Home (a poem recited by my grandmother on her 100th birthday, Sept 23, 2010)

A poem by Edgar A. Guest



Home


It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,

A heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam

Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye lef' behind,

An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind.

It don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be,

How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury;

It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,

Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything.

Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;

Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' livin' in it;

Within the walls there's got t' be some babies born, and then

Right there ye've got t' bring 'em up t' women good, an' men;

And gradjerly as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn't part

With anything they ever used--they've grown into yer heart:

The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore

Ye hoard; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumb-marks on the door.



Ye've got t' weep t' make it home, ye've got t' sit an' sigh

An' watch beside a loved one's bed, an' know that Death is nigh;

An' in the stillness o' the night t' see Death's angel come,

An' close the eyes o' her that smiled, an' leave her sweet voice dumb.

Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an' when yer tears are dried,

Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an' sanctified;

An' tuggin' at ye always are the pleasant memories

O' her that was an' is no more--ye can't escapefrom these.



Ye've got t' sing an' dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play,

An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day;

Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year

Afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear

Who used t' love 'em long ago, an' trained 'em jes t' run

The way they do, so's they would get the early mornin' sun;

Ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from cellar up t' dome:

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home.

A tribute to my Grandmother

Last week we went to Dallas to visit my grandmother who is now 99 years old and whose health is failing. Recently she had a bout with pneumonia and was hospitalized. During that visit they discovered that her aorta was 75% blocked and her time left on this earth was limited. We had not seen her in 2 years, so we felt it was a good time to go see her for what may be the last time.

Lillian was born in 1910 in Ewing, Lee County, Virginia, near the Cumberland Gap. She was the oldest of three children, and had two grandmothers who were Cherokee Indian. Lillian went to gradeschool in the two room Elydale school house, which today is no longer standing. Grades 1-3 were in the first room, and and 4-7 were in an upper room. She had to walk about 2 miles to school. Lillian became a Christian at the age of 12, and was baptized in Indian Creek near her home, the same place where my dad would one day be baptized.

She went to Ewing High School about 6 miles away by car. She graduated in 1930.When she was 21 in 1930, Lillian went to Hiwassee college in Madisonville, Tennessee, training to be a teacher. She lived on the third floor of the college dorm. After one year of college, she got her first teaching job in Virginia, a little way down the country road from where she grew up. She taught there for one year, the Fall of 1931 and Spring of 1932.

She only had around 20 students in a one room school house, which she enjoyed. Many of the children were relatives. The beginners would sit on the front row. Her oldest student was 17 years old. This older boy helped with janitorial duties and building the fire in the wood burning stove. The school had outdoor toilets, and from time to time students would be caught out in the toilets smoking. She would teach school all day, and walk there and back from her home.

It was during this year that she met my grandfather, Dale. One day after she returned home from teaching, her mother was ready to go to church at Bethany church one evening for a revival, and asked Lillian to go. She told her mother, "Oh, I'm so tired, I've walked all the way home after teaching school all day. I don't think I want to go." Her mother said, "Oh, yes you do. There's a young man preaching there." So she told her mother, "I'll go just like I am if you let me sit in the back seat of the church so nobody will see me." They always had large crowds at these revivals. The church had an old pump organ. When Dale wanted to sing a special number, "I Choose Jesus", the boy who usually played the organ couldn't play it, and so the preacher's wife began motioning with her hand for Lillian to come up and play. The preacher's wife and Lillian were good friends. So Lillian went up and played the song for Dale, and that is how they met. She once commented that "he sang very well."

Dale soon became the regular preacher at the Bethany church, and began making house calls at the home of Lillian's parents where Lillian was living. Lillian's brothers, Morrison and Joe (who was sixteen at the time) would play baseball in the yard, and Dale would play ball with them and stay to have a meal with them. Dale would hold baptismal services in the creek behind Lillian's home. One day the sister of one of Lillian's students was going to be baptized, so Lillian let the class out early and they walked down to the creek to witness the baptism. Dale and Lillian began courting by writing letters back and forth.

In the summer of 1932, she went to Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, to take college algebra, public speaking, and music. In the Fall of 1932 she returned to Hiwassee and graduated in the Spring of 1933 receiving a life time teaching certificate. Dale and Lillian were married on early 1933 in Athens, Tennessee, not far from Johnson Bible College where Dale was then in his junior year.

Dale still had a year to complete at Johnson Bible College. But Lillian still wanted to teach school. Because jobs for men were scarce during the depression, a law had been passed in which no married woman could teach. After they were married, Lillian stayed at home with her family while Dale lived at Johnson Bible College.

They then moved a lot, following one preaching job after another. They moved to Rural Hall, North Caralinia, near Winston-Salem, where their first son, James was born in 1935. From there they moved to Champain-Urbana, where they ministered at the Weber Street Church for one year. Next they lived in Ogden Illinois, about 20 miles away, where their second child, Janice was born in 1937. Then they moved on to West Lebanon, Indiana. While there they were approached by a committee from the Second Christian Church in Danville, IL, to take a preaching position in Danville, Illinois After moving there, their third child, Charles Tracy, my father, was born 1939. Sixteen months later, Ernie, their fourth child, was born when Lillian was 29 years old.

They then moved to Mountain City, TN around 1940. From there they moved to Jacksonville, Florida in 1941, but only stayed about 7 months because Dale began having asthma problems. Then they moved to Woburn, Illinois, near Greenville. While there, they were asked to take a position at Belleville, Illinois, so they moved to Belleville and ministered there for five years.

After this, Dale began a church planting ministry out of Collinsville; he started 7 new churches, with the help of the Mississippi Men's Fellowship. They lived in the housing project behind the First Christian Church in Collinsville, which he helped to start. He started two churches in Iowa, three in Missouri (Owensville, Columbia, O'Fallon). Part of the time he lived out of trailer and worked the fields. He taught "singing school" at Mulberry Grove while the lived there when Tracy was in first grade.

In the late 50's Dale settled in Collinsville, and stopped travelling as much, as he was getting older. Lillian started teaching again when Tracy and Ernie were in highschool while living in Collinsville. Dale also enrolled himself in McKendree College, Lebanon, Illinois, and was certified as a teacher, teaching 18 years. Lillian finished her A.B. degree.

Dale did preach for a while at Beardstown after his son, Tracy, and his wife, Cathi, left there to serve in Barbados for a year. After Beardstown, he began teaching in East Saint Louis, while Lillian continued to teach in Collinsville. During this time Dale preached at his last church, the Holly Oaks church near Collinsville.

After he stopped preaching, Dale and Lillian attended the Collinsville church part of the time, the Chapel Hill church and the Holly Oaks church.

After Dale died in 1987, Lillian contined to live in Collinsville. She later sold their home and moved to an apartment.

Lillian was a school teacher for a total of 20 years. Lillian taught bible study classes at various churches for 19 years, including Edwardsville and Collinsville.

In her later years Lillian has enjoyed reciting poetry at public gathering, and even at her 99th birthday was able to recite them with clarity.

She and her husband, Dale, leave behind a great legacy, having planted dozens of churches, having mentored many Christians in their faith and having been a positive Christian role model to their 4 children, 11 grand-children and 22 great grandchildren and 2 great-great-grandchildren as well as many others whose lives they have touched.

Our Son Drinking Horse Blood

Here's a note my husband posted on his facebook, which I just had to pass along. Our son Gabriel (4) is a cute li'l guy, but he asks a lot of questions. Most of them, we're convinced, he asks just because he's trying to be cute or silly or just trying to see how many we will answer before telling him to can it.

Today we had grape juice with supper. After the whole family had thoroughly discussed the grape juice and its anti-oxidants and whatever other healthy properties the grape juice offered, Gabriel, in typical Gabriel fashion, pointed to the grape juice and asked, "What dat?"

He was either not listening, or he was trying to get a rise out of Jim. Two can play that game.

"Horse blood," Jim answered (expecting to turn the tables on the wee lad), "want some?"

"Yeah!" Oh, the glee in his expression was priceless. (Jim loves to say things like that. Honestly, I think he really thought it was horse blood and wanted to try it!)

So Jim poured him some grape juice, and he loved it.

There was a little grape juice left in the pitcher near the end of the meal, so Gabriel asks, "Daddy, me hab mo horse blood, please?"

It was very cute, and he remembered to be polite too! But Jim decided that he must have been listening that last time, so he explained (before word got out that Jim makes our kids drink horse blood!) that it wasn't really horse blood, it was just grape juice.

He drank the grape juice, and he loved it all the same.

Then he asks, "Daddy, you shoot him?"

Hmmm, is this kid listening or not?!

Reflections on my "Redemptive Time" Post

I find it ironic that a few weeks ago I wrote about wanting "a quick fix" and not having to wait to make the transition at this phase of our lives. Now we have suddenly found ourselves swept forward very quickly into that transition due to the events of the last few weeks. As stressful as it was, I have to say that I am relieved that the time has come and we can get on with it. What a crazy ride it has been. In just a few days we will fly home to the US. We are getting anxious and excited. It is hard to imagine while sitting here by the fan in this cement-block, screened-in guest house on the Western coast of Africa at the hottest, sweatiest, dirtiest time of year, that by the end of this week we will be sitting in an air-conditioned, carpeted, dry-walled house in the Midwestern United States with 24-hour electricity, running water and all the creature comforts, with a Taco-Bell and Walmart just minutes away. The bumpy pot-holed filled dirt-roads will be replaced by smooth, paved freeways. Jim always says everything in the US is "plus doux" (sweeter, softer, more comfortable). We are so thankful for those things that many people in the US take for granted. Even at this crossroads in life where we are officially "homeless" (ok, it isn't as bad as it sounds) I am so thankful for the many blessings God has showered upon us- for family, for friends, for providing for all of our needs, for people here in Africa who have become family to us and who will always be a part of our lives even though removed by long distance, and on the other side of the ocean those from whom we have been apart for so long, who are ready to receive us back home, who are already offering their help to meet us at the airport, store our belongings, find us a vehicle, and find us housing. We are truly blessed. We count it such a privelege to have the friendship of so many and to be a part of the body of Christ around the world.

Relationships in God's Economy

I have been reading about bonding and our need for relationship. Relationships are essential to our existence, to our happiness, to our well-being. I find it refreshing to know that God makes us whole in our lives through relationships. I was always told that if we rely too much on other people, we aren’t relying enough on God. I always struggled with that though, because I always found eventually that relationships made me feel complete. When I’m lonely, even if I seek out God, I am still relieved of my loneliness by relationships. I believe God has created us with a deep foundational need for relationships and when we don’t have it, or when those relationships are not right, life is miserable. This is a sign of our deep need to maintain healthy relationships in our lives. Many young ladies mistakenly seek out the wrong relationships to ease that need to bond with someone, by hooking up with the wrong guy, or offering a form of intimacy in order to find that bonding they so desperately need because they lack it in their home life, or elsewhere. They are looking for the right thing, but in the wrong place.

Looking to God’s Word, we see from the beginning of Creation God said “it is not good for man to be alone.” Throughout Scriptures the word “love” is written all over the place. Jesus says that the greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Relationships. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13 that above all things love is the greatest thing, the most important thing we can do. Well, wake up world! We can’t “love” others without relationships! Relationships are the key! When relationships are broken, people suffer, things go awry, productivity dimishes, crimes happen. When relationships are restored, happiness returns, healing takes place and people thrive and are productive. God’s Word is a tapestry interwoven throughout with teachings on how to do relationships right.

From birth God created us to thrive and exist only in relationships. A newborn baby is totally dependent on its mother. From birth the mother holds the baby, rocks the baby, soothes the baby when it is crying, and speaks soft words to the baby, wooing it into the human race. Without that relationship the baby would not survive or thrive. Instiutionalized babies and children often lack happiness and well-being, developing all sorts of abnormal coping mechanisms to compensate for that lack of bonding. This is not normal and not healthy. The human race is not made up of humans, but of humans IN relationships, who could not pro-create without relationships. Society is healthy only when the individuals work together in a synchronized inter-dependent fashion, meeting one another’s needs.

It is through healthy relationships that God restores and heals people. God comforts us through other people. All counselors will agree that no amount of counseling, or spiritualizing will help a hurting person, put that person in a redemptive parish community of a support group, they have a much greater chance of recovering from just about every addiction, trauma or crisis in life and learning to lead a productive, healthy life. Knowing God loves us in spite of what has happened to us is important, but it is difficult to know that and feel that unless someone tells us that and shows us that THROUGH relationships. Having other people reach out to us in our time of need who empathize with our pain is God’s way of reaching out to us. It is when we see the genuine Christ-like love in others that we can truly sense the depth of God’s love for us. And it is when we act out that love toward others that they see God’s love in us and are drawn to Himself. We cannot expect lost people to come to God without seeing His transforming power having its effect in relationships. When God transforms a life, it is truly a miracle, going against the fiber of the sinful world, and it has the power to transform other lives around it through relationships.

If we never had this deep sense of God’s love for us through relationships when we were young, we may follow one of several paths. One, we may remain isolated, rationalizing that we are just “loners”, but knowing all along deep inside that we are “lonely people” and unhappy. We tend to be self-sufficient, yet restless. Another course we may follow is that we allow people into our lives on the surface, but we never become intimate, because we fear things we do not know. In this case too, we feel lonely in a crowd, we have never bonded with others, it is all surface. We have never expressed our needs and allowed others to meet them. A third way is to learn that God heals us through bonding with others in healthy relationships, and we embrace it. When we pray to God, He hears us, but also beckons us to share our burdens with others so they can do the work of the body of Christ and share our burdens with us. When others pray with us and for us, the flood gates of heaven are opened!

I find it interesting the impact that birth control and family planning has had on our society in this way. God designed married women to bear children on the average every two years, sometimes more often. In the natural order of things the large family was the norm. I have found in my own experience that when I was a mother of two, our family had a very different dynamic than when we moved to four children. At some point around four children the needs of the family become so great that it will not function until everyone pitches in and plays a role. The dynamic changes, and the members of the family are pushed into a natural interdependency, which helps bonding take place and creates a healthy supportive community. It takes more effort and determination on the part of the parents to assure a healthy, functioning family relationship, but it is well worth the effort. I don’t know too many children who come from large families who are selfish, self-centered and unhappy. Most of them are well-adjusted, compassionate and thoughtful of others. With two children, it is easy to spoil them and give them a privileged life. With four or more, that becomes impossible, unrealistic, and indeed ridiculous. Maybe, just maybe, in trying to maintain the 2.2 children, our society has been missing something very vital to our human existence and happiness.

I was one of those children who grew up in the family with 2.2 children. I remember always longing for more siblings. We moved a lot, and it was difficult for me to bond with other kids. Now I know that having a larger family meets the needs for intimacy on many levels. I find it interesting that many large homeschooled families tend to cut back on extra-curricular activities because they often can’t find the time, but they also need it less. Socialization happens in a large family in ways that it cannot happen in a smaller family. In smaller families children need more interaction with outsiders to get the needed “socialization”. Again, maybe our society has overlooked the beauty of what God intended all along. When we mess with God’s design, we mess-up a lot of the built-in mechanisms for healthy functioning.

Living in community, whether in a large family or a close knit body of believers who support one another and live out God’s transforming power in relationships, we learn how God uses relationships to grow us spiritually as well. One author I read shared about a mother who said it was easier to grow spiritually before she became a mom. She had always been told that the only way to grow was to read her Bible and pray more each day. That is what counted. She had never been taught to see that caring for two young children was a training ground for spiritual transformation where she could learn gratitude, humility, patience, forebearance, servanthood and any number of spiritual attributes better than any other place. From being a mother of many children, I have learned more about these things than at any other time or place in my life. I have learned more about God as well.

A Very Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday. I'm not going to say my age, but let's just say I'm almost half way into my 5th decade. Many people seem shocked when they discover my age - I on the other hand have a constant reminder - not the gray hairs and wrinkles (though they are there), but the aches and pains of arthritis and other ailments. Still, I am thankful for what I can still do, and for all the blessings God has sent my way. My husband and children are some of them. Today my almost 13-year-old daughter baked and decorated a birthday cake for me on her own. I was so proud of her. My 11-year-old son who is really into making stop-motion videos made me one in which the words "Happy Birthday Mommy" magically wrote themselves on the chalk board. My third oldest, Aisha, who is 6 was amazed that I was "born" at one time, and my youngest, Gabriel, who is 4, just wanted to know when we get to eat the cake. They all made me cards and Jim plans to take me out to dinner this evening. It was so nice to be pampered in that way, and to see my children using their talents to bless others.

Valentine's Weekend with 10

This past weekend we had the chance to play parents to 8 kids, while we hosted the 4 kids of fellow missionaries as they went out to do a medical clinic, making a total of 10 in our house. We've done this before, and it was great - I know a lot of people think I'm nuts, but I actually find it easier sometimes with more kids, because they all have someone to play with, and I never have anyone come up to me saying they are "bored". We tend to do things in a more organized way just to get everything done in an orderly fashion. Maybe some would call it the "assembly-line" mentality - call it what you want, but it works. I am a creature of routine and order. This weekend we decorated Valentine cookies (around 150 altogether) and they disappeared by the end of the weekend. We also had other friends drop in, the more the merrier! I think there is something in me sometimes that craves the crowd of kids, as if I was made for a large family. I love the special closeness everyone feels, and the sense of belonging to something special that only exists in a big family. I love seeing the older kids pull together to help the little kids along, and everyone sharing a little piece of the bigger task, getting it done faster. It's the same special feeling we get when our whole extended family gathers for the holidays. It is a feeling of community and togetherness, sharing the knoweldge that together we are something more than merely the sum of each individual part.

35 funny things my kids have said

Over the years we have had the habit of writing down the funny or things that have come out of our children's mouths. Here are some of them:

Katie:

1) age 1 ½ “See, I can book!” (See, I can read a book!)

2) age 2 – “ook boys, I’m pretty!” (to some boys as she pulled her dress over her head)

3) age 2 - “Sometimes it takes two” (when asking for mom’s help)

4) age 2 -“Koombah-yah, N’ord” (Koombah-yah, my Lord)

5) age 2 1/2 - “it’s de’icious!”

6) age 2 1/2 - “the cookie-bread man” (the ginger-bread man)

7) age 2 1/2 - “it’s the princess plane!” (when she heard us talking about the president’s plane flying over head)

8) age 2 1/2 - “you have to drink your memomade to make your toe feel better” (said to Mommy after Mommy hurt her toe)

9) age 2 1/2 - “you have to ask nicely” (said to Daddy who asked for more tea in a make-believe tea party)

10) age 2 3/4 - “Are you guys making pie for the Katie-nator and the two guys-nators?” (after we called her younger brother Joshua the “Josh-inator”)

11) age 3 - (anxious to finally start eating breakfast) “Let’s pray...Mommy, will you do the honors?”

12) age 3 - After Mommy came into the room to see why Joshua was crying, I asked Katie, "What happened? Did Joshua fall down?" and Katie replied, "Yeah, and I broke his crown."

13) age 3 – “My shoulders are too high, right here and right here” (pointing to her two shoulders)

14) age 3 -“it’s not a big hot, it’s only a little hot”

15) age 3- Said “busketti” for Spaghetti, “buzzert” for dessert, and “buzzanya” for Lasagna.

16) age 3 - "There are a lot of bees in the forest, and they are very very nice and they can very very sting ya.”

17) age 6 – “When you’re grown up, then you’re getting old.”

18) age 6 - “Can you photocopy me doing it?” (playing the piano)

19) age 6 - Daddy asks Katie, “Don’t you feel good when your room is clean? Doesn’t it look clean?”, to which Katie replied “Yeah, like a leaf.”

20 ) age 8 - “Grandma is a saint because she lives in St. Louis.”

Joshua:

21) age 1 ½ - called chocolate milk “goppit”, somebody “buh-ee”

22) age 2 - called oatmeal "uckmeal", strawberries "strawbabies"

23) age 3 - called a certain person's hairy armpits "a beard"

24) "There’s fire in the hole!” (after sticking a hair pin into an electric socket)

25) age 4 – “Grandma’s name is Grandma Cathi, because she has curly hair; that’s why she’s called Grandma Cathi.”

26) age 5 – “I’m true!” (I’m telling the truth)

27) age 5 - "It’s in the saloon” (It’s in the salon/living room

28) “Let’s go fly a kite and send it snoring!” (from Mary Poppins)

29) age 6 – “The garden is a very hide-iful place.”

30) age 6 - (before bed one night, after having nightmares) “Lord God, help me only have dreams about diamonds sparkling all over the place" and "help me not bleed when I fall down on my bike."

31) age 7 - (Joshua was asked to choose a Bible verse to write out and share with someone to encourage them. After awhile he brought me a paper with Proverbs 5:3 "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil." Trying not to show too much alarm at the verse he had chosen for me, I asked him, "Joshua, do you know what an adulteress is?" He then looked up quite matter-of-factly at me and said, "Yes, you are; you are an adult, and everything you say is so sweet."

32) age 10 - "reverse physiology" (was supposed to say "reverse psychology", in a story he wrote)

Aisha:

33) age 6 – “Gabriel is not cropolating” (cooperating)

34) “OK, Daddy I scluded Gabriel” (excluded)

Gabriel:

35) age 4 – (sitting on the slowly deflating air mattress he is about to sleep on for the second night in a row while guests were staying with us) “Mommy, my bed is going downer and downer and downer!”

A Tribute to Joseph Federer

Who we are is determined by many things: who are parents are, where we grow up, our experiences, and how we respond to God’s shaping the events and movements of our lives and history. But in spite of our immediate environment, so much of our personality often comes from our ancestors, many of whom we have never met. God puts something in us that we can’t put there ourselves, a unique blending of personality traits from our genes that make us uniquely us. It’s uncanny how you can think you are your own person, but there are character traits about you that keep presenting themselves which you can’t explain.

If someone were to ask “who in your family do you most take after”, I would have to say my grandfather, Joseph Federer, who died in 1980 and whom I really did not know very well at all. Yet ironically many of his same interests, talents and giftedness seem to have resurfaced in me. I would like to dedicate this entry to this man who fascinates me because I find that I am in so many ways like him, yet in so many ways different.

My grandfather was born as Johann Joseph Federer in the town of Berneck, Switzerland, August 3, 1891, he grew up in a huge old timber framed house in Berneck which I had the privilege to visit twice in my life. Berneck is a small village situated in the beautiful, gently rolling hills of the northeastern corner of Switzerland near Germany’s Bodensee and Austria. It is the same village where many notorious Federers have come from, including mayors, poets and Roger Federer, the famous tennis player.

As a teenager my grandfather decided he wanted to be a pastry chef after seeing beautifully decorated cakes on display in one of the little pastry shops in his town. He served an apprenticeship in Paris, where he specialized in cake decorating and sugar sculpture, and became rather fluent in French. Shortly after that he worked for a while in London. But he didn’t learn to speak English until he immigrated at the age of 29 to the United States.

After he died in 1980 at the age of 89, 70 letters were discovered by his family in Switzerland, which were letters he wrote home to his parents, all written in German. These letters reveal many fascinating facts about him, his thoughts, and who he really was. These letters also reveal his motivation to immigrate to America – it was a land of opportunity, and there was high unemployment in Europe.

One of his brothers and a cousin, who were also chefs, had come to America before him, and helped him find as job as a pastry chef in Atlantic City at $100 a month. After two months there, he followed a lead to a better job in Los Angeles, California, which he described as the “land of milk and honey”.

In Los Angeles he worked for two years as a pastry chef for the Ambassador Hotel, where even in tough economic times he was able to hold a job because of his specialized and rare skills in sugar sculpture.

After two years at the Ambassador, he went to work in a pastry shop in Hollywood where his specialized skills were required. At a later time he got a job working as a pastry chef for United Airlines, creating many masterpieces for various celebrities who traveled with the airline. Among our favorite photos is the head chef presenting one of his cakes to Bob Hope.

While in Los Angeles, he met my grandmother, Elizabeth Martin, through the Swiss Society. They had four daughters, their youngest being my mother, Catherine.

Besides having inherited his artistic inclinations, I also seem to have inherited his love of nature and farming. Even though he worked in the huge city of Los Angeles, he mentioned that he once wished he had a job as a farmhand. He kept many close friendships with other Swiss farmers in Southern California, and one of his favorite activities was milking the cows on his friends’ farms, something he knew well from growing up in Switzerland. My mother tells me how embarrassed she was that he tried to raise chickens and grow potatoes right in the middle of Los Angeles. I remember him years later, when he had retired to Arizona, growing citrus trees in his yard, and teaching me how to catch and pin butterflies. Ironically here I am today living in Africa, with a citrus orchard and a huge butterfly and moth collection that I have helped my children to put together.

My mother taught me many cake decorating techniques that she learned mostly on her own, inspired by her father, and I in turn learned a few more. From a young age I have always loved decorating cakes, and I continue to do it for my children and many friends. Even my daughter Katie, who has natural talent, has taken an interest in cake decorating, and was already making pretty decent roses at the age of 8.

Among the family memories we still have of my grandfather are some of his now antique cake decorating tools and supplies, as well as his collection of recipes, many of which are in his own handwriting, in four different languages: German, French, English and Italian. I hope to learn more of his recipes and in some small way carry on the legacy he started, creating the incredible art that he so loved and which brought pleasure to so many people, using the talent and gifts that God put in me, and passing that on to my children.