“Who is she waiting for?”

the slightly mysterious grandparents, one century ago… In January of 1913, in Lincoln, Nebraska, Nell’s father died, age 63. The children, said the funeral notice, were “privileged to be with their father and administer to his comfort during his last illness.” Was this departure a signal, a permission, or an enabling? The young people of…

The Angel Wrote and Vanished

A certain eccentricity ran among the three closest sisters of my grandmother’s family, Nell, Sue and Evelyn, and quirky stories followed each of them through their lives. In her one room school in the 1890s, on the Illinois prairie, Nell developed a taste for mischief and a discerning eye for the absurd. She enjoyed watching…

The Jesus Road

For a wild place, Buffalo had many soothing beauties. In the mid-1920s, after they had left the homestead and moved into town for good, in the summer evenings the family would drive in the car up Fort Road along Clear Creek. At one turn-in, you could park and look down on the water where Crow…