Page 2 — ReflectionS –– Summer 2014
ReflectionS
Edna and Alma quite a pair By Sherry Barnum
PUBliSHeR Elizabeth Gorske Managing editoR Eric Young editoRial Staff Sherry Barnum Tim Barnum Kimberly Landenberg Jason Ogden Emily Walker Matt Western adVeRtiSing SaleS Jama Gates Anthony Kachiros Carla Reeves Liz Nicholl coMPoSition Sharon Ehlert Jesse Karbowski eMail sherrybarnum@ogemawherald.com cover Photo
Photo courtesy of Julie O’Keefe
John O’Keefe looks out the dugout during a baseball game while coaching.
Have a story idea for Reflections? Email us at sherrybarnum@ ogemawherald.com
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There aren’t many places you will find Edna Clemens without her sister, Alma Fisher, and for the 81-year-old twins there are a few things left on their bucket list. “We had a great time growing up together,” Edna said. “We never had a disagreement and we have gotten along great for 81 years.” Alma said their mother insisted on dressing them alike since they were babies. “Today, it’s not encouraged and I think it’s a shame. Especially when it is two girls,” Edna said. “I can understand two boys, but two girls should.” “And now they even separate them in school,” Alma said. “And if they would have done that to us, it would have been a problem,” Edna said. “But when we got married and started working we didn’t dress alike,” Alma said. “Now we are just having fun, and it gives us a reason to go shopping,” Edna said. After high school Edna and Alma moved to Trenton to work at Michigan Bell. “We got a room in Trenton and both got a job at Michigan Bell Company as telephone operators until everything changed over to dial,” Edna said. “I loved that job.” “That was back when people had party lines and nothing was automated and everything was done by hand,” Edna said. “They said they were going to close that office and we could transfer to the Detroit area with more modern equipment, but it would have been a problem for us, because there would have been more bus services,” Alma said. “But we were shy and from the country and that scared us so we took the other way out and drew unemployment and looked for other work,” Edna said. Edna said she and her husband decided to move up to Ogemaw County after visiting a lady she worked with at school in Trenton. “She lived at Lake Ogemaw and we just fell in love with it,” Edna said. “So it wasn’t too much longer we looked for a place, my husband retired and then I retired. My son was really the one that wanted to move up here, so we did and we have never been sorry.” “And about the time they moved up here, my husband and I moved south to Florida,” Alma said. “So we were about as far away from each other as you could get.”
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Above, sisters Edna Clemens and Alma Fisher pose for a picture. “So we were close up until we both got married and then she had a family and I didn’t, but you get involved with your own friends and own job and I worked for a bank for 21 years,” Alma said. “And you know, I don’t even think we ever called each other more than once a month because long dis- Edna and Alma play on a teeter-totter. tance was expensive,” Edna said. “But it didn’t bother us being away from each that is 55 and over and play a lot of cards other.” there, and Edna has learned all of our card Edna said she married Bill Clemens in games and she sits in some of the commit1953 and was married for 58 years before he passed away in 2011. Alma married Jack tees I am on and we are just busy all the time,” Alma said. Fisher in 1954 and was married for 54 “For the last three years we have gone on years before he passed in 2008. a cruise in February because that is when “We were both blessed with nice, long our birthday comes up and we just enjoy marriages,” Edna said. them,” Edna said. “We also go to a gym in “And now we really are blessed since Florida and West Branch and do water aerwe’ve become widows; we are free to do obics and exercise because we enjoy keepwhatever we want,” Alma joked. “She ing in shape and staying healthy.” spends her winter months in Florida with Alma said the last cruise they went on, me and then we come back up here togeththere were five sets of twins on board, and er, and I stay until September then go they didn’t know it because not all of them home, and we are both on, our own for a dressed the same like them. few months.” “I don’t go until December,” Edna said. “But I live in a condominium complex See twins, 10
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A heart for hair By Sherry Barnum For 45 years, Arleen Larson has been pinning, curling and cutting hair at Magic Mirror Beauty Salon in Mio. “I have been in business for 50 years, but 45 here at this location,” Larson said. “It’s something I love doing and was meant to do.” “When I was younger I always wanted to be a hairdresser because my dolls were all bald and then I couldn’t figure out why their hair wouldn’t grow back and the dogs always got their hair cut too,” she said. Larson said she opened her business in March 1969. “When I opened my business, there was not another beauty shop here. Well, there was one lady that had a beauty shop that was right behind me, but she quit doing it and Rosemary had a shop on Main Street then,” she said. “But I love what I do. You get to meet a lot of really, really nice people.” Larson, who is originally from a little town south of Ann Arbor, decided to open shop here because her parents moved here and her brother lives in Comins. Arleen attended beauty school in Alpena at Hollywood School of Beauty. “I started school in 1964 and graduated in ’65 and drove back and forth for the next four years,” Larson said. “I couldn’t open a shop because I was still renting at the time after I graduated beauty school, so I worked at a shop in Alpena for years, and drove 126 miles back and forth in rain, sleet and snow.
Sherry Barnum
Arleen Larson and her dog Tucker pose by her chair in her beauty shop. Then once I had put aside enough money to put down on a house, I bought one in Mio.” Larson said opening her own business wasn’t easy, but it was something that she wanted to do. “You have to build clientele and you really have to put your whole heart into it,” she said. “People would come after work, and there were some days I would start at 8 a.m.
and I would still be here after 7 p.m.” “And you have to know their families,” Larson said. “You have to be a personal person to what I do.” “And that’s why I love doing this, I like to talk and talk and talk,” Larson said. Larson said as she went to school and opened her own business she raised six kids. “I have five daughters and one son,”
Larson said. “So I feel like if I can do this, while raising six children, anybody can do it.” “And I have a set of twins in the middle,” Larson said. “It takes a lot of doing, and I thank my mom and dad every day for being there for me.” In the meantime, Larson said she enjoys playing golf, kayaking the river and doing yard work. “I really enjoy doing a lot of different things,” she said. “I used to sew all the time. I sewed all my daughters wedding and prom dresses, made their clothes and back then clothes were expensive like they are now, so at night when they went to bed you would hear the sewing machine going.” And according to Larson, she would also hem dresses for her clients if needed. “I would have someone under the dryer and be hemming their dress while I was waiting,” she said. Larson said if someone is looking to go into this business, they have to be there for the people. “I would go pick up my clients if they needed a ride, do their hair and then take them back,” she said. “Or if someone couldn’t afford the cut, I would barter with them.” Larson said she accepted piano lessons for payment in exchange for doing one lady’s hair. “I have a lot of fond memories at this place,” she said. “Some sad, but all my customers must like me doing their hair or else I wouldn’t have been doing it for 40 to 50 years.”
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Page 4 — ReflectionS –– Summer 2014
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Above, El Handrich spends his spare time making rag rugs at his home in Fairview. Right, El Handrich, center, and the “Five Saps,” a group of men who created a maple syrup business in the 1950s in Fairview.
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Ellsworth “El” Handrich has presumably gone through more car tires than most anyone. This is because the 93-year-old Fairview resident, who has lived less than 100 yards from his birthplace, has driven to every one of the lower 48 states, and a few of them twice. That being said, he claims to have only had one flat tire during his entire lifetime of vacationing across the continent. “I have also driven all across Canada and went 14 times across the pond to Europe,” El said. “I have a daughter living over there.” For El Handrich, he’s spent a lifetime going to different places, experiencing different things, but he’s always ended up back in Fairview where he raised a family and had a life with his wife, Mary Alice, who passed away two years ago. The original Handrich place, according to El, was located on Weaver Road, then M-72, near a crossroads. His family originally raised cattle, grew crops and sold milk to the Shantz Creamery located in nearby downtown Fairview. El keeps a snapshot of the family farmhouse and dirt intersection pinned to a cork board in his kitchen. “This picture has been around even before me,” he said, while looking at the scene in the photograph from his kitchen table. El was born in 1921, but the picture is from a time before that. Although El is still around, the original
Handrich homestead burnt, and a replacement was built in its place. El built the house next door, and raised five children with his late wife. He said there have been some changes in Fairview over the years, including businesses in town, but things are a lot like they were back in the 1930s, according to El. “Fairview had an old grocery and dry goods, where the grocery is now, but there was a gas pump right on the corner,” he said. El said the pump, located at a Sinclair station, was the oldstyle, which required a user to crank a handle that pumped gasoline into a glass globe. The gas station attendant could then measure how much gas from the markings on the globe, and gravity then fed the gasoline into the car. “That station is where the bookstore is today, and the garage across the street, well, that was owned by two brothers,” he said. There was also the creamery, which bought the milk from many area farmers, including the Handrich family, said El. Before becoming a real estate agency and then the long-time treasurer of Clinton Township, El carried on the family tradition of farming. The oldest of five sons, he bought the family farm, but then was put into civilian service working with cattle in Pennsylvania during World War II. When he came back from there, he installed the first bulk milk tank at the farm in 1948. Before this, milk was collected from the cows in steel milk cans, cooled in a nearby stream,
See HandricH, 8
ReflectionS –– Summer 2014 — Page 5
Old dog, new tricks By Matt Western Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t publish her first “Little House on the Prairie” novel until she was 65 years old. Grandma Moses, or Anna Mary Robertson, didn’t start her incredibly successful painting career until she was in her 80s. These two show that it’s never too late to find success in a new field late in life, a lesson West Branch resident Bob Schroder has taken to heart. Schroder didn’t begin woodcarving until he was 72, and now, 18 years later, he’s achieved a great deal. In less than two decades Schroder has won a myriad of awards for his ornate woodcarvings. “I’ve got five ‘Best of Shows,’ ‘People’s Choice,’ and I’ve got probably about 30, 40 blue ribbons,” Schroder said. Now, at 90 years old, Schroder has taken up a new challenge: clay sculpting. Having only taken three clay sculpting classes, Schroder incorporates his skill of wood carving into his new projects. He’s found that many of his woodworking tools are perfect for working soft clay, but the differences between clay and wood are still new to Schroder. “Wood has its faults. If you cut too much, you can’t put it back on. With clay you can,” Schroder said. “With clay, if you let something set too long,
Photos by Matt Western and Lisa Saunders
Above, Bob Schroder works on clay leaves. Right, some of Schroder’s artwork on display.
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it’ll be dry and crumbly.” “But when it gets to the final stage and fired, then it turns into something good,” Schroder said. Schroder still enjoys the process of learning how to handle clay and sees its unique properties as a chance to challenge himself. With dried clay being much more brittle than wood, Schroder finds himself occasionally breaking the clay, but he only sees it as a learning opportunity. “I’ve got all the patience in the world to do another one,” Schroder said. “It doesn’t even make me mad because I learned a lesson.” Woodworking and clay sculpting have helped Schroder keep active. His hands are steady, and he doesn’t have any trouble walking. At his age, he realizes just how important these activities are for him and hopes others follow suit. “Someone should tell the seniors this is a lot better than watching TV,” Schroder said. “I know some of them, that’s all they do. They’re the ones who’ve got the canes and the wheelchairs.” For Schroder, clay sculpting provides an interesting challenge. It’s a new test that helps keep his mind sharp and his hands busy. “This is not work,” Schroder said. It’s a labor of love for Schroder, one that he intends to keep for as long as he can.
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O’Keefe stays active during retirement By Sherry Barnum For most, retirement is a time to slow down and enjoy life, but for John O’Keefe, 65, of Standish, retirement has been anything but slow. O’Keefe has kept active throughout the years playing golf, watching baseball and running his kids to and from all their activities after retiring from Standish-Sterling Central High School in 2006. A lifelong resident of Standish, he also recalls a time when the city was more community-oriented. “I loved growing up here,” he said. “It was such a small town; it seems like you knew everybody and everybody knew you, and today you see a lot of people on the streets and someone will say, ‘John, who is that?’ and I would tell them, ‘You know, I honestly don’t know.’” “It was a very nice town to grow up in; people were very generous and very courteous, and it was quite a small and nice community to be raised in,” he said. O’Keefe was involved in a lot of different activities throughout his SSC days playing football, baseball and basketball.
In 1966, he graduated from Standish-Sterling, going on to play basketball and baseball at Muskegon Junior College for two years, before he transferred to Central Michigan University. So where did O’Keefe’s love of Notre Dame come from? “It came from my father,” he said. “My dad was a graduate of the university, my oldest brother went there and my wife, Julie, went to St. Mary’s College, the sister school to Notre Dame.” O’Keefe said although he played basketball and baseball at Muskegon Junior College, he only played baseball at CMU. “I continued on with baseball because I love the game,” he said. “We were taught by my dad; he was an avid baseball man, and loved the sport. He just had a passion for the game and passed that same passion on to us.” O’Keefe, who was involved in the Northeast Michigan League, a men’s summer league, played middle infield second base. “I started playing for the Standish team and then we –– the group of guys I played with –– ended up going out to Mount Forest, which was a combination
See O’Keefe, 9
First Fitness
Photo courtesy of Julie O’Keefe and Sherry Barnum
Left, a young John O’Keefe stands at home plate with his ball and glove. Above, John poses for a photo at the hole outside his house.
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Into the woodwork By tim Barnum Inspiration for Bob Dreyer’s carvings often comes from simply looking out his back window, where he can see birds, deer, trees and farm machinery on a daily basis. Past inspiration has been translated to wooden carvings that adorn his home. “That’s one hobby I hope I never lose,” Dreyer said. “It’s something you can be proud of when you finish.” Ever since the 86-year-old was a child in 4-H and was first exposed to carving and woodworking, it’s something that he’s loved. His work ranges from decorative bird and elk carvings to grandfather clocks and the cupboards in his living room. “Anything with wood really rings a bell with me,” he said. The hobby really picked up about 25 years ago when Dreyer was 61. He said that was when he transitioned from making grandfather clocks and lathe work to focusing more on carving. “When I first started out, it was mostly birds, but then I advanced into bigger stuff,” he said. “They looked like one of the easiest things to make and I could look out my window for a pattern.” Looking further in the distance from his window, Dreyer can see farm fields he owns and leases out being worked with various machines, which gave him new ideas. “I started making farm machinery,” he said. “I got the idea because I’ve got all these tractors around me.” Combines, skid steers and even a bucket truck fashioned after a Consumers Energy truck have all been carved by Dreyer over the years. All of the machines are fully wooden with moving parts. He said he sent away for plans on how to make the machines, and was shipped all of the wood necessary, which he said looked like a million pieces. Carving the machines is usually a process over several months. “It’s all got moving parts and it’s all wood,” he said. “There’s not a stitch of metal on them. It seemed nice, so every winter I would make something new. I’ve probably got about 10 different things.” To carve some of the machinery, Dreyer would also have to carve out tie in his schedule, since he was still working on the family farm in Au Gres he grew up on, which is just a short distance north of where he lives now. “I was still farming yet, milking cows and that,” he said. “I would make one piece of farm equipment in the winter time. I would make one a year.” He and his late brother Don would work on grandfather clocks together in between chores on
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Tractors, a skid steer and a loader are just a few of the machines Bob Dreyer has carved. the farm. Dreyer said they made 16 of them. “We made them out of walnut, mahogany, butternut, oak, whatever they wanted — we’d make them out of it,” he said. With the farm life behind him, Dreyer has taken up a new style of carving and dedicates more time to the hobby. “Now that I’m retired I carve, especially the relief carving,” he said. “I might not be doing anything and I might go outside and carve a bird or an animal or something like that.” Relief carving, he explained, is done one a sheet of wood that the carver cuts shapes into to create a scene. After that, a tool called a wood burner is used to add shading, detail and texture to the shapes. Dreyer uses his wood burner to create bark and leaves on trees, fur on animals and ripples in rivers. Besides looking for new things to carve, Dreyer likes to find new types of wood to carve with. “I was up in Canada, and I came to a place where they have birds’ eye maple,” he said. “I started making pens with that.” Dreyer and his late wife Carrie would head to Canada or the Upper Peninsula for fishing vacations, and he made friends with a man in the UP who helped him acquire the birds’ eye maple for ink pens, which requires the use of a lathe in his shop. The lathe has been used for several projects over the years. “I don’t know how many dozens of bowls I’ve turned in the number of years,” he said. Dreyer’s wife also had an artistic side, and the two of them spent many hours together working on their individual projects. “I could sit here carving and she did her knitting and her crocheting and so on,” he said. “So it worked out good. We both had a good hobby.” On the walls of his house, one can see pictures that were knit by Carrie hanging up. Not surprisingly, the wooden frames holding them were made by Dreyer. However, it is likely that she could’ve made her own frames. “She was pretty handy at wood,” he said. “She
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Handrich: tells of his travels frOM PaGe 4 and then taken to the dairy by truck to be sold. With the bulk tank, the milk could be collected by a delivery truck, and the days of lugging milk cans were over. That wasn’t his only financial venture in his time on the farm, which he helped clear of brush and rocks with his father as a youth. Along with four of his friends, the group became known as “The Five Saps,” starting a maple syrup business in the winter in the 1950s. El keeps a collage of photos, including pictures of a wood-fire sap boiler that was built on the property. During his farming time El said he and his wife, Mary Alice, took their vacations around the country. “We were together 75 years, and we just lost her two years ago,” he said. “We never camped, we just drove. I never wanted to haul anything. We went to places that a lot of people didn’t see,
like Gnaw Bone, Indiana, or Chugwater, Wyoming. I liked to see where people lived. I just loved to travel.” So every June 27 the pair would pack up El’s trusty Buick or Oldsmobile (his favorite car brands) and they would drive. “We started while we still had the farm, and the sons took care of the milking,” he said. “We just picked up and left and went on a trip almost every year. I don’t know any other couple that I’ve ever met that has seen as much as we have.” Of the many different places he’s traveled, El said there was a place in Europe he went to while visiting his daughter, who lives in Holland, that is one of the most interesting places in the world. “It’s Switzerland,” he said. “It’s the quaintness and the beauty of it; it’s so attractive because people are so common. They would have flower beds beside the manure pile, for instance, and boxes of flowers hanging on the
houses. And the Alps, we were up in the Alps and went there from southern Switzerland. There were palm trees; I didn’t know it was like that.” El said he talks to his departed sweetheart, Mary Alice, every morning and dearly misses her, but keeps busy doing projects like constructing rag rugs with a machine. “There is a lot of work, it is all woven in all the way,” he said. “People have been bringing me stuff and old fabric to make rugs.” El said his relationship with Mary Alice had to do with cars, which is where they spent much of their time and where they first met. “There was a family that moved up from Lima, Ohio, right across the road, two days before Christmas in 1938, and I was taking a bunch of kids Christmas caroling, so I thought it would be nice to the new girl to ask her to come along, but it was a mean and ugly night, it was cold,” El said. “While we were driving I heard
Mary Alice say in the backseat, ‘My feet are cold,’ and I told her to come and sit up in the front where the heater was. And she never did leave that front seat, because two days later we started going together. And we went together 4 1/2 years, and we were married 68 years, and then she passed away. I miss her so much.” El attributes his long life to piety, clean living and good food. “Well I love the Lord for one thing, and well, I had the best cook in the county for one thing. My sweetheart was the best cook, she was even better than my mother! But depending on the Lord on my daily life, that is the main thing. I have full confidence in our Creator and his Son,” El said. “But we ate good, I never drank, but I did smoke a little bit and it was stupid,” he said. “My favorite meal was fried chicken. She could make the best chicken around. She could make a meal out of anything.”
Dreyer: finds relief in woodcarving frOM PaGe 7 was pretty good with a band saw too.” There was one period in time where Dreyer was not able to do woodwork or carving — while he served in the U.S. Army in the Korean War from 1952 to 1954. “I spent two years in the war in Korea. In fact I was wounded. I got a Purple Heart,” he said. “So those two years I lost for woodwork, although it was always on my mind.” Dreyer was wounded in June 1953. “I purt near didn’t come back,” he said. “They told I’m one of the lucky ones, because the mortar went around me and went into my stomach.
Boy oh boy I guess I beat the odds.” One of the few carvings in Dreyer’s home not done by him is a Lean on Me Cane he received honoring his service. The cane was given to him by Glen Rice of Omer, a fellow carver who often works on projects with Dreyer. “It’s a program through the Woodworkers of America, and it’s throughout the whole country,” Rice said. “They carve the eagles and they get the shaft and they put all of the veteran’s military information on there.” Rice said he was happy to give Dreyer the cane. “For me it was pleasure to give it to Bob,” Rice
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said. “The reason he got it is because he was a veteran and the Purple is at the top of the list for him for the awards. That’s a signification that he had at least one very bad day.” There are ceremonies held when the canes are given out, and Rice said they can get emotional at times. That was the case when Dreyer received his. “They called me up there. I wondered, ‘What the heck now?’” he said. “They presented it to me and it almost brought tears to my eyes.” Rice said he and six or seven other people often stop by Dreyer’s house to work on carvings together.
“We have a good time,” he said. “You have chats and you critique each other’s carving and stuff, ask for advice. It’s just kind of a camaraderie thing.” Dreyer belongs to the Arenac Bay Carvers and travels to Standish and Pinconning each month to work on projects with the group. Although he is in his 80s, he said he has no plans to slow down with woodwork and that he is still on the lookout for new ideas. “If somebody comes up with a nice carving I like, a relief carving, I’ll try that,” he said. “I sure enjoy woodworking,” Dreyer added. “I guess I always will.”
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ReflectionS –– Summer 2014 — Page 9
O’Keefe: shares passion for baseball, sports frOM PaGe 6
Sherry Barnum
John O’Keefe keeps on top of his game by participating in golf outings.
of Standish, Pinconning and players from West Branch,” he said. “The NEM was a once-a-week league that played on Sundays. It was just a group of men that had a passion to play baseball and was quite competitive. It was a really good league and it was the oldest league in the state of Michigan for the longest time.” O’Keefe said the NEM started in the 1910s and went until the 1980s or early ’90s. “The whole league was made up of players from small communities around the area that had a love of baseball,” O’Keefe said. “For not being able to have a lighted field and playing two to three times a week, we had a lot of fun playing.” And just like every other little boy, O’Keefe had the dream of playing the majors. “I think every little boy dreams of playing in major leagues, but it’s so competitive and so demanding that so few people have the ability to do it,” he said. “Then you reach a point in your life where you know that you just aren’t good enough to do it and it’s nothing to be ashamed of; it’s just that they are very, very skilled athletes and it’s very difficult to make a major league squad.” But in 1970, O’Keefe was drafted by the Chicago White Sox. “I was drafted by the White Sox right out of college, but at that time the Vietnam
War was going on and I was drafted into the service. They were looking for a position for me with the National Guard or somewhere in the states, so I would be able to continue my baseball dreams and stuff, but there were no openings,” he said. “So I started teaching at SSC, and it was actually Friday the 13th of October in 1970 when I was drafted by the military, and that is how I ended up in the service instead of playing baseball.” “After the service it probably would have been too late for me to continue any aspirations of making it,” O’Keefe said. After playing baseball for so many years, O’Keefe said the game has not changed too dramatically since he played. “The pitchers still have to throw the ball across the plate and the hitters still have to hit it,” he said. “As far as changes go, the equipment is better and you have some awfully gifted athletes, but it’s not that much different as far as the game goes.” O’Keefe said he got the idea of becoming a teacher from his older sister and brother that were teachers. “So when I went into teaching I got the idea of going into coaching because I thought coaching was the next best thing to playing,” he said. “I enjoyed the years that I coached in high school, they were very gratifying.” O’Keefe coached baseball and football for 30 or more years and basketball for eight to ten years at SSC. “I started out teaching at SSC and spent
my entire career there,” he said. “After I came back from the service they had to give me my job back because I had already started teaching.” O’Keefe said it wasn’t like he never applied for jobs elsewhere, but having grown up in Standish played a role in why he never wanted to go anywhere else. “When my world history teacher resigned and went into business, he came over and told me that there was going to be a position opening and I should apply for it,” he said. “So I did, and I had been there ever since.” O’Keefe taught U.S. history, world history and some physical education. “I taught for 36 years before I retired in 2006,” O’Keefe said. “Since I retired I have been playing golf –– I love to play golf –– and transporting my kids to various activities they are involved in, and there are a lot of them.” O’Keefe said he also likes to complain about the winter, although he does take short trips south to play golf and visits with another retired teacher from Pennsylvania. “We hang out and play some golf, but with the kids still in school it’s hard to go down for any length of time,” O’Keefe said. John has four kids, Shannon, 40, Kelly, 36, Sean, 15, and Caitlyn, 14. He was also inducted into the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2003.
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Page 10 — ReflectionS –– Summer 2014
Twins:enjoy staying active, doing things together frOM PaGe 2 “But we always dress alike because it gives us a lot of attention and when you are 81 you need it,” Alma said. “So people would always comment when they saw us and then a couple sets of twins came up to us that may not have dressed alike, but you could tell. One set we met were guys and we hardly ever meet guy twins; it’s always girls,” Edna said. “They were very nice. One was married and one was a widow, and we didn’t marry twins, we wanted to, but it’s hard to do especially when you live in a small town. It’s hard enough to find a decent-looking guy, let alone a set of twins.” Alma said people always ask them if they ever tried to fool their husbands or boyfriends by pretending one was the other. “I always tell this one story,” she said. “Edna had just met this guy and didn’t know him all that well. But she and I and another girl from the phone office all roomed at the same rooming house and came up with the idea that I should go out with Bill that night and not tell him and see what happens. So when he came to pick Edna up, I went along with it, and Bill was quite a talker. I got in the car and he started gabbing and he talked and talked and kept driving and driving and I knew the restaurant was another 20 miles away. So I finally said, ‘Oh Bill, we have to go back.’ And he said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘I’m not Edna.’ He laughed, but I’m not sure if his heart was really in it. So he took me back and took Edna out.”
Photo courtesy of Edna Clemens and Alma Fisher
Above, Alma Fisher and Edna Clemens pose on their trikes for a Double Mint commercial they hope to make. Right, Alma and Edna pose for a photo in front of a cruise ship. “But we didn’t dare play any tricks in school,” Edna said. “Especially first through eighth grade, because we went to a Catholic school and those nuns did not like horseplay.” Alma said they also enjoyed going to the Twins Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, last year. “The whole town is geared towards
twins,” Alma said. “And the festival has been going on since 1947.” “It is something we always wanted to do, and it was on our bucket list so we went,” Alma said. “There were about 2,000 sets of twins there and it was so much fun.” “Edna’s daughter took us last year and told everyone how much fun it was, so Edna’s son and his wife are going this year,
plus her daughter that took us last year,” Alma said. “But everyone is so friendly and they have all kinds of things going on.” “It’s very well-organized,” Edna said. “They have a talent show for anyone who
See edna and alMa, 11
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ReflectionS –– Summer 2014 — Page 11
Edna and Alma: still have a lot to check off their bucket list frOM PaGe 10 has a talent and a bunch of different competitions. The one that we got into was for the oldest set of twins and we figured, hey, we are 80, we are going to make it. Well, guess what, the oldest set of twins were 96 or something like that and we both thought one of them has to die off before we can get into this competition again.” “But they weren’t walking with canes or anything,” Alma said. “Yes, they were very healthy,” Edna said. But losing the oldest twin competition didn’t get them down, because in 1949 they won the gold loving cups at the Michigan State Fair for the most identical twins. “That was a big treat for us,” Edna said. “We were only 15 or 16 years old at the time.” “My sister likes to write and send in pictures,” Alma said. “So she wrote in to ‘Reminisce’ magazine after she saw something in it that said they were going to do something on twins, so she sent it in.” “And we got published,” Edna said. “So now she is working on a Double Mint commercial,” Alma said. “She said she was going to contact them and say, ‘Remember in the ’50s when you had those young girls on the bicycles? Well, now it’s time to do them as seniors!’ So we had some pictures of us taken on three-wheel bikes while we were in Florida.” “But I haven’t sent it in yet,” Edna said. And when they aren’t busy making commercials, going on cruises and writing stories, they enjoy attending different events going on in town. “We don’t miss out on much,” Edna said. “We enjoy going to the park on Thursday night for the music and every Friday when there is something going on we go to that.” “No, we don’t miss out on too much,”
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A young Alma and Edna pose for a photo. Alma said. “And when we are down in Florida there is so much going on that we get to go to.” “Like last year we went and saw Willie Nelson, so we checked that off our list,” Edna said. “We are very fortunate to both be in good health,” Alma said. “Life has been a wild ride,” Alma said. “But we aren’t done yet; we have a few more things on our bucket list.” “Yeah, we have a lot of things we want to do but nothing we can talk about,” Edna joked.
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Left is an article that Edna sent in to “Reminisce” magazine.
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