Hanukkah began last evening, making today the first full day of Hanukkah 2023. Most folks know Hanukkah as a Jewish holiday in late November or early December. Like the Christian Easter, the date shifts from year to year. The date for Hanukkah is based on a fluctuating date on the Jewish calendar. Praying for Peace and Respect In response to the recent spike in attacks on our Jewish neighbors in this country, I have chosen […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Community
A Wonderful Life?
We have three men to thank for the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Philip Van Doren Stern, author of the short story that inspired the movie; Frank Capra, the immigrant who produced the film; Jimmy Stewart, aka George Bailey. Before the release of this perennial favorite, none of them were having a wonderful life. The 1930s and 1940s, the decades in which the short story and the movie first appeared in public, were challenging […]
Continue reading
Elder William and Mary Brewster
I discipline churchgoers with godly lessons and sharp words if they do not change their ways. My goal is to open their hearts so that they seek forgiveness. (William Brewster) William and Mary Brewster are my great x 12 grandparents. While doing research for the two historical novels I wrote with them as the main characters, I spent as much time in the 16th and 17th centuries as I did in the 21st one. The […]
Continue reading
Family Are Forever
John Denver has a line in Rocky Mountain High about “going home to a place he’d never been before.” That is what I did a couple of weeks ago, only I went east to Plymouth, MA rather than west to Colorado for a family reunion. I spent Saturday afternoon and evening with distant cousins I’d never before met in person. Knowing we shared at least two ancestors in common gave us a starting place to […]
Continue reading
Ohio Library Tour – Newark
Ohio has over 250 public library systems. My friend Lisa made a list of them, organized by county. Last weekend we launched our Ohio Library Tour, intending to tour as many of them as time and gas money permit. First up on our Ohio Library Tour was the Licking County Public Library in Newark, a community of 50,000 a short drive east of Columbus. My mother was born in Newark, but we chose the city […]
Continue reading