The umbrellas of Cortona accept the Spring rain as it gently falls on the Piazza Repubblica. Bunogiorno said the baker when Henry passed by. He replied his own good morning also and kept walking in the April breeze. Walking is the most acceptable form of getting from one place to...
The full moon rose over a great silence. It was March. The winds were less fierce now over the fertile acres of Tennessee land. The deer look out from the dense forest and similar to statues, are still. The crow of the cock will awaken the day and Sophia, the...
“Happiness is not always loud and bright and crowded.” —E.L. Konigsburg I lived in silence. And yet I heard everything. The silence restored my soul. It gave me the peace and quiet I so desired from the marketplace. When I go into a shop and it is quiet, I am...
International author and The Voice columnist, Jo Fredell Higgins, will have her fifth children’s book “Mama Mabel: The Duck of Ten Eggs” released this month. The duck nested in her front yard last year and Jo took all of the book’s photographs. Two more children’s books will be released in...
Ah, Spring! It is the mischief in me! Life resumes full and rich and complete with gardening, swimming, and picnics soon possible. Warming weather outside for walks and daydreams. All my birds returning and the first robins of the season enjoying the birdseed. The quiet of the Spring when buds...
Dear Reader, there are many items of general interest so here are a few to please you on this sun-filled March morning. Bits: In Colonial Williamsburg the elegant garden of lawyer Benjamin Waller was formal and contained Boxwood parterres, unique fence pickets and a central walk of marl and gravel....
Tell me about Fate! What is meant to be, will be. When opportunity knocks, you have to answer the door. Because it will not knock again. Last Spring a mutual FB friend posted on my Naperville book and another friend saw it. It was former Woodridge mayor of 32 years,...
Thirteen thousand years ago, prehistoric human habitation lived in the region of Wyoming. Evidence from Yellowstone National Park tells us that there was a vast trading network of 1,000 years ago. The Union Pacific Railroad played a central role in the European settlement of this area. Wyoming became a U.S....
It was Valentine’s Day in Copenhagen, Denmark. Engaged couple Emma and Mark were strolling the Old Sailor’s Quarter after disembarking from a harbor tour boat. Copenhagen became affluent by trade and the 17th Century buildings that survived the 1795 fire still look impressive among the newer, copper, roofs. The history...
When she was gliding on to the Fox River, I named her Michele. Andea Herodias, herons will live approximately 15 years in the wild. She seemed to show qualities of grace, poise, reflection, and symmetry. Her ancestors were noted in 1758 in North America especially in Kansas and Oklahoma and...
Sally grew up with a life of privilege living on High Point Drive in Peoria. Her father was a doctor and her mom was a socialite. She wanted for nothing. Her pony, Chester, gave her many happy trails around Peoria. He was boarded near North University Avenue and Sally could...
The leader was a Palomino stallion. His gold coat and light cream mane and tail were the result of thousands of years in the Middle East. Queen Isabella in the 1500s kept 100 Palominos for the nobility to ride. She sent a Palomino stallion and five mares to the New...
My maternal cousin, Tom O’Brien, is a master historian and genealogist who literally has traveled the world in search of facts and photographs, particularly of the Litterst family. He and his wife have travelled extensively. Tom and his French wife, Marguerite, raised two sons and live in the Portland, Oregon...
“Bake your honey cake, All browning and sweet. Bake it at 3 o’clock for tea, Bake it for you and for me.” —Jo Fredell Higgins Welcome to the New Year 2022. May it be one of joy and plenty. Kings and priests regarded the sanctity of the bees and found...
Books under consideration this last week of the old year: • The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. Author Charlie Mackesy wrote the most delightful book about love, friendship, and kindness. This book speaks a universal language, including these thoughts: “What do you think success is?” asked the...
The season of Christmas arrives once again. Just as it always has. Just as it always will. Many centuries ago, the Germany people honored the pagan god Oden during the mid-Winter holiday. Germans were terrified of Oden because they believed he made nocturnal flights through the sky to observe his...
“It is good to be children at times and never better than at Christmas.” — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Ten years ago I added another day to my “Top Ten” list of my entire life. That November day n 2011 was cool and grey. The Winter birds flew across...
It was a beautiful September day and Dale Berman came to the Cole Center in Aurora for his Fox Valley Park District book interview. What a complete delight! Dale Berman was born January 3, 1934. He served in the U.S. Army, 1954-1956, in South Carolina with anti-aircraft artillery on the...
“The happy person is the person who does something.” —Mary Lemist Titcomb In the late 19th Century the American School Library was a traveling frontier library published by Harper & Brothers. The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History has the only complete original set of that series complete with...
“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us.” — Jane Addams Elizabeth, the child, passed the night and went straight into her Heavenly Father’s arms. She died of malnutrition in the tenements of New York City, 1910. She left four...
