Who Knew There Could Be So Many Definitions of Love

It is February and Elizabeth O'Neal has sent out the email with our February Genealogy Blog Party. Writing Assignment. The topic is LOVE. Hmmm, where will I go with this. Happily she has offered suggestions and allowed us to make the definition of LOVE verrrry broad.  Two of her suggestion struck home with me and so here I am. I am going to combine two of her suggestions that, for me, work well together in telling my 'love story', love of helping others and love of a career.
Additionally there is another kind of love involved and we will come to that shortly. I first began my teaching career in Chicago in September of 1954. I taught at 5thgrade at Nettelhorst School for several years and then retired in December of 1956 to begin my family. In 1967 I returned to my profession. My three children and I all attended daily in the Glencoe, Illinois public schools. They were in elementary school and I joined the middle school staff teaching Social Studies and Language. It was a great place to teach and wonderful teachers as colleagues.

About a year later something new began to creep into the world of education. The idea of Learning Centers or Library Learning Centers. The library was not going to be a books only place. The concept of students working alone or in teams on particular project topics. They would use classroom resources and also come to look for additional materials. Teachers would work with the library staff to find new kinds of resources. Shortly opportunities to help teachers and/or librarians develop ways to implement this kind of learning environment. An age of looking at a new learning environment was just dawning. As we all know few areas change more slowly than schools. I found the idea exciting and started taking courses that could lead to my becoming more involved in the interactive learning environment.

My Favorite Name - #52Ancestors2018

Now this is truly a challenge.  Not just a favorite but... the most favorite name. There are so many to choose from along the path of a lifetime. A Place, a person, an object. Wow, this is really harder than I thought. But I think I finally have it. You, dear reader, might not think of this as one name but allow me to do it my way this time. My favorite name has taken many shapes over the years, and I have been lucky enough to hear it in many forms. Are you trying to guess what it might be? Ok, I won't keep you in suspense any longer. My favorite name is MOTHER but not just the way you think of it. It can be a word, sometimes a word to identify a particular person in this way or to refer to another person. It can be represented in print or as a reference to a particular person. But it can also be a spoken, an identification, a name, when speaking TO a particular person. It is within that context that I label Mother (in its many forms) as my favorite name.

Remembering the Beginning Days of Reinvention and Early Beginnings as a child.

January 30, 2009, Revised December 2, 2017

Looking back from where I am today I am truly aware of what a lucky woman I have been. Oh, that does not mean it has all been a bed of roses. It has not but then I don't anyone who has lived a life of all good times and days. It is almost 10 years since first publication. I had been working on a blog for about a year.... not very often and not with much success.  As I reread that first version I forgot to think of the good things I have enjoyed.  The one I am thinking about