There is Joy in Remembering

A distant cousin, Esther Ready, with whom I have reconnected as a result of THE TENNEY QUILT, told me recently in an email, “Thank you for the joy you have brought in so many ways I’m sure you didn’t expect.” The thoughts that people have shared with me and the things that I have heard and witnessed myself over the last six weeks tell me Esther was right.

I cannot tell you the joy I felt as I listened to Lyle Raguse and Harris Richardson and others share memories about the early Tenney days at the Wheaton Library book signing—especially as I looked around the room at the sea of gray hair and watched as they laughed, nodded, and contributed their own “paragraph” to the Tenney story. Among that crowd was my own mother who is, of course, the reason for all of this and who is the one person who has probably enjoyed it more than me. Almost without fail, every person who attended that book signing event in Wheaton approached me at some point during the afternoon and thanked me for writing this book. At the Campbell book signing, I heard among the background noise of people laughing, talking, catching up, “I haven’t seen you for 40 years!” What joy I felt to know that it was because of THE TENNEY QUILT that these particular two people who had known each other in Tenney 40 years ago had found each other again and spent at least a little time on a Saturday afternoon joyfully reminiscing about a little town that held a special place in each of their hearts.

Alan Kinker has shared with me how he had started reading THE TENNEY QUILT to his aging mother, Elaine Ready Kinker, who grew up in Tenney and was an original signer of the quilt, and most recently a resident of a care facility in Ohio. Elaine’s memory had long since failed, but when her son read THE TENNEY QUILT, her eyes came alive and Elaine even went so far as to correct her son’s pronunciation of one of the Tenney women, Lizzie Strobusch (The correct pronunciation is “STRAW BUSH”, and Elaine knew it!) Sadly, Alan had only made it through the first few chapters of the book when Elaine suffered a stroke and passed away three days before Christmas. I want to believe that Elaine felt some measure of joy as she was transported back to a better time through the words of THE TENNEY QUILT. I choose to believe that this is the case.

Esther Ready shared with me that she also read part of the book to her father, John Ready when she visited him in Kansas a few weekends ago, and that he was enjoying it immensely, in spite of the fact that his memory, too, is failing.

Mary Shaffer MacLaughlin, Gene and Hattie Shaffer’s daughter, mentioned to me that her cousin Carol was reading the book to Carol’s mother, 98-year-old Jennie Richardson Nelson out in Boise, Idaho. Jennie certainly must be the oldest surviving signer of the Tenney Quilt. What joy to hear that the book made Jennie and her daughter laugh together! Jennie was a young woman of 19 when the Tenney Quilt was made.

Barbara Kapitan Holtan (Gertie Kapitan’s granddaughter, Everett Kapitan’s daughter) shared with me that she laughed and she cried as she read the book. Barbara has thanked me a million times for writing the book and has become dear to me, as has Sherry Swan, who is Al Manthie's granddaughter and who willingly shared so many of her grandfather's scrapbooks and Tenney keepsakes with me. Jim Fett, who grew up in Campbell, said the book spoke to his parents’ experiences and brought him back to his childhood in Campbell, though he now lives on the west coast. My cousin, Owen Polifka, told me more than once that he had tears in his eyes each time he read the Introduction to THE TENNEY QUILT, which talks about the Tenney that we see today, seeing in his heart the very different Tenney where he spent his childhood. With most people, there is joy and sadness and a sense of bittersweet remembrance when it comes to Tenney.

Even those that have no connection to Tenney are telling me that the book transports them to days gone by or brings back sweet remembrances of their mother or their grandmother. I could go on and on. Thank you for telling me your stories. To know that THE TENNEY QUILT brings YOU joy is beyond anything I could have ever hoped for.