Jeanne Wilkinson

The Many Faces of Ice, or What I Did on My Christmas Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (jeanne wilkinson) — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 11:22:00 +1400

Sherry and I are on another vision quest to a large body of water, this one variously called

Gitche Gumee, Gitchigami, Kitchi Gammi, and etc.

We mount the crest of the hill to see the Big Sea Water not shining brightly in the distance but

dark and leaden under slate-gray skies.

Loving it!

Bring on the cold winds, the icy breezes, the driving snow!

Last spring found us Down Under, next to the sunny South Pacific,

where ice was neatly contained in a glass

instead of loose on the landscape, conquering and causing havoc.

You can experience that warm and friendly world HERE! if you are so inclined.

Or perhaps you will continue on into the cold, cold climes of Duluth, Minnesota,

which is the literal, littoral and spiritual home town of the Wilkinson Clan,

nestled between rocky cliffs and the clear, clean waters of greatest of the Great Lakes, Superior.

This blog has visited Duluth before, but maybe not in its coolest season.

Duluth is a port city, along with its sister Superior, Wisconsin, inhabited by grain silos...

...bridges...

...boats...

http://duluthshippingnews.com/

...and the odd abandoned grocery cart under a cold winter sun.

Sherry and I make a Christmas pilgrimage to our family plot at the Forest Hills Cemetery

with our brother Dan.

1922-2005

1948-1953

1925-2016

Here are the three of them oh so many Christmases ago, when I was but a twinkle in their eye,

and when a first son dying of an inoperable brain tumor was utterly unimaginable.

Later we seek out the bright lights of the big city, (well, not so big)

where Dan vapes with Sherry under the dancing sparkles.

Here Dan holds up a 12-ton anchor on the Duluth Walk...

...a "memento" from the USS Duluth...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Duluth_(LPD-6)

...which, amazingly enough, was the very last ship to be constructed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
before it was closed by the Johnson Administration in 1966.
Its last journey was in 2005 in the Persian Gulf in support of "Operation Iraqi Freedom,"
two years after Pres. George Bush's 2003 "Mission Accomplished" speech,
and two years before he sent over another 21,500 troops to the area.
Ah, the good old days...

USS Duluth in the Persian Gulf (April 19, 2005)
U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Aaron Ansarov (RELEASED)

For forty years the ship traveled all over the world:
Panama, Somali, Mogadishu, Mombasa, Okinawa, Guam, Australia, you name it!
Kind of the ocean-going version of "I've Been Everywhere" sung here by Hank Snow in 1965
(which I like even more than the Johnny Cash version).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGj7-R6WPf4

Back to Duluth, the city,

where we are joined by Shannon who inspires us to visit a local tourist attraction...

...known as the Glensheen Mansion (1908), owned by the Congdon family who

eventually donated it to the University of Minnesota, Duluth, some time after the horrific murders

in 1977 of the last Congdon who lived there, Elisabeth, along with her night nurse.

The house is also the site of a movie thriller, You'll Like My Mother, starring Patty Duke,
filmed five years before the murders, another Wilkinson Clan favorite:
"Run, Francesca, run!"

(internet pic)

The guides aren't allowed to discuss the violent events during the tour,

instead they must limit conversation to the family, the house and its many objects and aspects

which is quite sufficient, really. Who needs gruesome talk of murder when there are gilded ceilings...

...marble inlaid tables...

...and a gorgeous Christmas tree in every room?

(Shannon selfie)

Below, a cozy reading room - I wish I could sit here on a winter's day with a good book!

Many beautiful paintings grace the walls, like this one by an unknown (by me) artist.

????

Hazy sunlight sees us walking moodily along the shore, our very favorite vision quest activity.

This time we must work our careful way past, yes, the Painted People, who adore this shoreline

and visit it often!

We also traverse numerous ice-monsters, ready to pounce!

And we must navigate between strange sand-ice growths.

On a lighter note, Sherry finds an adorable ice-pop.

The shoreline is covered with patterns that remind us of the

uncanny repetition of forms in nature.

We see a river of ice flowing under the Aerial Bridge, moving out to the larger lake

where it will form a far off, snaky white line later in the day.

Fun!

Then we are off to Anoka, Minnesota to spend Christmas at the Cook's.

(Pic by Ali)

Ali, Dan, Michael, Shannon, me, Derek, Alicia,

Arya, Sherry, Brett and Kellen.

Chris and Megan are in Colorado for the holidays but they have given us fabulous Mermaid blankies,

perfect for this cold climate!

(Pic by Ali)

Above, Sherry and Shannon modeling their glamorous Christmas garb,

Shannon's awesome outfit from the Duluth Goodwill, of course.

Below, Michael sports his Bah Humbug hat.

Of course.

(Pic by Ali)

Kellen and Arya are comfy in their jammies!

All day long!

(Pic of and by Ali)

(Pic by Ali)

Alicia seems to have acquired a couple extra hands.

Hair fun with Arya!

More hair fun: Ali and Shannon as Cousin Itt, from the Addams Family.

(Internet pic)

Across the street from the Cook abode: ice!

My old lost skates have turned up, ready to rock and roll! Woohoo!

The very picture of grace on the rink. Me, that is. Not Derek.

(Pic by Ali)

I leave the snow angels behind to face the mean streets, that is, mean highways

of Minnesota and Wisconsin. I'm on a big Megabus, and my $7 extra reserved front seat

affords me a great view of the carnage.

Apparently, with a mere touch of the brakes, you put yourself and the twenty vehicles behind you

at the mercy of invisible black ice that sheets the road!

I could skate to Madison!

One vehicle after the next veering off the road and/or smashing into each other.

Or, quite literally, crashing and burning.

All the way to Madison, vehicles litter the highway and surrounding areas,
as if a giant, nasty toddler decided to make the road his playground.

Some might consider this a sad but apt metaphor for the state of our nation...

In Madison, the view from our Airbnb looks like peace on earth.

At least all the ice is in its proper place.

Although Elliott thinks that some of it needs to be knocked about a bit.

Turnabout being fair play, the ice knocks him around a bit also!

This ice has collected on hanging roots, and swings like a heavy pendulum over the lake.

Below, just a fraction of what it takes to go out in single digit weather!

(Pic by Jennifer Keeley Yonda)

Hours of fun getting ready...

(Pic by Jennifer Keeley Yonda)

...for minutes of well, not-so fun! Down to the lake,

and then up from the lake a very, very short time later.

(Andrew went back down, by the way.)

(Pic by Jennifer Keeley Yonda)

Maybe it worked better for Elliott yesterday,

when the temp hovered around ten degrees, and they just wore boots.

(Pic by Jennifer Keeley Yonda)

Frank and I are staying at an Airbnb on Lake Mendota in Madison, a place of many wonders.

(Pic by Andrew Keeley Yonda)

Settled inside, Elliott and I engage in important apres-Christmas work,
building a gingerbread house.

(Pic by Frank)

Elliott helps to clean up after the gingerbread house is complete to our satisfaction.

He makes sure that no stray piece of candy is left lying on the floor as he plays vacuum cleaner.

Elliott is no longer a toddler, by the way. He is four big-boy years old!

Not as old as his daddy, but getting there!

Here he is playing with the bag-o'-animals Aunt Sherry got him at the Goodwill, while

my fabulous gifts lie nearby, virtually untouched. Can't win 'em all! Nor should you!

I take refuge in the infinity mirror.

(Pic by Andrew)

We all love the massage chair! It brings out the OMs in all of us!

At the rest stop during my terrifying bus trip, there were the usual silly Wisconsin souvenirs about

cows and cheeseheads.
But our own Wisconsin wine-glass New Years Eve experience is not so cheesy, as you see:

Happy New Year!

The full moon in Scorpio sets over the lake on our last day.

And then it's back to NYC, with its ever-dramatic cityscape.

Above, night-smoke in Manhattan, emanating from the aforementioned Brooklyn Navy Yards,

which has risen up from ruins to become a renovated site for "green" technology, and

for Steiner Film Studios which includes a Brooklyn College Graduate Film School,

and also a Pratt Institute Design Incubator with art studios for students.

The days of ship-building, and indeed, the "days of the smokestacks"

are supposed to be over in NYC, so I'm not sure what these two chimneys are spouting...

but I do know that the lovely day-smoke in Bayport, Minnesota, below,

comes from a coal-burning plant.

Sigh.

Back in Brooklyn, it's an eerie, snow-and-ice-less landscape until twenty-four hours later,

when winter catches up to me...

...and I breathe a great sigh of joy and relief as I trek up to Prospect Park!

Loving it!

Bring on the cold winds, the icy breezes, the driving snow!

Here's to 2018!

May it bring us good times with family and friends and fa-la-la's...

...along with cooler heads

and cooler weather.

Sherry and Jeanne's Big Adventure Down Under

noreply@blogger.com (jeanne wilkinson) — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 09:58:00 +1300

I'm going Down Under for a week of sun and fun with my sister Sherry.

(pic by Deb Edwards on Manly Beach, a Northern Beach of Sydney, Australia)

And work. Lots of work. Art work, lots of it.

Sorting out the will of David Edwards, a retired research physician I worked for in NY before he moved back to Australia, curating the art estate of his late wife, Margery Edwards.

(internet pic)

She made lots of black paintings in her last years.

Speaking of black, here at JFK, black pants and leggings are the preferred travel attire.

Also spike heels - the latter not my first choice. Or second. Or third...ever, especially on a plane...

...as you will note from this accidental pic I took of my shoe.

I'm leaving on a jet plane, Friday evening, flying Qantas.

I leave NYC behind as the sun sets in the west,

coincidentally the same direction I'm heading. What are the chances?

I follow the sun.

Manhattan restaurant menu? Nope. Qantas flight. All food and drinks for free!

I want one of those Australian Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noirs!

On USA airlines you get peanuts and the boot. Literally.

Like United Airline on the same day that I traveled...

(internet picture)

...dragging 69-year-old Dr. Dao off the plane after he

questioned his need to be bumped. He's now collateral damage of their overbooking policy

with teeth missing, facial surgery needed, and lots of internet coverage.

And no doubt a huge settlement from United.

Just last month the same airline kicked off some women for wearing leggings!

What??? According to my research, three out of four women would

not be able to enter the sacred United inner sanctum.

Flying, flying, flying...

Landing...landing...landing...

...in Los Angeles, where all genders can use the bathrooms.

At LAX I meet my sister Sherry and once again we're up and away.
Flying, flying, flying...

...crossing the International Date Line and the equator at almost the same time

which seems kind of cosmic to me. What are the chances?

On we fly through the black hat of night, over 13 hours

while an entire Sunday disappears as if it never was.

Where has my Sunday gone? This is some kind of dark magic.

What's President Coolidge doing down there, lurking in the darkness?
Research reveals that this is where a ship of the same name,

a former luxury liner transformed into WWII battle mode, was mistakenly
sunk by two Allied mines off the Island of Espiritu Santo.

Due to the quick and effective rescue efforts of Captain Henry Nelson,

only two men out of 5000 didn't survive.

Compare that with today, when our "President" and his military men can't even
keep track of their ships,
as in Trump warning North Korea that a big bad military aircraft carrier,
a veritable ARMADA was coming their way,

while the ship was actually steaming in the opposite direction 3500 miles away,

on its way to take part in joint exercises with the Australians.

Sherry and I have this in common with the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson!

More dark magic.

It's Monday 6AM and we're in Brisbane,,,

...where I'm loving the Abstract Expressionism on the airport walls.

This is very advanced interior design.

And look! Palm trees! Or maybe palmettos? Something tropical, anyway.

Sherry is looking cool and composed, until we get to Customs.

Well, actually she stays cool and composed - was she born in a custom's line? -
while I stumble around in a passport-clutching daze.

Sherry gets me through the hoops, including standing on the green line

while dogs sniff and the mean-looking official woman glares into our sad small souls until finally informing us we're "free to go."

Up we go again, this time in a prop plane! They still exist!

I worry that it's broken, but apparently not, because here we are again...

...flying, flying, flying...

...until we land in Gladstone, where we see some familiar logos.

They even have Woolworths here,

a grocery chain that took the name of the iconic American "five and dime" which

disappeared along with its famous lunch counters back in the last century.

We had planned on flying to Rockhampton, but ever since Cyclone Debbie visited in late March,
it's been closed. We're diverted to Gladstone
where we board a shuttle bus for an hour-and-a-half ride to "Rocky."

Just what we need, a long bus ride.

Imagine what the scene was like two weeks ago after Debbie did her worst.

Above, a fun gun shop; below, a lovely Gothic-style church.

Guns and God - am I in Wyoming?
Just kidding. After a horrible mass shooting twenty years ago, Australia conducted a huge gun buy-back and have not had a similar massacre since. Unlike the USA, which is still in thrall to the National Rifle Association, the NRA that keeps America unsafely armed to her teeth.
Australian comedian Jim Jeffries has a great bit about gun culture here.

Back to our big adventure, we finally we arrive at
Luke and Janine's incredibly beautiful home in Yeppoon

where they will host us for four lovely perfect-weather days.

(Sherry's pic)

This place is awesome!!!! Sherry gives it five stars.

Even the local ants give it five stars.

Blue greets Sherry with a big Aussie kiss.

Below, ripples!

The next day we get some fabulous sightseeing in before the arrival of Pete and Deb, when

the real work will begin.

We ferry to Keppel Island for an afternoon of facing down the mouth of danger.

(photo by kind stranger)

Here's a buoyed up gum tree. I've never seen round buoys before! Something new under my sun.

Tracks on the beach.

Young men shovel Debbie-deposited sand out of the restaurant area.

I have a staring contest with a kukkaberra.

The birds on this island are crazy!

They swoop down to the tables, like this crow, and grab food
right in front of people! The kookaburra and the crow were apparently in cahoots,
taking turns to attack this table.

(see the flight of the crow here, with it's Aussie accent)

Until the kookaburra comes over to see what we have to offer.

Earlier, when I was enjoying a fabulous ocean swim, out of the blue a gull dive bombed me,
hovering and screeching like a demon over my head!
I waved my arms and splashed
and it flew away, but how weird is that?

(Photoshop dramatization of gull event)

Apparently Keppel Island itself is in the middle of a confusing situation involving developers who want to "revitalise" the island with a casino, golf course, resort, etc., a herd of wild goats who may or may not be good for the island's flora, and the sticky web of local politics and alliances that include a 2007 land trust giving 12 percent of the island back to the Woppaburra People who had been chased off or killed in various nasty ways by European settlers by 1902.

In the meantime, others are keeping watch over the island.

Sherry walks moodily along the shoreline of Keppel Island

(she's the tiny speck on the edge of the beach).

Back on the mainland, Luke takes us on a tour of his world.

Below is Fisherman's Beach at Emu Park.

Above, Luke points out the highlights.
Below, these complex designs are made of tiny balls of sand
thrown out of small holes by adorable little crabs.

(photo by Sherry)

Below are bones of some mysterious creature that we discovered on the path to the beach.
We took a couple of small souvenirs (rib bones?)
which may not have been a good idea because somehow
Sherry fell into the hill of sand lining the path (it wasn't me, I didn't push her like some said)
and her camera hasn't worked since.
It's some kind of dark magic.

(last photo by Sherry with her brand new camera)

More dark magic under the full moon as

Luke poses inside the Spirit Sculpture by the Main Beach in Yeppoon,
with Sherry looking on.

The sculpture was created by Maurice Lempire using Stanwell Sandstone and was presented to the people of Livingstone Shire in 2001 by the Rotary Club of Yeppoon to commemorate the centenary of Australia's federation.

Above, Luke and Pete are happy after one of our fabulous Yeppoon meals.

So now that Pete and Deb have arrived, the work begins.

Our work is accompanied by geckos, both living and not.

And David Edwards himself makes an appearance.

He is, after all, why I'm here in Oz, to figure out with the help of his family

the ins and outs of his incredibly complicated, detailed, baroque, byzantine will

that was made in New York in the 1990's and is now something that has to be dealt

with, involving a bizarre and endlessly complex mix of Australian and American death duties,

estate taxes, lawyers on both continents, probate court, executor responsibilities, dozens of complicated lists of artworks here, there, and everywhere, beneficiaries who can't be found,

etc. etc. etc.

I worked for David in NY for about 12 or 13 years, much of which we spent donating

Margery's artwork to art institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

and having exhibitions of her work, including one at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC.

She died all too early in their huge Tribeca loft/studio in

1989 in her late fifties, from a heart attack.

But it's not all work. Luke conjures up some amazing trays of treats for us

to buoy us up for the grueling tasks at hand.

While we work, Sher and Deb go to the local Yeppoon Zoo

and commune with some of the creatures.

(Pic by Deb)

(Pic by Sherry)

(Pic by Deb)

After a day of work and/or play, Sherry and I gaze upwards in amazement to see a sky darkened by

a mass of what we thought were birds until the utter silence of the sky told us they were bats.

Flying, flying, flying. For a good ten minutes or more, the early evening sky was black with bats.
Every smudged black dot you see is a bat or two, or three.

Later, I show off the pickles I ordered at the Japanese Restaurant.

It's our last night in Yeppoon,

from left: Peter, Deb, me, Sherry, Luke and Janine.

My first kangaroo sighting, on the restaurant/resort grounds.

Deb and Sherry light up the darkness.

On the morning before we leave, I take some pics of Luke and Janine's place.

My room is flooded with green light.

Their yard is a ten acre place of wonder.

Jack above; Blue below.

Next to the house is a cabana-type structure...

...that overlooks the gorgeous pool.

We worked from this transparent table on our project - the best working conditions
I could ever imagine!

Luke and Janine share a quiet morning moment in the midst of our chaos.

Flying flying flying from Rockhampton airport (which has just opened) to Brisbane...

...from Brisbane to Sydney.

...where there's more people driving on the wrong side of the road.

Fortunately they're used to giving way to those on the right.

Sydney - a mix of old and new.

The Anzac Bridge is one of many bridges in Sydney, a city of harbors, sorry, "harbours," bays,

coves, points, beaches, heads, heights and the odd island.

Pete and Deb live on Minnesota Avenue,

named not for the US state but for a pre-World War I US ship, part of the "Great White Fleet"

that visited Australian in 1908.

It's Easter weekend, and hot cross buns are ubiquitous.

Apparently this is a British tradition relating Good Friday to a sweet treat.

The cross symbolism is obvious, and the raisons and spices refer to his embalming.

Hmmm. Yummy rolls and the agony on the cross, of course, I get it.

Speaking of crosses, above is one of the doors that David Edwards made,

now gracing the wall in Sydney,

his painstaking attention to detail here serving his own art.

Below are the doors while still installed in his and Margery's Tribeca loft.

(photo by Debbi Sutton)

(Pic by Sherry)

Above, the back yard at Pete and Deb's;

below, the back yard at the place of the place we were staying in Sydney.

Beautiful, these Australian settings!

Next to this back yard are big glass patio doors, easy for a big snake to crawl through!

Yikes!

It puts me through a dark moment of the soul before I realize it's made of wood.

Perhaps someone has a twisted sense of humor?

Below is another floor creature at another place in Sydney.

This one vacuums the floor and returns to its charging site when it feels a bit low.

Personally, I'd go find the wine bottle.

Chardonnay, preferably. Or "Chardy" in local parlance. Maybe more like "shah-dy."

In this neighborhood, you can see the city center in the distance.

I like this feature. It makes the suburbs seem more connected to the city.

Many of the houses are like the above, but every so often a modernist gem pops out of the mix.

Fun electric box!

Fun around the table at Pete and Deb's!

Sherry, Deb, Anton, Ned, Pete, me and Margot.

The next morning Sherry has some fun all by her selfie...

...taking a tour of Sydney while the rest of us work, work, work...

But that night, we all go to the iconic tourist mecca...

...the Sydney Opera House!

At least to the outdoor bar part of it.

Amazing night views of the skyline and the Sydney Harbor, sorry, "Harbour," Bridge.

The next morning we're back, taking a few moments out of the working day
to ferry around and see the city...

(photo by Deb)

Above is where they brought the convicts back in the day.

Below are some fun lollipops.

We spend some quality time in Manly Beach, Home of the "Budgy Smuggler."

Manly budgy smuggler in the flesh! What are the chances?
And also a classic VW Bug, just like the one I learned to drive a stick shift in,

lurching around the church parking lot for hours next to my patient father oh those many years ago.

Well, maybe this VW is a bit more tricked out than my dad's...

Lots of awesome waves and sun!

And hats!

(pic by Deb)

And bathers, surfers, wavers and sand shovelers!

(pic by Deb)

A couple of signs not seen in the USA.

And below, a warning about the dangers of predatory kookaburras.

They forget to mention crows and seagulls.

Toby's Estate Restaurant, where we have lunch, is absolutely, transcendently beautiful!

(photo by Deb)

Over a spot of wine, on our last evening in Sydney,

Margot converses with Pete and Deb about the work that's being done re. sorting out

Margery's works on paper, a huge job she's taken on with the help of her son Ned.

Monday morning, we pass through the beautiful Anzac bridge for the last time...

...to get to the airport where we run, run, run (not really)...

...through customs...

...and fly, fly, fly, away from Sydney...

...to Los Angeles, where I part from Sherry who will return to Minneapolis.

LAX sports some very cool airport art installations...

...that amuse me during my long, exhausting layover.

I sleep the entire way from LA to NY, thus getting no pics

of the mountains and plains.

After leaving Sydney at 9:50AM, I arrive in New York on the same day at 7:30PM (or 19:30).

My Monday is about 40 hours long.

Here's a handy time-zone chart that explains it all:

I land in JFK as the sun sets on our jaunt to Sydney, and I'm kind of speechless (finally)

at the wonder of it all!

A few last words:

Thanks to all you Aussies who made it possible (you know who you are)

and a special shout out to David and Margery Edwards.

RIP, both of you, and rest assured that we're down here doing our best

in our many labors, sorry, "labours" on your estate.

Some kind of dark magic!

My Mom Shirley - Her Life and Times

noreply@blogger.com (jeanne wilkinson) — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:13:00 +1300

My mother, Shirley Jean Anderson Wilkinson,

left us on August 9th, 2016, after many struggles with her health.

The last time I saw her she looked at me and said,

"I'm ready, you know. I want you to tell people that I was ready to go."

And I said I would.

We've been visiting the cemetery, Forest Hill in Duluth, Minnesota, nearly all my life,

from since I was four and my brother

Mark died of an inoperable brain tumor,

and then after my father Gordie died in 2005.

Shirley tried to get there once or twice a year even when she lived in other areas.

And now she is there, next to them both.

She spent her last year in this room in the Gables section of the Deerfield Presbyterian Homes

in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

They left this message on the table by the elevator.

We cleaned out her room, leaving behind a broken chair and her old easy

chair that she'd been sitting in for about the last ten years.

Sometimes it's the small things that get you.

Like finding her pill trays, that got more complicated as her health declined.

And an enigmatic list started for some fragment of thought that she had

been trying to complete in her last months, her script that had once been strong

and beautiful now cramped and hesitant.

She loved balloons! One of her favorite games was bat-the-balloon.

We played it with her even in her last weeks.

Here she is in 2013, all ready to go!

She was born in 1925 to Robert and Lillian Anderson.

These are Lil's parents, I believe, the Westlunds.

Grandma Lil hated the farm.

Lil married Bob, who had also grown up on a farm, and he

took her to Minneapolis,

then to Duluth...

... but never back to the farm, except to visit.

Bob eventually opened his own CPA/Insurance company in Duluth.

Every night he smoked a cigar and drank a scotch.

Shirley was their first child.

Their second daughter was Carole...

...and their first son was Robert Junior, Bobby,

who tragically died at the age of three about a month

after the family had moved to Duluth, by drowning,

in a stream in the backyard of a new friend.

My mother's brother Rod was born exactly two years to the day after Bobby drowned.

Her "gang" of friends got together as high school freshman in Duluth

when the girls asked the boys to a dance,

and they hung around together for the next four years.

In the picture below, she and her boyfriend

Eugene Rheaume are the center couple. This picture was taken on December 7th, 1941, the

day that changed all of their lives.

She became engaged to Gene Rheaume before he went to war.

Some months later when she was walking home from skating one winter night, she heard footsteps and looked around but there was no one there. Then she heard his voice saying to her, “You won’t understand this now, but I want you to know that I love you and that everything will be okay.”

She found out a few days later that he had been killed in action that day.

She and Gordie got together after he came back from his WWII experience on a Naval Convoy

in the North Atlantic while on the US Coast Guard Cutter Tampa.

He was the brother of one of her "gang" - Ginny Wilkinson

so they'd know each other for years.

But then they fell in love.

And got married.

Both Shirley and Gordie's parents had small lake cabins on Sand Lake in

Minnesota, about 50 miles southwest of Duluth,

so lake fun and sunbathing were a part of life.

You didn't have to be rich, or even comfortably middle class to own lake property then.

You just had to want to get away from the cold summer breezes coming off of

Lake Superior in Duluth. They call it the "Air Conditioned City."

Mark and I came along in 1948 and 1949, respectively.

By a quirk of fate, my dad was called back into the service because he'd signed up

for the Reserves to make some extra money.

No one had predicted the Korean war.

He wasn't happy about leaving his wife and two kids, but he went.

His leg was injured not in the war, however, but in a car crash in Florida where two people died.

My mother always notes that I was "contrary" as a child, like in the picture below where

I apparently didn't feel like smiling for the camera.

But then, when my brother Mark turned five,

he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died when he

was just starting Kindergarten.

This was a terrible blow to the family.

I don't think we ever really recovered from it.

But just like in her own family,

there was a second daughter, Sherry, and a second son, Dan.

And so life went on.

The picture below shows one of the last times she came down to the lake

when they had a place in Minong, Wisconsin, that we all enjoyed for years.

Her knees began to pain her, and once that started, she didn't get around

as much or as well, even after her knee replacements.

Their last real home together was once again in Duluth,

on Barker's Island which is on a small inlet that leads to the larger bay that leads to

Lake Superior.

The picture below was taken in 2004, their last summer there before

my father died in 2005.

I made this picture for my mother after his death - it's from a photo I took

of a place on the North Shore of Lake Superior

called Lover's Lane where they used to go when they were young,

and I "cloned" them in using Photoshop.

The Christmas before my dad died, I had collected rocks for everyone, most of
them from the beaches on the East End of Long Island on the Atlantic,
and I hauled them all home for holiday gifts.
These two symbolize my mom and dad, the bottom one
my dad who was the rock beneath us all, and the top one
my mom, who was rounder, and always on him for something or other (lol),
and the green streaks matched her eyes.

Here she is being comforted by her brother Rod after Gordie's funeral.

She became the head of the family, the Matriarch.

She loved holidays, and she loved being around family.

She always had a special Christmas outfit.

She was a wonderful grandma...

...and a good sport.

Here she is playing WII bowling...

...rolling the strikes. I think she beat us all.

She lived to play cards...

...Phase Ten being her late-life favorite, and by default, our favorite, too.

She was also an artist.

She loved to paint the shoreline of Lake Superior.

She was very dedicated to making paintings and drawings for many years.

I never knew, however, that she was also a skilled cartoonist! I found these two

tucked away in a photo album - I'd never seen them before.

And as I mentioned before, she loved her grandkids!

Here she's hugging Andrew and Shannon.

Every Christmas she gave them new pajamas.

Above is Aaron circa late '70's, and below may have been the last Christmas pair she gave - to great grandson Elliott in 2015.

Here's Derek all grown up on his wedding day.

And above and below are Ali and Chris, grandkids who came into her life when

Sherry and Brett "blended" their families.

Andrew is getting a game of cards ready, above,

and below his wife Jennifer is hanging out with her new Grandma-in-law.

Shirley's shining head was a beacon in our family celebrations.

Then she became a Great-Grandma with the arrival of

Arya and Kellen Campbell, and Elliott Keeley Yonda.

Arya was the first GGC, Kellen the second...

...and Elliott was the third, the last she will get to meet.

Family meant everything to her.

In 2014 we celebrated Gordie's birthday and it turned out that the candles we bought
wouldn't go out - they were trick candles. We could pretty much hear Gordie laughing
when we had to scuttle the wildly burning candles in the sink!

Then Shirley began to have falls.

Pain of various sorts had been a staple of her life,

and she'd never gotten into exercise, in spite of (because of?) our constant encouragement.

Exercise seemed to her just more pains added to the ones she already had

and she never understood its benefits.

So she began to grow weaker.

For a while she had to be in a rehab place, which she hated.

She worked hard to get out of there and return to her independent-living apartment

in the Deerfield, which she loved.

And she made it back for maybe another few months

but the falls kept happening, and we realized she needed more care than

even the home-health-care people could provide, so the day came

when we had to move her to the nursing home area of the Deerfield complex,

called the Gables.

She didn't like it, but she was a trooper.

She always thought it was just temporary, until she got back on her feet

and felt like her old self again.

Which never happened, of course.

But she had a few more good times out and about...

Shannon and Michael had a backyard summer celebration of their earlier January wedding in 2015...

...and we had a fabulous 90th birthday party for her at the Deerfield in October, 2015.

And we bought her a fabulous pair of shades at the hospital gift shop.

As the months went by, she was less and less able to focus

and clarify her thoughts.

She also had a condition called "Charles Bonnet Syndrome"

that affects people who have lost all or part of their sight.

The mind substitutes visions and hallucinations in place

of what they would be seeing normally,

so she would see little creatures running around,

her son-in-law turning into Barnacle Bill the Sailor Man,

strange patterns and colors,

men coming in the room to fix something in the (non-existent) attic, etc. and etc.

It helped reduce her symptoms by stimulating the eyesight that she had left

by looking through old photobooks and recalling old memories.

Above she looks at pictures of her mom, Lillian,

and below pictures of her first son, Mark.

When Aaron and I left her after Christmas of 2015,

she was not totally with it.

It was sad to leave her that way.

But in April I came back for a visit, and she put on her lipstick, earrings and glasses

and said she wanted us to take pictures of her.

So we did.

But there were trials ahead. More falls, more wounds, more weakness.

But she still loved to put on her nice clothes, her blouses and scarves,

and if we couldn't go out in the car to shop, we'd go to the

gift shop in the building where they always had a beautiful selection

of scarves.

Shannon suggested we try seeing if a baby doll would perk her up,

as she'd seen happen before with elderly woman,

but Shirley seemed quite anxious about who would take care of it.

She was declining. We eventually put her on Hospice care.

It took her longer and longer to eat, so during one meal Sherry and I googled how to make

napkins into roses, which we did pretty successfully.

On one of our last visits, Shannon and I took her for a walk in the new Deerfield Memorial Garden.

When Andrew visited, she posed in front of her favorite tree on the premises,

one that she wanted to have in her next Christmas photo.

But she was getting more and more tired.

Below, this is one of the last pictures we have of her while still among the living.

On August 9th, she left our realm and went to see all those who went before.

The beautiful plant below was sent by Courtney and her family.

Dan and Angie took her on her last ride, from New Richmond to Duluth,

in the back of his pickup.

She loved her scarves and her lipsticks, so we sent some of her favorites with her.

Rest in peace, Mom. We hold you in our hearts and memories, and

we will keep your stories alive.