Fall of 1979...regular schedule of classes....

I signed up for a regular load of classes for the fall quarter. I carried 12 hours and it was hard, but satisfying. To get a bachelors degree at Iowa State, I had to take 9 credit hours of math and science, and I accomplished that and got pretty good grades (in fact, surprised myself!)

I also took other art classes during my year at college - art history (I loved it!); drawing (two levels of drawing...had a student show for the second level); etching; ceramics (which demanded that I take a class that taught some chemistry, so I would be ready to make my own glazes); and many other art classes, and I loved them all. 

 For my etching class, I decided to do a portrait of our daughter, and I took a 'ton' of photos to get just the right one. The photo above is one of those, and so is the photo below, followed by the completed etching. I have not scanned in the actual photo that I did the etching from, but the pose is just like in the etching.

I also did an etching of an old house standing on a farm west of Kanawha. I will include a photo of that piece later in this blog. I made several prints of that etching, and found that there were a lot of people in the Kanawha area who had either lived there, or were from a family who had lived there. I sold about ten of those etching prints.

I also had to complete a multicultural teaching class, and a speech class. I was freaked out about the speech class because in high school I had entered speech contest, and had memorized a 2-page prose piece that was a bit humorous. For the first contest, I had infected tonsils, so was not able to compete. When you aren't able to compete for good cause, they advance you to the next level, just as if you had received a 'I' rating. So, when I got up for the competition on the second level - all of my competitors had received 'I' ratings the first round. I was just not able to do it. I got half-way through my memorized piece (about 2 minutes into the recitation), and couldn't remember another word! I finally had to step down and take a 'II' rating, which brought my competition in speech to an abrupt end! After that, I had a terrible time talking to a group (something I simply had to conquer in order to teach!) [I know...it's hard to believe I was not able to talk, but it is true... I would choke up, and stumble around my words, and just become really self-conscious to the point of avoiding any time when I would be speaking in front of a large group. I could talk in small groups with no trouble, but don't ask me to give a prayer, or a reading, or any kind of leadership role where I had to speak in front of a group! Just couldn't do it!] But, I took speech, and did okay. I suppose by the time one reaches the age of 39/40, you have faced all kinds of fears, and it just becomes easier to do what once seemed impossible. 

Another reason speech in front of a large group was so difficult to me was because of an incident that arose in Kanawha. We had a 'book-banning!' The English teacher at the high school had given an assignment for one of her high school classes to read 'The Grapes of Wrath.' And, one of the students refused to read it because of 'language' issues. Well, I had read that book in high school, and I thought it was excellent, written by one of America's great authors, John Steinbeck! I just couldn't swallow that there were words in that book that any ordinary American had not already heard, and absolutely none that would damage the soul of an intelligent teenager. Well, a town-wide 'brou-ha-ha' developed! Kanawha has a Christian Reformed Church and Christian school. The school just goes to 8th grade, and then their students attend the regular high school. I'm not sure if the young man involved in this issue had attended the Christian school, but he had half the community siding with him for 'religious' reasons... The story about our town and its banning of 'The Grapes of Wrath' got into the newspapers as far away as Tokyo, and into The Des Moines Register...with an interview with me....including photos.

More to come on this issue! And, when you have read it all, you will understand better why I had so much difficulty speaking to large groups...

Taking a two-year-old to college...

Our next door neighbor in Kanawha had a long and full white beard (he actually won a 'beard contest' with that beard!), and he was the Santa Claus for Kanawha when our daughter was little. Here is a photo of her sitting on Santa's lap when she was about 18 months old.

 In this photo, she is sitting in my mother's rocking chair in Cedar Rapids, all dressed up, so it was probably some holiday or other. (The photos of our daughter are often in 'frames' of paper. They were used in scrapbooks I made for her.)

This photo with Santa was taken in 1979, when our daughter was about 18 months old. Same Santa...our neighbor George! (I think we had her visit Santa twice that year! Why not? Just two blocks from home at the grocery store, and you are only a kid once!)

 This photo is a bit 'grainy,' but it is one of the few we have of her Great-grandma Chase (Ann Rueber's mother) when our little girl was about 1 1/2 years old.

 Here's our daughter when she was 1 1/2 years old, opening her 'little red wagon.' (One needs to get right into the business of opening gifts!)

I had been working at the Kanawha Reporter, and when our little girl was almost 2 years old, I made up my mind to go back to college at Iowa State University. David was totally supportive (we had paid my parents back for the money I borrowed to take classes when I was still in Cedar Falls, and David comes from a family that highly values education, so he was super about me getting my teaching degree.)

It meant that I would be living in married student housing on campus, and David would be staying in Kanawha and working at the research farm. I took our two-year-old daughter with me that summer and took some summer art classes. Diane and Dave visited me in my quonset hut house (I remember it was horribly hot, and of course, I had no air-conditioning as my money was all going toward the cost of my education, and bare necessities for living - food, rent and transportation.) 

I had signed up for some art classes that summer - Weaving, taught by the expert staff person, Shirley Held (probably one of the most expert weaving instructors in the state), at ISU. The class was held for four hours each morning, and I had a lot of work to do at home, including picking over a sack of sheep's wool (taking the bugs and burrs out, and getting it clean so it could be carded, spun, dyed, and eventually woven into a 'tapestry' that would be my project for my grade. You can imagine that it was very hot and sticky work pulling that wool apart, bit by bit, and removing sheep dung, bugs and all kinds of detritus like straw, burrs, and mud. Finally, when it was as clean as I could get it (pretty darned clean, if I say so myself!), we washed the wool in class to get the lanolin and dirt out of it, and when it was clean and dry, I began to 'card' the wool. Carding is basically combing the wool with a wire-bristle brush with the wires about 1/4 of an inch apart, to pull out snarls and odds and ends, and to make it into nice long fibers that I would use to spin and weave. When the wool was being carded, it was rolled into small rolls of combed fiber called rolags. These rolags could then be spun in either a drop spindle or on a spinning wheel. I didn't have a spinning wheel, so I used a drop spindle that I made. It basically consisted of a length of dowel with a cut into its side near the top to form a place to wrap the spun fiber around. The other end of the dowel had a circle of 1" pine with a 1/4" hole in the center (to accommodate the dowel rod). The pine circle had to be sanded very smooth so it wouldn't catch on the fibers, as did the dowel. A short end of the dowel stuck out of the bottom of the circle. To set it up for spinning, you would spin a short length of the wool (about a foot or a bit more), and tie the end of the spun 'rope' to the center of the dowel. Then you wound the rope (this rope was only about 1/8" thick) around the point at the bottom of the spindle, beneath the circle of pine. Then the spun strand was taken up to the cut place at the top of the dowel, wrapped around and under the strand coming up from the bottom, and that left you with a piece of spun yarn that the spindle could 'hang' from. Essentially, you would be using gravity to pull on the fibers and help you spin. Once you got it all set up, you gave the wooden circle a quick spin, and used that spinning action to pull down the fibers from the rolag above the spindle. (The rolags can easily be attached once you've run out of fiber, simply by pulling out an end of wool from the new rolag, and rubbing it between your fingers with the wool that is already attached to the spindle. The fibers tend to cling together, and form a new cord so you can continue spinning it into the yarn you need to complete your project.

Each student was required to design a small tapestry, which would be dyed with natural materials (I will go into more detail about that eventually). So, initially, our assignment was to clean the wool, wash it, card it, spin it, make skeins of yarn, and dye the yarn into the colors we wanted to use in our tapestry. We made the loom we were going to weave the tapestry on by making a rectangle of wood pieces which we nailed with nails every 1/2 inch. We strung the loom with string that would support the wool as we wove it. 

In order to get the natural dyes we needed, we were required to find materials found in nature, such as marigold blossoms, onion skins, walnut hulls, etc. Each dye was made in a chemical action using what is called a 'mordant' such as alum, tin, chrome, copper, etc. These chemicals would leach out the color from the natural material into the water bath, and would allow the wool to accept the dye. Part of our assignment was to assemble various natural materials, make dye from them, and dye samples of wool using each color we made. Those samples were assembled by tying a few strands of the dyed yarn from each color we made and attaching it to the corner of a small square of card stock paper. Then we were to label each sample with the name of the natural material it came from, the kind of mordant that was used, etc. Each student was required to submit a large string of about 40 or 50 card with various samples of dyes attached to them and labeled. 

This was not just a fun, 'adult' education class. It was a very serious, scientific and extremely exacting study of just how fabric is made, and it was wonderful!  

This is my tapestry. The brown is from walnut hulls, the blue is from indigo (a plant - since they can't be found in Iowa, we didn't have to collect it; Ms. Held had a variety of dye materials we could add to our tapestry colors, but the majority of the colors were to be from dyes we had made from materials we found in nature.) The yellow is from marigold blossoms and the off-white is the natural color of the wool. This piece is about 12" x 18", and had a fabric back with a sewn pocket at the top for a rod to go through so it can be hung on the wall (which is where it was for the next 30 years!...therefore, it is somewhat faded, but still interesting.)

In any case, I was in my own kind of 'heaven,' attending classes and riding my bike to take our daughter to the babysitter who lived about a half mile away from campus...I was getting a real workout, and it showed...thinner and more fit than I had been in quite a long time!

Below are some photos I took of our daughter for various drawing and etching classes. I took a bundle of them so I had some good shots to choose from...

This photo and the others below were taken at a park in Ames.

The above is the pastel drawing of our daughter that I did for an advanced drawing class. It is about 18" x 24" and I have it framed now in gold metal with glass over the pastels. The photo doesn't do it justice.

As you can see, I was 'in my element' taking art classes in Ames. It was a struggle with a two-year-old to care for and make arrangements for her care, along with cooking and keeping my little quonset hut. But, when you are happy, things just seem to flow more easily. And, I was happy! (I have my husband David to thank for this...he was doing all of his own cooking - which he is quite good at, I must say - and was working, supervising the research farm by this time. I could not have done this without his help and willingness to have me spend all that money.)

More to come...more of our daughter's early years, more of the other kids, as much as I could see them, and more of our lives in Ames and Kanawha. 

Our little daughter's baptism, and other photos of her as a baby...

This is a photo from our daughter's baptism. We had asked Pastor Brammer (the minister from College Hill Lutheran Church in Cedar Falls, David's mother's church) to come to Kanawha to baptize her. In the photo, left to right, are Pastor Brammer, Bill Timmermann, Lois Timmerman (David's sister) holding the baby, and me in the white outfit, with David just to my right in blue.

 Pastor Brammer patting the baby's head dry after the actual baptism. In this shot, you can see David's and my face a bit better (you can also see that having a baby late in life can leave a person with extra pounds that I can tell you are very hard to get off!) But, she was worth it!

Aunt Lois holding her niece after the ceremony...she's yawning...these important affairs can be very tiring... Also in the photo, in the second row - Donald Timmermann, Joel Rueber, Ann Rueber, Laura Boehnke; and in the front row - Scott Timmermann, Lois holding the baby, and Bill Timmermann.

 We had a dinner at our house after the baptism, and here are the pastor's wife, Elsa Brammer, Ann Rueber (paternal grandmother), Joel Rueber holding our little daughter, and Laura Boehnke, the sister-in-law of Alitza Boehnke, and a family friend. You can see our daughter's room in the background with the pretty stained glass window (which I kept when we moved from this house to the research farm.)

...and here is our little girl in her infant seat, sitting on the dining room table. She was a good-natured baby!

Here I am, feeding our daughter. She already liked her thumb, and by this time, she was using it to get the food down. Each bite had a short sucking of the thumb to follow. It made mealtime a bit longer than usual.

Here's a photo from her scrapbook, with Aunt Lois and Cousin Scott helping our little daughter to open a gift at Christmas time...

More photos of our daughter to come...

 

Enjoying the lake with the Eklunds...Molly, Diane and Megan

Megan, Molly and Diane waving at the camera, in front of the red cabin...photographer must be standing on the steps...

 Megan, Molly and Diane, enjoying dance costumes at the lake (reminiscent of Linda and Carol, when they were young...many, many dance performances in front of the cabins wearing Linda's many dance costumes)

 Poor, innocent Dave, held 'hostage' by the girls, and I can't believe they made him put on this costume! (He's going to have my hide for posting this picture!)

Reg, Linda and Klaus next to the Levenick cabin, now painted yellow...

Here's Dave, proving his macho side...chopping wood....

Here are Marc Eklund and Dave having a good time playing in back of the cabins...

The kids pretending to take a boat ride...Molly, Diane, Doug and Dave.

Looks like Doug is the 'driver' here, with Marc doing the 'navigating.' Molly, Diane, Megan and Dave get to ride...

I guess the Brookners were at the lake at the same time...'cause there's Jeff, waving at the camera. Diane in front, then Marc, Jeff and Doug, Dave, Megan and Molly.

Diane showing the string of fish...nice ones!

A 'sort of smile' when you are holding a string of slimy fish...

 Reg took Doug fishing...

 Marc and Doug playing catch...

Pretty Diane in the beautiful northern woods!

Looks like the guys went golfing...not sure who is in the blue hat, but that's Al in the pink slacks, and looks like Reg in the purple shirt...

Now, here are some random shots with the kids...

That looks like Dave coming down that big slide...Whew!

Here are Dave, Diane and Doug at Deer Forest near Brainerd.

Karol Burman, Diane, Karen Burman and Dave enjoying being 'up close and personal' with a deer at Deer Forest near Brainerd. Karol and Karen were the kids' babysitters on West 7th Street. 

Dave reached out to touch the antlers of a deer, while Karen Burman and Doug watch.

 Nice form, Doug. Trying out golfing...

 '...and he leans back into the swing...'

 Putting skills are important...looks like it's going to go in!

Here are Diane, Doug and Dave, but I'm not sure where they are...looks like they have a 'Mountie' with them...

Again, I'm not just sure where this photo was taken, but there's Dave by the railroad tracks!

What a great shot! Doug going into the pool! He looks like he's enjoying himself!

More to come...y'all come back now, hear?

Life moving on....

 

This photo was taken at Thanksgiving at my sister Merry's house in Cedar Rapids. Here is Diane, my youngest daughter, and I, enjoying the holiday together.

I had decided I needed to keep drawing and doing my art, so I did this sketch in pastels of our little girl at about 18 months. 

Here is our daughter with her very first candy cane. (Looks like those pants were a tad too long!) We didn't have a television for the first five years of her life, so in the evenings, David and I made straw Christmas ornaments for our tree. Here you can see a few of those...

Meanwhile, my older kids were growing too. This photo was taken at the house on West 7th Street. Here Dave is playing with a game, and Rufus is relaxing nearby... (Kids seem to be happy halfway off and halfway on the furniture...)

 Here's Diane in her school picture in 1971. Beautiful face...

 A more solemn look, in her 1975 photo. Still a beautiful face, with more maturity now.

Here, in 1976 school photo, she has her braces and she can make a nice smile...obviously going to be a very pretty girl!

 This is Diane's 1977 school picture. Great photo! She is starting to look very grown-up!

 Here's her confirmation photo. Nice...

Pretty cheerleader!

On top of the formation! 

Yep! Gorgeous!

Here's Diane with an armful of babies. She came to David's sister's home in Sibley for the baptism of our little nephew, Craig. In this photo, Craig is wearing the family baptismal gown. It would be interesting to know just how many kids have worn that pretty gown...maybe I'll have to ask some questions!

Here's Diane, working her high school job...at Baskin Robbins. 

(She could have been in the movies...but, then, I'm a bit prejudiced!)

School picture from 1979.

1980 - Senior Photos (there will be more!)

 Lovely...

Some people are so photogenic...

So pretty...

My two girls...in a more silly shot...(don't you just love photo-booth pictures!)

And, now, for something a bit different...here is Dave. I don't know if that is an earring or not...sort of looks like a Christmas ornament... Good looking boy, in any case.

And, here is Doug with Vern, not just sure where they were standing...on a mountain...someone help me...is that South Mountain in Phoenix? If not, where then? 

Doug looks like he's about 19 or so, but I don't know for sure...no date or age on the photo.

In this shot, we are visiting my mom in Cedar Rapids. Left to right, me, Doug (love the hat!), Diane with our little daughter, and Dave with Rufus.

 Another of all of my kids together...and Rufus. Our little daughter liked her thumb, and it did not cause problems with her teeth; in fact, it may have made her lower teeth come forward a bit. They tended to be a bit recessed. In any case, she made good use of that thumb!

Here they are with my mother...Doug, my youngest daughter, and Diane, with mom in back. I don't know if Dave came that time or not...he's not in this photo. 

Here we are, once again at my mom's in Cedar Rapids. Me and three of my kids, sitting on her front porch. 

As you can see, I have most of my oldest daughter's photos from those years, and few of the boys. It is sort of the nature of guys to not give their history in photos much credence, but instead leave it up to the gals to keep track of those things. But, I am very grateful to have those photos that I do have!

Stay tuned... life is always changing...and so are kids!