Another Way to Support the Arts

 

If you live in the Northwest Indiana area and believe in supporting the arts, come to the third annual Creative Arts Summit this Saturday, June 1, from 12:00–4:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Merrillville Public Library at 1919 W. 81^st Ave. (U.S. 30) in Merrillville.

The event covers all aspects of the creative arts, from visual arts and crafts to books. I will be selling my books and would love to have you buy one or two or three, but please come to support our local artists even if you aren’t interested in my work. With this kind of variety, you’re sure to find something of interest.

I hope to see you there.

World War I Food Quirks

 

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I’m a stickler for getting the period details right in my historical novels. That includes the foods my characters eat.

I’ve been working on two books that take place in the Midwest during World War I. The subjects are different, but the settings are similar, and so are the meals.

In 1917, the government created the U.S. Food Administration and commenced a heavy propaganda campaign encouraging citizens to grow their own vegetables and eat less wheat, meat, and sugar. While there was no shortage of those items in the United States, the government needed them to feed the soldiers overseas.

Although the restrictions were mostly voluntary, the propaganda campaign was successful and people tried to comply. To do that, Americans learned to be creative.

Some of the substitutions weren’t too bad. Wheat bread was frowned on, but cornbread recipes abounded, muffins could be made with oats or bran, and sugar was often replaced with honey. I cringe at the meatless options, however. Here is a recipe for Mock Sausage, originally published in The Twentieth Century Club War Time Cook Book (1918):

1 cup lima beans

½ tsp powdered sage

½ tsp dried thyme

½ tsp dried sweet marjoram

corn or vegetable oil

salt

pepper

flour

 

Soak lima beans overnight, boil until very soft, drain and mash, season with salt, pepper and a half teaspoon each of powdered sage, thyme, and sweet marjoram; make into rolls about the size of a finger; roll in flour and fry a golden brown in corn or other vegetable oil.

 

I was a fussy eater as a child, but my appreciation for new foods grew as I got older.

Still, I’m very glad I didn’t live during World War I.

__________

The picture at the top of this page shows a poster issued by the U.S. Food Administration during World War I. It is in the public domain because of its age.

Forty-five Years and Counting

Roland and I were married 45 years ago yesterday. You might think we would get to know each other better as the years go by, but it isn’t true for us, or at least for me. Yes, I’ve learned some things about Roland, including how he likes his coffee, but the thing I’ve discovered most is how much I don’t know.

Gift-giving is a good example. The first year we were together, I did pretty well picking out a Christmas gift. Since then, there have been some occasions where I found the right gift, but those are rare. Roland does a better job overall, but he doesn’t always pick out the perfect gift for me, either.

Part of it is that we both have a tendency to buy whatever we want for ourselves, which doesn’t leave much to give as gifts. But that isn’t all there is to it. Sometimes I’m just wrong when I think Roland will like something. Fortunately, neither of us has gift giving/receiving as our love language.

We went out for a nice dinner for our anniversary, and Roland paid for it. For my part, I put long thought into a gift for him and came up empty. I finally bought him an Amazon gift card that he will probably spend on something he would have bought anyway.

Still, that’s okay. Marriage isn’t about the physical gifts you give each other. It’s about love as demonstrated by willingness to compromise, serving each other, and affirming each other. We have that in abundance.

Which is why it’s 45 years and counting. 

The Handwriting Dilemma: Cursive vs. Printing

 

Several weeks ago I had lunch with my brother, my sister-in-law, and one of my cousins, and for some reason we started talking about handwriting and how sad it was that cursive is losing ground.

Since I write middle-grade fiction, I send my manuscripts out to be beta read by third through sixth graders. I just received a batch of evaluations, and, as usual, even the sixth graders had printed their answers to the questions. I think the school they go to does teach cursive in the higher grades, but obviously that is not the handwriting of choice.

I hate to print because it takes me twice as long as writing the same thing in cursive. But when I send thank-you cards to my beta readers, I have to remember to print. It isn’t natural for me, but since I’m not sure if the girls will be able to read the cursive, I have no choice.

Some peoples’ cursive is hard to read, but that’s because of the person, not the nature of cursive. My cursive tends to be sloppier than my printing, but both are legible. And because I don’t have to lift my pen from the paper, using cursive saves me significant time.

Besides, anyone who says it’s easier to read printing than cursive hasn’t compared them enough to judge. I’m having a terrible time reading the printed comments from one of my 6^th grade beta readers. Would I have had trouble reading her cursive, too? Maybe. But it couldn’t be a worse struggle than I’m having with her printing.

I’ll never understand why cursive went out of style.

Unless someone is purposefully trying to make my life harder.

A Race Well Run

 “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:24 (ESV)

Paul’s words also apply to Pastor Donald Stock, who is retiring after 32 years in the pastoral ministry, the last twenty of which were spent serving my congregation. It is his second career but his longest one, and he has been a dedicated pastor.

As a minister’s daughter, I’m well aware that pastors aren’t perfect, but Pastor Stock has run the race well in spite of it.

Pastor Stock and I fully agree on the major tenets of Christianity—those confessed in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds and that Christ is the only way to God—but we don’t always agree on lesser theological issues. That’s never changed his love for me as a member of the body of Christ, and I really appreciate his ministry to our congregation and the wider church body.

Retirement doesn’t mean being put out to pasture, though. Or, if it does, the pasture can be a beautiful one. I took the photo at the Pololu Valley Lookout on the big island of Hawaii many years ago. Although the horse is resting in the picture, he had plenty of room to run and even to gallop. If I know Pastor Stock as well as I think I do, he will continue to serve where needed. Although I’m not sure he’s even capable of slowing down, hopefully he will turn his gallop into a trot.

Pastor Stock still has more of the course to run before his race is over. But when it is, I expect him to be able to say with Paul that he has finished his course and the ministry that he received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

God’s blessings to Pastor and to Beth in his retirement.

A Better Plan

 

I like to watch game shows, and recently I was watching one called “Tattletales” where celebrity husbands and wives try to guess how the other will answer a question. I often play along, and this time the question was something like, “What was the biggest scam you ever fell victim to?”

My response related to purchasing property soon after Roland and I married. Actually, I’m not sure it was technically a scam, because I don’t believe that the contractor meant to steal from us. But the bottom line was that we lost our $7,600 down payment, which was a lot of money for us back then.

Our plan was for me to quit my job when we had children and practice law from an office in my home with a separate entrance. That part of the plan worked out, but another part didn’t. Since such homes were rare, we found a blueprint for a house with an in-law-suite and put a down-payment on a lot in a new subdivision, contacted one of the contractors who was building in a new subdivision, and found a lot we liked. Then we entered into a contract for sale with the builder.

As a lawyer, I suppose I should have checked it out better, but what it came down to was that the contractor didn’t own that lot. Apparently it wasn’t unusual to swap lots with other contractors, and he probably expected to do that. Unfortunately, he went bankrupt instead. So we had no lot and no money. We might have been able to purchase the lot from the contractor who did own it, but we would have been out the downpayment in any event, so we decided to look at existing homes instead.

We found one in an established neighborhood closer to stores, good schools, and our church. Even with the loss and the necessary renovations, it cost less money than building would have. The house we purchased had a one-car garage and a two-car garage, both attached, and it was easy to turn the one-car garage into an office. If you look carefully at the photo, you can see the entrance between the two-car-garage and the main house. We raised our children and spent many good years there, moving out only when our parents started using walkers and we realized that the steps would be too much for us at some point.

I don’t know why God let us lose money on the lot before we found the right property. Maybe that one wasn’t on the market yet and we were trying to get ahead of God’s timing. But whatever the reason, we ended up in a better place, figuratively and literally.

But one thing I do know.

When things go wrong, God has a better plan.

Hope for the Future

 

Last week I attended a scholarship luncheon at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. The purpose of the event was to give scholarship sponsors the opportunity to meet the recipients. During the luncheon, the college president spoke about the school as a source of hope for the world. The school symbol is an anchor, which is seen in the above photo in front of Graves Hall. I had always heard that the founder’s quote referred to Hope College being “the anchor of hope for the future,” but “the anchor of hope for the world” works, too.

My father believed in education, and I grew up assuming that I would go to college. Looking back, I know that my parents would have been disappointed if I didn’t go but would have supported whatever choice I made. At the time, however, doing anything else just never crossed my mind.

I believe in education, too, although my definition is broader than just college. Not everyone is cut out for college, and we need plumbers more than we need lawyers. Daddy’s definition may have been similar, and it definitely including broadening your horizons through travel.

That said, he believed in a college education for everyone who wanted and was capable of it. He showed his dedication to that principle by working his way through Hope College  and Westminster Theological Seminary in the 1940s.

From 1948 though the 1950s, Daddy sponsored three Arab students from the Middle East, making arrangements and providing some financial support for them to come to this country to go to college. One of them returned to Jordan and spent his career working for its government. The other two stayed in the U.S., and one, Michael Suleiman, became a professor in the political science department at Kansas State University.

When my father died, Michael suggested starting a scholarship fund at Hope College in Daddy’s name. We did so, with initial contributions from Michael, my older brother Donald (Hope Class of 1970), and myself (Hope Class of 1972). I’m the only one of the three still alive and am the official contact for the Oliver S. Page Memorial Scholarship Fund, although I hope my daughter Caroline (Hope Class of 2005) will take over that role when I’m no longer able to fill it.

Scholarships are one way to support education. We can’t all afford the financial contributions to provide one, but we can all support college students in other ways, even if it is as simple as encouraging their dreams.

Because education is the anchor of hope for the future