Happy Easter from Ruth and Nelle

Happy Easter from Ruth and Nelle

Happy Easter from Ruth and Nelle.
Classic picture of their beautiful flower garden.
The Easter Lillies were blooming and yes, it appears the piglets are having an Easter feast.
(4.4.13 My dad has identified these pigs as NELLE'S).

Good Friday 2013

Easter is so earlier this year.  The sun is shining but there is still snow on the ground and I have one lone Christmas bough hanging on my morning porch.  It’s just been too cold to get out there and take it down.  Today is the day…..it’s supposed to be a heat wave – near 50!

Easter was always a special time for the Wyant cousins when we were growing up.  There was usually an Easter Egg hunt at Ruth and Nelles and if it was warm enough outside, we would end up playing in the flower garden.  Greg and I used to pretend that the bushes were our houses and we would go visiting each other.  We were allowed to walk down the sidewalk to the corner and the most fun was crossing the "bridge" that was at the end of the street.  How disappointing to grow up and realize that it wasn't a bridge that was home to a troll but a little tiny crossing so that the some kind of water could run under.  

In any event, I love reading these old letters from our family and sharing them but it’s bittersweet.  It reminds me of what an amazingly loving and supportive family we all have/had, but it also reminds me of how much I miss the ones who are gone.  Beyond that, all of the little details that Ruth and Nelle are writing about in the following letters remind me of all of the little things that families do for each other that don’t go unnoticed at the time, but are sometimes forgotten over time – just everyday “pitching in” that makes the load lighter.  Ruth talks about this in her letter. We’re all separated by so much distance but I know that each of us is doing those everyday little things with our families that will create that feeling of warmness that we all had when we were kids.

Do you remember some of these remembrances?  They were shared by the Wyant cousins years ago:

Rhonda: Grandpa hung a tire swing and pushed us in it. Grandma took us berry picking and we can home purple one time from all the berries that never made it into the basket.

Melinda:  Grandma made Barbie clothes for me out of her scraps of material.

Brad: Grandma taught me and Todd how to make worms out of foam egg cartons and decorate their faces with markers and cotton balls.

Melinda:  Grandma and Ruth both had the habit of clipping things out of newspapers and magazines and sending them to people.  (Their version of Facebook!)

Andy:  Grandma made those sweet Kool-Aid popsicles and Grandma didn’t mind if I tried every flavor.

Following are a couple of letters that will give us a peek into the Wyant/Bobe/Sampson family life in 1977-1978.

They were again written to the Doyle Wyant family.  I think the first is from Nelle Sampson.  It’s unsigned but the handwriting looks like Nelle’s as well as the conversation. Nelle would have been in her early 80s.  I think that it must have been very sad for her to watch her friends and family dying . . . she sounds melancholy when she says "we are going down the valley one by one," and may have felt that she would be joining her friends soon but she had 17 more years of life in her!

Monroe City, In

Monday the 12^th, 1977

Dear Doyle and family,

Hope this finds you all well and happy.  We are!  We have a big snowman and can’t go anywhere, but I’m happy to be alive and well and at home.  We didn’t go to Church yesterday. We didn’t go to church yesterday.  Glen Kinman stopped for us but we didn’t go.  Too much slipping and sliding for me.  Ruth went to the P.O. Saturday.  Bernard’s cousin, Bill Sampson and Ethel came out in the p.m.  He is a big fellow.  Beryl is small alongside him.  He lives in Eugene, Oregon.  He brought us a real big bouquet, a poinsettia.  He comes about this time every year.  Last year he came for my birthday in October. Today (Mon) is gloomy if you know what I mean.  Have had to have the light on (in mid-morning).  A good time to sleep, think I’ll go back to bed.  Ha!  I did Monday night so I’ll finish this.  Julia Catherine (Kortge?) died last Mon.  The roads were so bad Joe and Frank Osborn didn’t go.  She was 70 years old.  There were 4 all started to school one fall and their birthday were the spring before Julia, Della, Harrel, Earl, Brock, and Warner Ray, all gone now except Earl.  We are going down the valley one by one.  Ira Berry passed away a week or so ago.  Greg Byrd was killed in a car wreck about 2 wks ago.  (end of letter, unsigned)

The fierce winter that kept Nelle in.

Aunt Di's bobby socks tell me that this is in the late 50s.
She and Nelle are posed for a picture in Monroe City, Indiana.

Nelle Sampson was born in 1885 and died in 1994 - nearly 100!
This was in October of 1975 in celebration of her 80th birthday.  

I believe this picture is one of the last formal pictures taken of Nelle.
She was well into her late 80s or early 90s.  She died in 1994 at the age of 99.

From Ruth:

April 12, 1978

Dear Folks,

Thanks for the pretty card.  I got 20. Nelle had received several get well cards also.  She isn’t feeling very well. She has had to give up going to Sunday School after getting out every Sunday but one through our fierce winter.  She is so weak and her circulation isn’t good.  That prevents the oxygen from going into her lungs, as it should so she has a difficulty in breathing.  She wanted to write some but really doesn’t feel like it.

Jim Coun (?) was cutting down a small tree and it fell on him and broke his ankle, so he is in a cast in the hospital.  Myron is going strong.  Harry Scott is in the hospital with heart trouble.  Billy Sampson is doing ok after 5 hours on the operating table and 550 stitches.  His back gave him so much pain and the Dr. kept trying to find the trouble. Finally they sent him to Indianapolis and 3 valves were clogged from high cholesterol.  They cleared 2 and found a blood clot just ready to enter his heart.  Lester Hinkle is home but has no use of his left arm and only a little of his left leg.  Marsolie is about worn out too.

Well Spring is here. My magnolia, tulips, hyacinths, and Easter flowers are all blooming (also grass).  Denny put a new ceiling on my carport and painted the roof.  He really did a good job.

The carport that was "fixed up" so lovingly by Uncle Denny.

Ruth and Nelle's house in Monroe City.
The flower gardens were tended tenderly and the vegetable gardens fed them in a way that Whole Foods only tries to do!

Ruth and Nelle in their living room.
Handmade doilies and pillows were scattered everywhere.

Diane, Marie and Cliff are all at your dads.  He is getting his machinery ready for his sale Saturday.  Diane is fixing Bertie’s house up to suit her.  They got new carpet for the living room.  Brent put it down Saturday.  Vanlue’s live half way between Jerry and Jim.  Dwight is working steady.  He had real high blood pressure one day but is ok now.  They are still working hard trying to make the church grow.  Lisa went to Florida with the H.S. band last week.  Chris and Brad have a Grit route (Note to Chris and Brad....what is Ruth talking about? I have read it again and again and can't make any sense of it.  MWJ). Dale and Melinda returned to duty after a paid tour 

in Athens for their institute.

You wanted to do us a favor.  You might move to Monroe City and take care of the senior citizens (ha ha).

With love,

Ruth

Grace Martin, Ruth Bobe and Nelle Sampson
Grace and Nelle were sisters.  Grace was Ruth's mother.

Nelle and Ruth on the left.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The home where Grace, Ruth, and Nelle lived in the Beech Hills.
Their neighbors were Walb and Bertie.

So many things that were vital to the families in the Beech Hills are no longer priorities for so many of us.  

Grace displaying "cow pride!"  Are those cows huge or is it the camera's perspective?
(4.4.13 (Update:  Evidently one of these cows belonged to Denny or Doyle.  Her name was "Deenie" and she had twins!
So this is where our twin gene comes from Brittany!  Ha-Ha)

Cats never dined so well as in the back yard of Grace, Nelle, and Ruth.

Fritzie lost his home at the Dick Wyant residence, but found a royal welcome with
Grace, Ruth, and Nelle.

“The earth laughs in flowers.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

So this is where I learned to love blue hydrangeas?

The "snow ball" bush as Greg and I called it.

It provided the best snow balls for the best snowball fight in the world between Melinda and Greg...
and by the way, we only did it ONE time......but oh, was it fun!

The "Tire Pot"

“Something we all need in order to feel the fullness of life:  It’s not only a sense that we belong on our planet, but that we along in other people’s lives – that we are loved, lovable, and capable of loving.”  ~Mister Rogers

The ladies were always invited to get-togethers at the Wyants.
This was taken in Grandma Wyant's kitchen at home in the Beech Hills.

Nelle and Richard at a family get-together at Denny and Mary's house.

 Grandma and Grandpa's Anniversary Celebration

Happy Birthday to Ruth.

Bernard Sampson, Dick and Denny Wyant help celebrate.

This was taken at Ruth and Nelle's house in Monroe City.

Another celebration!

With friends . . . Ruth is in yellow and Nelle is in pink.
Bertha Campbell is the tall women in the middle and Bob and Lillian Ice are the couple.

Ruth Bobe was a lover of children and she taught them all - in the classroom and in life.  She not only taught but she encouraged the Wyant children to better themselves through education as she did to the grandchildren.  Her ideas to become educated were new and novel in her day and she was a trailblazer in the department of education for so many children in Monroe City.

Ruth with Dick and Denny

Dick, Denny and Doyle are standing in the front.  Ruth in the white dress.

A very stylish Ruth Bobe in her young days. Somewhere along the way, she decided 

that she didn't photograph well and she always turned her head toward her "good side."

1936-1937 4th Grade Monroe City Class

Can you find Denny Wyant?

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations.  ~ George Bernard Shaw.....or Ruth Bobe because she certainly did Here are the obituaries for Nelle Sampson and Grace Martin.  If anyone has Ruth's and would like to share, please email it to me! In Memory of : Nelle E. Sampson Born: October 8, 1886; Entered Into Rest:  August 19, 1984 Monroe City:  Nelle E. Sampson, 97, died at 5:15 a.m. Sunday at the home of her niece, Ruth Bobe of Monroe City.  She was a member of Hamline Chapel United Methodist Church.  Born October 8, 1886, in Harrison Township, Knox County, she was the daughter of John and Hulda Gates Sampson.  Survivors include a sister, Dessie Scroggin of Dexter, Mo., and several nieces and nephews.  Two brother and two sisters preceded her in death.  The funeral will be at 1 p.m. with the Rev. John Thompson and the Rev. Jerry VanLue officiating.  Burial will be in Hamline Chapel Cemetery, south of Monroe City. In Memory of:  Grace Leona Martin Born September 11, 1884  Passed away:  September 12, 1956 Monroe City:  Mrs. Grace Martin, 72, died at 1:50 p.m., Wednesday at the Good Samaritan hospital in Vincennes.  She was a native of Harrison township, born Sept 11, 1884, a daughter of John and Hulda Gates Sampson.  Mrs. Martin, who was a member of Hamlin Chapel, is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Ruth Bobe, and a sister, Nelle Sampson, both of Monroe City route 1; a half-sister, Mrs. Dessa Duckworth of Essex, Mo., and two half-brothers, Roy Sampson of Puxico, Mo., and Roscoe Sampson of Flint, Mich.