Memorial Day

Twenty years ago my favorite aunt asked me to visit her in Florida. She had some things she wanted to "tidy up" as her heart was failing. She gave me a painting my father had painted and other small family keepsakes. There was a photo of my aunt and her sister, singing at a performance for the troops in the early 1940's. My aunt was born in 1906 and lived to be 95 years old. She taught piano lessons up to 2 weeks before she died suddenly of a heart attack in 2001. She is the person I most want to be like.

Her biggest worry, she didn't want my uncle Ronald Havers, killed in WWII, to be forgotten. I promised to do what I could to keep his memory alive. The first thing I did was to register his name at the National Cathedral www.nationalcathedral.org. The cathedral maintains a registry for American soldiers killed in the war. I filled out a one page form with his name and other information requested and it was easily done. Uncle Ronald, I remember you today and on many other days. Your 3 big sisters loved you and never forgot you. You were their favorite and remained so all their lives.

Then Gyleen Fitzgerald www.colourfulstitches.com, asked me to edit a book for her, Quilts – Unfinished Stories with New Endings, available on Gyleen's website. Everyone working on the book sent photos from the 1930s - 40s to be featured with the vintage quilts in the book. A perfect way to remember Uncle Ronald! His picture and other family photos from the time period are in the book along with pictures of newly finished quilts from that era. Instructions to make the quilts are included.