My memories are many of the good times, out on the farm at Follett. You were always so kind and generous with your time when it was "my turn" to spend a week or so on the farm in the summertime.
You let us kids use your school "duplicating" equipment. As I remember it was made of a green jelly-type material. You would share some of your school copies with us so that we might have pictures to color. We held school in the east room upstairs and had the lovely blackboard-desk to use with all the "fabulous" pictures that could be rolled backward and forward at the top. I especially liked the sewing cards and yarn you let me use.
You taught us how to look for the wild flowers and to make chains and bouquets that we could then take to the cemetery and decorate the family graves. As Lucille & I reminisced in later years she said, "Why the cemetery at Follett was our playground when we were growing up." We may have played there but we knew it was a special place. The clean-up day for Memorial Day was always a fun time, when everyone came and raked and trimmed and made it neat. I was a grown woman before I knew it was our beloved Grandpa Riffle that had donated that land for the cemetery.
Two very special Christmas gifts I had from you were: a doll trunk that I cherished for years and an aluminum set of cooking pans which included an angel food cake pan; mother let me bake many a loaf of bread when she baked and Ethel would give me some of her angel food cake dough for my pan.
I always felt so special walking with you the 1/2 mile through the wheat field to get the mail from the box. You even sometimes let me listen in on the party line of the telephone! Then there was the special times when you played the piano for US, and everyone sang; or you played the violin. Another very special time was when you took Lucille & me with you and Lottie Haney to Shattuck when you bought your wedding dress. That was my very first time to eat in a restaurant! You were so lovely in your new clothes, and we had never been to any stores except those in Follett; we were absolutely awed by all the lovely things that we saw that day.
You were my role model when I was growing up, I wanted to be educated like you were, (probably at that time I even wanted to be a school teacher because you were). There was one thing I never did acquire though -- a gentle voice like yours. You have influenced my life in many ways and I am thankful for your love and that you are my Aunt. You will probably be surprised to know that because you chose to live in a retirement home-that influenced me to look at that possibility when I had to make a decision as to what to do with my life after I was alone.
This very special birthday of yours will add more pleasant memories of you to my heart. That so many of us are able to share in this celebration is a blessing and a joy. The cousins here I have not known since we were children; so because of you we have a reason to come together and celebrate. You are one great lady and we all have been blessed by your love.
--Ruth Kroeker Reynolds