And the others....

My Grandfather Stimpert, Dave as he was called, had eleven children.  His first wife died in childbirth.  There were four children in that family, three boys and one girl.  He married his deceased wife's older sister and with her he had two girls and one boy.  And when she passed away, he met and married my grandmother.  They had two girls and two boys.  The picture above is a combination of two "batches" of Stimperts.  My mother was fond of calling them that, just as if they were cookies, or biscuits.  Quite a family.

You have already been introduced to Jenne, on the right, looking very regal in her Sunday best.  She would have been around 15 when this picture was made.  Standing to her right is lovely Rosa, one of my mother's favorite people and also her role model.  Rosa was just one year old when her mother died and she was frail and tiny until she was grown.  Her ambition was to teach.  And travel.  And she did both.  She went to France.  She taught at Kemper Hall, where I went to school, in the 1930's.  She met her husband, my Uncle Tony, and they adopted two sisters, my cousins Mary and Ann.  Their teaching career brought them to the University of Oklahoma where she was a professor of Romance Languages and he was a professor of German.  So interesting to talk to her and Uncle Tony.  They had wonderful stories to tell.

The tall boy to Rosa's right is my Uncle Alfred.  A true blue Illinois farmer.  His farm was part of my grandfather's acreage.  I always enjoyed going to visit Alfred and his family and his wife Clara.  He kept everything just so and he was very successful.  My mother always said that she felt very much at home when she visited Alfred.

Sitting on the sofa next to Jenne is Ernest, the oldest of my mother's brothers.  He ran an implement business in ElPaso until he sold out and retired.  I wasn't around him much until I grew up.  He visited us many times where ever we lived and my mom liked to travel places with him and her cousins.  A favorite place for them to vacation was Florida.  He was not a patient man.  My mom took forever to get ready to go anywhere.  One day she and Ernie were going away for the day.  He got in the station wagon and started it up before she got out the door.  He had to back up so she could get in.  She was aghast.  He explained, "When I say we're leaving, we are leaving."  She believed him then.

At the other end of the sofa is my mother's favorite brother Edward.  They were just about a year and a half apart.  And they competed in everything.  They would try to see who would beat the other one home from school in the afternoon.  Whoever was first drew their initials in the dirt in front of the gate.  My mom was first most of the time and she would draw "F.A.S" Florence Alberta Stimpert.  When Ed would get there he merely put a line under the F. and it read "E.A.S." Edward Albert Stimpert.  My mom would be furious.  And Ed would just grin.  He enlisted in the Army during WW II.  He died fighting the Germans in France in June of 1944 and he is buried there.

And this brings us to that charming little princess seated between her brothers.  The belle of the ball, my mother.  She looks so sweet.  But we all know that there was iron behind that innocent grin.  She was probably 4 when this picture was made.  Her sister Katherine wasn't born yet.  Taty, as we called her, would complete the Stimpert family.

I love learning about my family.  Some the stories I hear are new to me.  But most have been handed down over the years.  Are they true?  Who knows.  But they make a good tale.  And there are plenty of Stimpert stories out there.  With eleven children and all their kin, how could there not be?

 

 

 

 

Jenne

Solid.  Dependable.  Quiet, but always aware of what was going on.  Ready to help in any situation.  These words describe my Aunt Jenne.  My mother's older sister by 11 years, Jenne had to take on responsibility in the Stimpert family at a young age.  I  remember her telling me the story of doing the wash one day with a younger sibling in her arms.  Before she knew it the baby had put his arm in the wringer.  Thinking fast, Jenne was able to turn off the machine before any harm was done.  But that memory stuck with her for as long as she lived.

Jenne was a nurse.  I assume this picture was taken when she was new to her profession.  She worked as an RN at the TB Sanitorium outside of Bloomington, Illinois.  The only time I saw her when I was growing up was when I would visit my Aunt Taty in ElPaso .  Jenne would come there on her day off.  She loved all of us.  And she was good to us.  Books, special candy treats, and always a shiny new quarter(unheard of wealth in our day when we usually were given a dime) were her gifts to us.

But she shared something else with her family.  Unquestioning loyalty.  Persistent love in the face of overwhelming odds.  We had several "thorny" people in our family.  Jenne was the peace-maker.  It might take a while.  One month, a year, several years, and then the errant wanderer would come back into the fold.

After she retired she was the resident nurse for the family.  She stayed with her older brother and helped him until he died.  I know she had some problems with him.  He was cranky and used harsh words on almost all occasions.  Jenne said she had a fool-proof solution to keeping her temper.  "I just go in my room, close the door, kneel down and pray, and generally God gives me the answer.  Anyway, when I feel better, I go back and ask Henry just what it was that he wanted.  And then he is happier too."

Inner strength.   And an unstoppable belief that God would make things right.  That's what Jenne taught us.

She loved to read.  Andy and I gave her a subscription to The Christian Science Monitor one year for Christmas.  She would read through the issue and clip out articles she thought we would like.  And mail them to us.  Along with a box of no-bake cookies.  She was so generous...in all things.

When she passed away in the early 80's we were on vacation and unable to go the services.  But afterward when we went to the cemetery to visit her grave we found out that she wasn't there.  She had written in her will, and kept it from the family, that she wanted her body donated to science after she died.  So there was nothing to bury there in that family plot, near her dad and other family members.

But she lives on.  If I had had another little girl her name would have been Jenne.  She lives in our hearts.  And when good things happen to me, I look skyward and say a little prayer....Thank you Jenne for teaching me how to look beyond myself and see the real reason I am here.

She was truly one of a kind.  

Growing

The older I get, the less certain I am that I have all the answers.  And this is a good thing.  I  can remember being a rash and judgmental teenager.  I knew what was right and I was sure that everyone else should feel the same way.

And then life intervened.

Little by little my prejudices have lessened and my life view has widened.  When you see the world with blinders on, there is not much to see.

To say that it has  been an easy task to be a quiet listener and thoughtful speaker would be a lie.  Inwardly I have seethed and tossed and turned at night over perceived wrongs and what I could do to make them right.  But with time I have learned to wait....and pray...and listen for the Inner Voice that leads me when I make decisions.

Some times I falter and fail.  But I hope that in the end I will find a certain peace and contentment knowing that I have been just a part of what someone was seeking.  A helper, not a stumbling block.  A healer, and not a source of hurt.  A person who shows love and not hate.  A true believer in the good. 

But....I am still growing.  Pray for me.

 

Daffodils

A sure sign of spring is a road bank or walkway lined with these spring beauties.  Daffodils.

I spend my time when riding down our country byways spying patches of daffodils that linger in fields and under towering trees.  They almost always tell of a long-forgotten homestead where some flower-loving farm wife dug the soil and planted spring bulbs to brighten her yard. 

Andy is the gardener in our family.  When we bought our property...in the fall...he ordered bulbs so we would have daffodils in the spring.  We planted them in three small patches, near the place where we thought the house might be.  We covered them with straw and chicken wire and hoped for the best.  The extra protection was to discourage our local herd of armadillos from digging up our plants in their search for grubs and worms.

The next spring we kept an eye out for the green shoots to appear.  And they did.  A few at a time.  And soon we had some blooms.  Not many but enough to know that we had been successful in our daffodil planting.

As the house was built and the yard came into being, we dug up the bulbs in the fall and replanted them on the bank that sits on the edge of our driveway.  Trying to figure the best placement was a chore, but we finally decided on rows that we hoped would fill in with time.

That first spring followed an unusually mild winter.  The daffodils started to bloom long before it was really time for them to show their flowers.  And then we had snow on the first day of spring.  I have pictures of those yellow heads drooping under a cover of white.  But they survived.

This spring they are blooming in profusion.  The wonderful thing about daffodils is that they spread and, as they become settled, more flowers appear each spring.  I walk down to check on them and pick some for a bouquet or two in the house.  But mostly I like to leave them blooming there on the side of the hill.

I like to think that when we are no longer here  perhaps someone will drive up the road, spot those lovely spring blooms and think, "Some body who loved daffodils lived here a long time ago."  And they will smile to see those yellow rays of sunshine, growing on my hill.