Families Surround Each Other

Sweet babies bond with sweet dogs:

Dogs sense needs before they are even spoken.

Dogs protect their families. They surround the babies with their love.

And babies surround their dogs with love, too.

2019 Cow Chipping and Sweet Corn Festival Conclusion

Where it all started
circle of life

This is a long video/slideshow, about 15 minutes. If you could just skim through it, you'll see an amazing community putting together this big event. It brought  people from around the state and you will see  them enjoying  their time in Chatham.  

And, yes, you will see some cow patties being collected. Little Miss Corn Festival is displaying a winning cow pattie.

Precious children

About 15 minutes slide show

Little Miss and Mr. Sweet Corn Festival and their royal court

Next year. Next year we will be there!

Veterans of Steel, Homes of Steel

Lustron homes, a novel home for a unique time in history

After WW2 ended, veterans came home wanting normalcy in their lives.  They wanted wives, children, jobs, and a place to live.  #1, #2, and #3 were readily available, but finding affordable homes was not.  

But then American ingenuity kicked in. The Greatest Generation had struggled through the Depression and then WW2. What they needed would be created and now.

Lustron Corporation, a division of Chicago Vitreous Enamel Corporation, was founded in 1947 and began to construct 15,000 homes in that year and then 30,000 (according to this info above) in 1948. The houses cost between $8,500 and $9,500

These houses were unique, to say the least: all steel. 

The houses are made of steel, top to bottom. Cabinets, closets, kitchens, doors, walls, door jams, support beams---everything is steel.  (Notice the built-ins throughout the house in the YouTube video below.) Houses were pre-fabricated and assembled on site, in two weeks. Steel slates are on the roof. Enameled steel square panels cover the exterior. No repainting, roof repair, termite damage are in these houses.

4 minute video

 Sears and Roebuck had perfected the mail-order houses and Lustron houses were equally well-designed. To try to describe the process is impossible in just a few words. So the reader may find the information at the site above.

Only about 2,500 or so homes remain, some on the Registry of Historical Houses.

What amazes me is that my hometown of 3,000 has seven or more of these houses in Illinois.  They are all occupied and enjoyed by people whose names I know. Five of the seven are shown below.

Construction

  

Newspaper article from hometown newspaper

Newspaper article from hometown paper

And these are the houses in my hometown:

North of the town in a more rural area

This house was occupied by State Congressman Paul Findlay in the 1960s

Note the square panels, made of enameled steel. Most houses have replaced porches, since they are of wood which decays.  

On North Franklin St.

The Johnson family lives here.

These homes have lasted for nearly 70 years. 

Pretty amazing. A need arises and then some creative individuals come up with a solution, American ingenuity at its best in an incredible time.

P.S. The largest number of homes are in Ohio (a plant that built the Lustrons),  and Illinois.

   

On the Run

source

The struggle to find an equitable and humane resolution regarding immigrants, vetting, legality, and on and on is a wildfire raging through America.  Do you have any idea of anything near a solution?  Nothing is simple, nothing can be easy.

In my teaching days when about 70% of our school were Hispanic, no questions were asked.  Our students were there to be taught, loved, encouraged, and see growth in their languages.

Even so, given our goals, we still found so many reasons to worry: The parents were afraid.

One mother came for parent conferences, and between us, we had enough language to communicate.  The problem, and it is a mighty big problem, was that this mother was here illegally, but her husband had a green card.  He held the threat of turning her in IF she disobeyed him.  He had a job, brought in money, which he drank away with his buddies, giving her a minute amount to care for her family.

He beat her, threatened her, and told her that if she reported this abuse, he would call authorities, who would take her away from her children. AND sadly this was true.

What to do?  I escorted her to our bilingual assistant, who handled these type of cases.  What happened? I'll never know.

Another case involved sexual molestation. In illegal immigrants, there is always a family member who knows a cousin who can vouch for the this person.  In this case, a man "Red", with rare red hair for Mexicans, claimed to be a relative of someone's brother-in-law.  He would move from place to place.  Why?

He wasn't known by anyone, sadly, and this was where evil existed. Red sexually molested boys, eight years old and under.  About the time this was discovered, Red had run to another community.  One of those boys was in my class, along with others in our school.

This hit me in my chest, full force.  Why had I missed the signs?  Why had the family not seen it?  In a one-bedroom apartment filled with twenty people, parents held two jobs or more.  Someone had to watch the kids, and Red was an obvious choice.  

This precious boy didn't show up for school from that time to the end of school.  Where did he go?  What happened?  The fact that authorities were on his trail
meant that Red's capture was imminent.

I shared this with teachers in the lounge, some of whom were from Mexico, shared my dismay of his escape.  They looked at each other, and one said, "Oh, he won't escape.  Communities like this are connected through friends and relatives.  Once he stops and tries to do this again, men will take him out to desert mountains.  They will beat the crap out of him, and then each father of those boys he abused will take machetes to finish the job." 

What could be said, just a silent nod of agreement. I would do this too. Justice meted out by those hurt solved Red's problems.

Dear Father in Heaven, what would have happened if all this information had been available?  Would he have been vetted and caught?  And what about this poor woman under an abusive husband's control?  What will happen now?

I will never know.  Wish I did.  What could be done?  What would be done? Will rioting in the streets and breaking windows of small businesses effect change?

All I can do is shake my head now.  Back then I did what I could.

obvious

We must......

WE MUST....

source
NEVER FORGET!



WE MUST...

Source

ALWAYS REMEMBER.

source: remember

NEVER EVER....

Enough said.

PhotoPrompt #4

From Delores at "myfeatherednest"!

“Papa!  Oh, Papa!  Look

at that car!  Oh, it is a

lovely color!”

“Oh, Daddy!  See the horse

and the carriage!  Oh, I want one

for us, instead of this

ugly car.”

“Oh, dear girl!  We wouldn’t

want one of those!

Do you know how much

those cost?  And

the up-keep?”

“But, Papa!  Remember

when we took Oma to

the hospital in the

City far away?  How

quickly we moved?

We could use it for things like

That!”

But, Daddy!  Remember

how much fun we

had at the farm we

visited?  How happy

we were currying

the horse?”

“Listen!  The smell alone

would drive us crazy!

The cost of food/gas? 

Have you seen how much

a gallon/bale of hay

costs these days? 

And keeping it clean is

a messy job.

No.  We can’t buy one.

We don’t need it.”

“Yes, Papa…”

 “Okay, Daddy…”

--------------------

 

 

 

Arleen at Starting Over, Accepting Changes  

Wind off the ocean caught the veil, pulling it away from Patti’s face.  Her smile lit up and Bill whispered, “Well, we knew we were stepping into a gale force wind when we got engaged….”

They both laughed, glancing back at the two families in their folding chairs.  Neither family was happy about this wedding; their anxious faces expressed their apprehensions.

You’re too young…You hardly know each other...Are you pregnant...He’s a Marine, he’ll always be deploying somewhere…and the arguments against the wedding were long.

As the wedding proceeded, the families watched the two young people gaze at each other.  Their faces glowed as the sun began to set.  The words could barely be heard over the ocean wind, but the love Patti and Bill shared was clear.

As the final vows were said and the pronouncement “Husband and Wife!” given, anxious faces had evolved into joyful ones. 

The wind blended the laughter and tears with the setting sun.