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg,  and part of Italy and Czech Republic.  He is often called the The Father of Europe. He was very large even by today's standards 6"2".  The photo above is his reliquary located in Aachen, Germany.

Charlemagne had over 20 children with numerous wives and mistresses.  He insisted that all of the children receive a liberal arts education in addition to needlework for the girls and riding and weaponry for the boys.  I descend from two of them for sure : Bertha and Hlodowic (Louis). Others have some degree of uncertainty in the lineage.

Hlodowic

Hlodowic (Louis/Ludwig) was Charlemagne's heir becoming King of the Franks and King of Aquitaine. He is sometimes known as Louis the Pious, Louis the Fair and my favorite: Louis the Debonaire.  We descend from his daughter Gisela who was known for her virtue and piety.  She dedicated her life to educating her children with her husband Eberhard who became St. Eberhard. (We descend from at least three saints: St. Eberhard, St. Margaret of Scotland and San Fernando)

None of Charlemagne's daughters married---he feared their husbands would become political rivals.  It didn't stop them from having long-term relationships and children. But, it shows the political importance of marriages at this time.  Bertha is praised in particular for "having critical discernment and an appreciation for poetry".  

When her father died, she and her sisters went to live in convents which their father left them.  It's unknown which convent she entered but it was probably St. Riquier where her partner Angilbert had become the lay-abbot.

So, now when the tag in my shirt hurts, I nod and think, "It's just my Princess gene".