Vol. 5 No. 9 Inside This Issue...
January 26, 2011
For the Love of Chocolate By Nancy Huth
Spotlight On ... A. J. Enterprises Plain Country Page 4
Anabaptist History Page 17
“Tell me again how you met Dieter,” Mom would plead. So I would tell her. “Now, tell me how you met dad,” I encouraged. “Oh, it wasn’t so romantic, not like your story,” she would shrug, brushing her hand to one side as if flicking crumbs off the table. But if I insisted, she would start by telling me that she had graduated from East Tech High School in Cleveland, where, she liked to brag, another attendee had been Jesse Owens, the famous gold medal winner at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Then she’d go on about how the girls at school around 1918 learned to make hats and soap. And concluded with, “But not me.” Mom was good in math and went to a twoyear business program after graduation from East Tech. Then the General Mills Company hired her in their accounting department. Her story about meeting dad continued. “Another bookkeeper and I became good friends, and one day our boss asked if we liked to play cards. When we told him we did, he invited us to join him and his wife for pinochle one evening. He encouraged us to bring our boyfriends to make it a sixsome. On the way home from work that day we discussed our dilemma: Neither of us had boyfriends.” But Heinrich, Mom’s dad, played cards regularly with a group of men and had recently been joined by Frank, the son of the new next-door neighbors. “I had never paid much heed to their group but now figured Frank, though two years younger than I, might make
Will You Marry Me?
a passable candidate for the card playing invitation, and I eyed him with new interest,” she told me. One thing led to another, and card playing evenings with Mom and Frank’s friends ensued. These times were enjoyable without any binding commitment. Then about one year later on Valentine’s Day, Frank gave Mom a large box of chocolates. In the box, right smack in the middle, he had removed the center piece of chocolate and replaced it with a small box containing a diamond ring. “You know, he had taken such pains to open and reseal the chocolate box without my noticing it, so that I would be completely surprised.” And then her last line was always, “I felt I couldn’t refuse to marry
Continued on page 2
Follow your heart to our Valentines / Bridal pages – pages 14 & 15
Let It Snow, Let It
Postal Customer Local / ECRWSS
Snow ...
OR CURRENT RESIDENT
Middlefield Post P.O. Box 626 Middlefield, OH 44062
PreSort Std U.S. Postage PAID Middlefield, OH 44062 Permit No. 77
Cardinal Local Schools Happenings Pages 18-19
Build a Snowman!
Be a part of our 2011 Snowman Building Contest. See details on Page 22.
What Goes Around Comes Around By Ellie Behman I have been giving a lot of thought about writing a New Year’s article and wondered how I could make it different. Sometimes I think everything that needs to be said has been said so I will try to bring another perspective to share with the reader. Hopefully I will be successful. New Year’s Day to many is a brand new beginning, a time to shed any old issues we have and regain a more positive attitude, moving on to a brighter future. I suppose its like tossing out the garbage bags on collection day. Once they are gone, we can begin anew and fresh. On the other hand I feel a new beginning or rebirth can begin at any time for any reason. Ron and I have had such “new beginnings” many times throughout our life, and this is but a glimpse at some of them. We have lived in this old, two-family home for over 37 years, and to date the upstairs apartment has housed eight children, six grandchildren, and one great grandchild – not at the same time of course. The picture that might come to the reader’s mind is “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn’t know what to do. . .,” but this was not the case. When our first 22 daughter married and moved upstairs ge ls.
Continued on page 2
st o P ! d l e ring fi le Hi pa tai d e e d Mi Is Se for d