18 - Food, Culture
Jonathan: All right, it’s January 4, 2026, Sunday afternoon. Glad to be talking with you, Mom. Hello, hello. Good stuff. You got snow on the ground there or what’s it like up in Michigan?
Laura: The degrees, it’s 24 degrees and the world is white. It’s beautiful. I love looking out the windows of my house here because you can see the River clearly with the leaves all gone and everything’s covered in snow.
Jonathan: Wonderful. Wonderful. Now you were telling me one of the last times we talked about some big wood piles that Ted was going to burn and does that happen already or is he waiting for?
Laura: No, they’re all out there and I’m eager for him to start burning them. But when that happens, it’s going to take a whole day and maybe even two days. because there’s so much and it takes a while for it to burn down. And he’ll just stay and feed. Three of the piles have big tarps over them, which made them drier to start the fire. Now I don’t know what his plans are for the two that are wet. Maybe that’s gonna take longer, but at any rate, It’s not a small project for Ted. It’s going to involve whole days.
Jonathan: Yeah. Well, I’m glad he’s, he’s taking care of all that. I know he’s making your yard look good. So that’s a good thing.
Laura: Yep. And you know, every time he comes, he brings me something. Oh, strawberries were on sale or I don’t know. He just, he, he, for example, he bought a, a big turkey, which he couldn’t eat at all. But after he cooked it, he cut off big sections of it for me, took the bones off it. So he’s just thoughtful in many ways.
Jonathan: That’s really nice. I’m glad. I’m glad.
Well, today, and we’re just kind of going through some different topic areas, but we identified a couple of different questions around food. movies and television and books. And that’s kind of the theme, if you will, for our conversation today. And I sent you some of these questions earlier, but some of these may not be much you want to talk about today. But in food experiences, I wonder if, as a child, there were foods that you absolutely loved or that you absolutely hated.
Laura: OK. First of all, my dad was the cook most of the time. And every breakfast, he would make eggs. And all of a sudden, I couldn’t stand eggs anymore. And in fact, there were a couple of times when I would slide them in my lap and then when he wasn’t looking, go into the bathroom and slip them in the toilet. I tried to get rid of them, but he insisted I needed an egg a day. So that was one big memory of my grade school, high school days living with dad, whether it was New Jersey or Grand Rapids, where dad cooked eggs for breakfast. Now, if he made cereal. I don’t ever remember him bringing boxes of cereal, cold cereal. He would make oatmeal sometimes and that was fine.
As far as food is concerned, he did almost all the cooking. My mother had two things that I remember that we loved and begged for. One was brownies and the other was her fudge. And I have her fudge recipe. In fact, I made it just recently. But it requires you to use a thermometer because at a certain height, then you take it off the flame and you start whipping it. And it thickens really fast. And if you don’t pour it quickly, all of a sudden you’ve got a brick in a pan. that you can’t get out. So my mother’s fudge recipe, I don’t think anybody, any of my siblings has tried to make it and I have made it. It’s wonderful. Mother also once in a while she’d make soup or something that simmered a long time when we were all gone and dad wasn’t, his cooking was at the most an hour of preparation before we ate. He used the frying pan a lot. And our absolute favorite food that mom and dad made together was eggplant that had been cut into little pieces and coated with a cracker mix and then fried in oil. And to this day, I still love that. fried eggplant. And I think all of my siblings did too.
Other than that, my dad boiled potatoes. Pretty conventional meals and not ever seafood.
Just recently in the last year and a half, I have really learned to love seafood. It’s the one thing on my list that’s allowable. And so my memories of dad shopping for groceries and of cooking were pretty repetitive.
He didn’t try new things. He didn’t make casseroles, although goulash he did make. And we always drank milk, milk, milk. I don’t remember pop in the house ever, but I do remember dad making popcorn and I think lemonade or some kind of a drink that was not milk, but almost all the time we drank milk. And as I grew older, then my mom would make tea and I liked tea if I was allowed to put sugar in it. but that was not served to everybody. My mom would make some and then she’d give me a cup.
Jonathan: That’s kind of a neat, shared, kind of a special thing right there as you’re describing it.
Laura: Well, the other thing is, mom cleared the table and packed up all leftovers in little containers in the refrigerator while We were clearing the table and making a stack. Dad would be running a bowl of hot, hot water. Then he would wash, and Connie and I would dry and put away.
So that was a ritual that followed every dinner.
Lunches Dad made, and they were also very predictable. a lot of apples, bananas, a sandwich always, and something sweet. Now, I remember he would buy donuts that were on sale that were not fresh anymore. And I would get that. And another thing I would get is little individual boxes of raisins. That was a regular in my lunches. My lunches were pretty predictable and pretty simple.
So when I came home from school, I was pretty hungry.
And the kinds of things that you’d eat between 3 and 4 in the afternoon would be crackers and peanut butter or windmill cookies. Never cold cereals or bowls of anything. Always just hand snacks.
Jonathan: Well, now you waited for your dad to get home, or would he have been home? Like, as a pastor, did he have kind of a flexible schedule?
Laura: Well, yes, he had a flexible schedule. But when we were going to Granville Avenue Christian, the walk home was quite a long one. When we were taking the bus from Seymour, that probably got us home by 4.30, which was getting close to supper. We usually ate supper and supper was done by six o’clock because dad always had meetings at the nighttime. And I would practice after we had supper at the church or if I got home early enough at like 3 30 or four to four I would practice then until we ate. But on school days the time three for me to go into the church and practice and not disturb meetings was very limited. And my folks would not like me to go there after the meetings at, say, 9 or 9.30 at night. So that meant that Saturdays, I was practicing long, long hours. And Sunday afternoons, very likely, too.
Practicing piano when I was in New Jersey, my mother had that all set up, and that was maybe at the most 30 minutes right after school. And I didn’t enjoy or look forward to that. It was an obligation. But once I was… And it was an obligation.
Jonathan: Let me interrupt you. That was an obligation because the teacher or the instrument, what was it?
Laura: It was a piano and my parents had paid for the lessons. So the fact that it cost them money meant it cost me time. I had to be sure To be prepared for the next lesson.
Jonathan: Okay. But at a certain point, I think, I don’t think you viewed your organ rehearsals as an onerous thing, but you talk about piano as being kind of a burden and something you didn’t enjoy.
Laura: Well piano. I remember that in Agnes, for example, would always ask me to play. And yes, I did play not the piano lessons were called the Johnson series. And I probably went through book number four. By the time we went to Grand Rapids, even though we had the piano and I played a little, starting organ really inspired me to practice hard. So I had a feeling about organ playing that was much warmer and rewarding than my piano playing.
Jonathan: Well, there was a, and we’re getting off our topic of food a little bit here, but this is very interesting to hear you talk about. Your organ had a public performance aspect to it, too. That must have really increased the pressure on you.
Laura: Well, the first year and a half, it was just lessons. I started playing in church when I was 15.
By the time I was 16, I was playing almost every week. And we had a church service that was recorded on WOOD every Sunday at 10 o’clock. And I played those services. However, A3 formed had an old pipe organ.
And every once in a while, when I practiced it happened, but every once in a while in the middle of a church service, all of a sudden it would die. And the machine would have been on, I pushed the on button. So when it went off, maybe in the middle of the long prayer, all of a sudden go. And then I would have to get up and walk across the front of the church to the piano and play the rest of the service on the piano. And I hated it. So it was amazing, but that church decided to buy a very expensive pipe organ, a new one, at a time when all churches were getting Allen electric organs. So this was not a wealthy church and why they decided to get a pipe organ and they still they have it and they are using it today.
Jonathan: So yeah, let me ask you about that. That it’s marvelous that at the age of 15, you would be playing and the age of 16, you’d be playing almost every service. You must’ve been pretty good.
Laura: Well, I kept getting better and better. And then my teacher, Francis Rose, left the Grand Rapids. And that’s when I started studying with Alice Lantinga, who was the organist at the grave. And that’s when I got my hands on even a bigger, better organ. And that’s when she was pouring all the classics at me. I was learning very difficult music, but I was also learning the kinds of devotional music. Sometimes that, for example, an arrangement was made using the tune of a hymn that the congregation would recognize. So these would be church service kinds of lessons.
Jonathan: Yeah. You took, you took lessons from Alice landing all through high school or how many years do you think?
Laura: Yes, at least three. Yeah. Uh, I was still doing it. My, my my first year of college, when I could have chosen Oregon as one of the subjects in my week. But I didn’t. So I continued with Alice. And I have really good memories of Alice.
Jonathan: Yeah. Do you think that 8th Reform’s decision to purchase something other than an Allen electric had anything to do with your performance there?
Laura: Well, I think that Francis Rose had a lot to say about it. And also, Robert, I want to say G Young, but I don’t think that’s right. Anyway, Francis had a cousin who was a music professor at Hope College. And between Francis’ family and Bob’s family, there was a very strong section of the congregation that were voters. And I think that the fact that these classical musicians had a following at that church certainly had an effect on how they voted to purchase what they bought.
Jonathan: You had a discerning audience in that Eighth Reformed Sanctuary, huh?
Laura: Well, I don’t think they were necessarily classical music lovers.
But I think that the musicians in both the Rose family and the other family was a large number to start with. And besides that, They were honored by people for their influence, particularly the one who was a professor at Hope College. The fact that they were recognized in the community as leaders in music education surely had an influence on how their friends and family voted for a very nice pipe organ to be purchased.
Jonathan: Your performance there at Eighth Reformed, how did the calendar align with the installation of that new organ?
Laura: The company that owned that organ that they bought sent someone, and I can’t remember the name, who dedicated it. And this was a concert that, once it was installed, It was part of the purchase price.
So that Sunday, I remember that I played the church service, realizing that this nationally known organist was in the audience ready to do the dedication, a concert that would be all organ music. So I guess that,
Jonathan: I must’ve had a confidence about my ability to play the organ that certainly came from the teachers that I had nerve wracking to play that, that church service, knowing that you had a, you had a professional professional organist following you. Yes. But so how many months or years did you get to play that organ after it was installed?
Laura: Until I was married.
Jonathan: So it started sometime in, do you recall what year in high school?
Laura: Yes, it probably started in my junior year of high school. or end of my sophomore year.
The thing that’s interesting is after I started having children, I went back there to play, and that was an income we needed really bad, and it paid very well. I don’t remember exactly what it was a service, but I welcomed the opportunity to play, but I never played at night. I only played in the morning. when we were on the radio.
So there was another woman who played at night, and I kind of had conflicts with her.
For example, a pipe organ has what they call stops.
If you would look at the organ, you would see on both sides, there would be panels with little buttons that are labeled flute, six, 8 inch flute 16 inch. I mean there would be probably 15 on this side and 15 on that side and then down at the bottom you would have underneath each keyboard you would have probably four or five buttons and when you pushed one of those buttons you could trigger choosing four or five of those round ones on the sides to pop out. So you would set up the organ.
It would take quite a bit of time, because every one of those piston, they call them, you pushed a piston, and it would select maybe two buttons for your feet. four or five buttons for each of the keyboards. And there were three keyboards. So setting up an organ and it being predictable so that you know when you push piston four, that’s what you do most hymns with. When you push piston one, that’s what you play at the end of a long prayer where there’s a quiet amen before the people pick up their handbooks and start to sing. So every one of those pistons had a purpose. And when I had someone playing at night and changing those pistons for me, it was not as predictable. And what she chose, for example, there’s something on the organ that has a waver, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, and she would use that tremolo on everything. Being the organist, both of us, that became a much more uncomfortable job for me.
Jonathan: I can imagine. You’d need to almost decide. You got the buttons on the right. I got the programmable or have some coordination of your efforts there.
Laura: Yeah. Well, at any rate, she didn’t play any classical and she played a lot of what I call Schmaltz.
Jonathan: Anyway. Well, it’s fun to hear about. I think you really appreciated that upgrade of the organ. It must have been a thrill.
Laura: Oh, yes. And that’s when I, soon after that, my first teacher left town and I changed to the grave where I got to play a really big organ. for my lessons.
Jonathan: When’s the last time you were in the Eighth Reformed Church and you mentioned they’re still playing that organ?
Laura: Oh, maybe three or four years ago. My sister Connie goes there because her boyfriend, his whole family still is all there. So she goes quite often. But I’ve gone a few times and the woman that was playing at nights, her name was Mrs. Slockter, was still playing there a lot.
Jonathan: The lady that you played with in high school.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. Her family stayed at that church. When I went back there to help out, it would be when she wasn’t available and they didn’t know who else to call.
Jonathan: But you’re telling me you played that organ in the last three years. Did I hear you? No.
Laura: Oh, OK. I attended a church service.
Jonathan: I get you. I get you.
Laura: In the same place and looks the same. And yeah, it just.
They weren’t playing the kind of music that I played that Alice taught me.
Jonathan: Right, right. Well, we went on a tangent here, but it’s been fun for me to hear you talk about that. Yeah, I marvel at your ability to do that. Yeah, organ music was the king of the musical instruments, right?
Laura: Imagine being paid first $40 a service. Then I remember it got to be $60 a service. In those days, that was a lot of money. And it was the easiest way for me to earn money because When I went to college, I worked in a five and 10 store for a little while. But for one thing, I didn’t have transportation yet. And the pay wasn’t good. And I needed time for Bob and time to study. And so earning money by being a musician turned out to be the best for me and even in later years because funerals and weddings paid very well.
Jonathan: Yeah. Well, we’re, while we’re talking about this, do you recall what your hourly rate would have been back in college?
Laura: Uh, at the dime store?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, I think less than a dollar.
Jonathan: Uh,
Isn’t that amazing? That makes a $60 church service be very lucrative.
Laura: Well, the $60 service happened after I had a couple of babies. So you put it all in the context of what would less than a dollar buy and buy a lot of groceries still.
By the time they were paying,
a dollar and a quarter an hour for mundane kinds of jobs.
That dollar and a quarter purchased quite a bit.
That’s why when I think of the price of building this house was $18,000, then I’ve got to remember that was the whole house. That’s what it cost. That came at a time when if you spend $5 in groceries in a week, you bought a lot.
So you’ve got to always think of the context. What was an average income and what were the costs of things?
Jonathan: Sure, sure. Your full-time school salary back when you were first hired, any sense of what that was?
Laura: Well, I wish I could remember. I’m guessing maybe $6,000.
Jonathan: Right. Yeah. So $18,000 home purchase 10 years later, you were paying off that home for a couple of years, for sure.
Laura: Well, this is what happened. Dad had bought all the acreage out here.
There were no houses.
And I used to drive you kids out here and we would drive right across the field down near the river and have picnics.
And when dad first started his business, It was at a time when Uncle Dick was trying to help us all he could, and he and Pauline were so, so wonderful to us.
Jonathan: Hey, Mom. Mom, I think that we’ve covered this earlier in an earlier call.
Laura: Yes, but now just think of this. It was hurtful for me to deal with Dad on a daily basis with his business. And he was a very good salesman.
So when I finally sat down with my lawyer and wrote the paper for the divorce, I did not ask for any of Dad’s business, even though all of the major machines of the original composing room were purchased by my teaching salary. We lived on Eastern Avenue then or Kalamazoo Avenue then in that little above the shoe store. And so because I did not want to be a part of the business, dad agreed that if I would not make any claims about how I purchased all his original equipment, then he would give me the lots that he bought out in Caledonia because he had no plans to do anything with them. Well, as it turned out, I sold one lot with a paper played out on the tree for $10,000. And my dad loaned me $8,000 with no charge for um, interest. And so this house was built with $18,000. And the only debt I had was to my dad for that 8,000. And then as I taught, I systematically paid that off.
Jonathan: That’s great. That’s great. The need of your dad to do that.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: I neglected to clarify something about your dad that you were talking about earlier in this call. And that was his cooking eggs for you every morning. Do I recall? There was a very, it wasn’t a Friday. It wasn’t scrambled egg. It was, was it always a boiled egg?
Laura: Not, not always.
Jonathan: Okay. Somebody’s not had that perception, but that was not accurate.
Laura: No.
Jonathan: Okay. Cause I knew you hated boiled eggs.
Laura: So I don’t eat, I don’t eat scrambled fried. I don’t eat eggs at all. Still to this day, egg salad, if it’s lots of onions and celery, I’ll make a sandwich. and not think about it being eggs.
Jonathan: That’s funny. That’s funny. All right. So this has been very interesting. I want to turn back and close our topic about food experiences. I’ve got a couple other questions for you. What is the best meal you have ever had? And what made it so special? Do you recall a meal or a couple of meals that really stand out for you?
Laura: Well,
All of us always thought that the dinners that we had at Aunt Agnes’s house were super. And she made meatballs. She made meatloaf. She made chicken where there were no bones.
She made a lot of rice. And always she had a homemade pie. I considered, and I think my siblings considered that going to eat at Aunt Agnes’ house was predictably going to be delicious. And it was never anything like dad fixed.
And if dad, we had desserts, he would buy pies or cupcakes. But I don’t ever remember a pie or a batch of cupcakes coming out of my home oven.
Jonathan: So I have memories of being in the crystal and the lace tablecloth and the linen napkins and the silver. And I remember her making chicken curry for some reason. But you went with your mom and dad and siblings there.
Yes.
Was that a frequent thing? What would turn to that?
Laura: Probably a holiday.
But in those days, Aunt Agnes had her own family, the Zeitema family. And I know that her sister Esther and some other family members usually came to Aunt Agnes’ house on Thanksgiving or the kind of days where you’d have a meal with family together. So we had our own at home. But she still would find an occasion to invite us. And then when I, of course, when dad and the whole family moved to New Jersey and I lived with Aunt Agnes, then I watched her cook. And I learned a lot. But then she got pneumonia and went in the hospital. And I had to cook for Grandpa. And he would report to her the beans weren’t cooked long enough. And he would tell her the mistakes that I made. He reported regularly to her about my cooking. So when she came home from the hospital, she would tutor me step by step to do a lot of cooking. I learned a lot from her.
Jonathan: That’s really neat. What a special time with her.
Laura: Yes.
Jonathan: Yeah, I can still remember her kitchen. We’ve got some photos of her house. But yeah, I can just vividly remember how warm it was in her house. We would go over there in the wintertime for meals. And I don’t know, there was something about the boiler or something in that home. It was always so cozy and charming.
Laura: Oh. Well, that’s neat that you have that memory of her.
Jonathan: So last food question for you. What is the strangest food you’ve ever had? And if none come to mind, that’s fine too, but.
Laura: Well, when we were in Sierra Leone, we didn’t have a store near us.
And, um,
I don’t, I didn’t bake bread, but I made a pancake that was kind of like a, what do you call it? A tortilla.
That’s how, and then we’d use vegetables and if I had a can of tuna or a little meat, we would make, sandwiches using that kind of bread. And that was a, I think that our food generally was quite different from what we were used to in the United States.
Jonathan: Yeah. Canned and less meat.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. Good. All right, any other things about food that we should cover?
Laura: Well, I have two major foods that I should not eat as much of. One is chocolate. I’m a chocoholic. And the other is diet soda. And every day in my life, I have something of either of those.
And neither of them are allowable on my kidney or my sugar diets.
Jonathan: Okay. Diet soda, I don’t understand that. What is the ingredient that is troublesome?
Laura: Apparently it has some effect on your urinating. Okay. Exactly. Well, I read about it when I read a national health organization’s report on artificial sugars, which they condemn. And for the same reason that diet soda, there’s only one artificial sugar that is promoted by doctors, and it’s called stevia. And that’s the one that I use.
Jonathan: Okay.
Laura: But you’ll never see a pop with the, one of the lists of foods in it is stevia. They never use it.
Jonathan: Okay. I got you. All right. We’re going to switch topics on you here. And the topic is movies and television. And I’m going to just kind of throw out a couple ideas to you and may or may not resonate with you of things you wanna talk about, but your family’s television viewing habits or whether you went to movies together, what sorts of things did you do? Who decided what shows you would go to? And talk to me about like when you’re with your parents and your siblings, was TV a thing?
Laura: Okay. We had a tradition in our family. Every night there was a comedian, and I can’t think of the name right now.
But it was not a kind of a contest like Jeopardy is now. It wasn’t something that made you exercise your memory or your knowledge about things. entertainment, it was joking. And I remember in the Parsonage, we didn’t have a TV at all in New Jersey, but in the Parsonage on Burton Street, we had a TV in the back little den.
And I don’t remember after school sitting down in that room or turning it on myself. I remember that my parents watched the same comedian we watched together. That at the most was an hour and it might be three nights a week. Um, I never got hooked on what do they call it? The kind of shows where it’s it’s a continuing story, you know, a syndicated like a series.
Jonathan: Yeah. Maybe.
Laura: Yeah. We never got hooked on programs that were considered family stories.
It would be the same setting, the same people, and I can’t think of even an example of what I’m thinking of, but this was one of the more likely things that most houses, most families watched in those days. When TV first came on, they would have these daily or weekly dramas that involve the same, are you still there?
Jonathan: I am.
Laura: Okay, because I got suddenly a big orange
Jonathan: I’m back.
Laura: I think that once in a while on a Saturday, there might be some sports, but I don’t know what kind it would be.
More likely, it was boxing and not Not that my parents approved of that kind of TV.
But I do remember watching it.
But outside of that, our TV watching was very limited.
Jonathan: OK. What is your recollection of the first movie, like a movie theater? And do you recall who brought you or what the circumstances were or what were typical experiences for you going to movies?
Laura: I never remember going to a movie theater in the East at all. Except my mother would take us to Radio City Music Hall. And there we would always be seeing movies that were family oriented or musicals that the name was very familiar. Today you could get a video of it. But I never remember once going into a theater in Patterson, New Jersey or in Grand Rapids as growing up and living with my family. But I do remember Radio City Music Hall and that was maybe once a year my mother would take us. Movies often would be from classical books, like I remember Little Women, or there might be a holiday theme, particularly at Christmas. But I didn’t have any favorites because I didn’t go that often. And nowadays, I never go to movies either.
But I do have lots of favorites on television. And particularly since I’ve been homebound and not driving anymore, I’m watching more TV than I ever have in my life, particularly sports. particularly women’s sports, basketball, soccer.
I love watching football and it makes me remember again in the last thinking about it that Paul, of course, was Ohio State and Ted was Michigan. And boy, the day that those two teams played, they either met each other and went to one of the games, or they were on the phone, the full game. And of course, each one had a favorite.
Jonathan: I knew about Paul’s association with Ohio State. Your brother Ted?
Laura: He was an adjunct professor, which meant he was called on to teach a couple of times.
Jonathan: At Michigan. Yeah, I didn’t. I was not aware of that.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: So is there a movie or a TV show that just like been a big part of your life?
Laura: Jeopardy.
I watched that one. Well, when I was teaching and we were living here with all the kids home, I didn’t watch TV with you. I don’t remember. If we had a long weekend and we would run the gamut and see what looks good, if there’s anything that’s interesting, but it would never be a regular show that I thought we could follow, never.
Jonathan: Right, more ad hoc sort of thing.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: I get you.
Laura: And my movie attendance in
Jonathan: Grand Rapids is very, very limited.
Laura: I can’t remember the last one I went to. However, I have become a major supporter of Master Arts, which is a local organization that uses people who are not actors, actresses. They have daytime jobs. and they’ll commit to eight weeks of rehearsals at night and then another three and a half weeks of shows. And I take eight people when we go every time, Aunt Connie and me, John and Lynn, Ted and Joe, and sometimes Mimi and John or two of my other children besides. but either six or eight at a time.
And we never are, it’s, for one thing, it’s located in a kind of a wide open community where no trouble parking, whereas there is a series in downtown Grand Rapids that runs sometimes almost even the same shows, same titles. trying to find a place to park downtown is such a headache that Master Arts has become my favorite. And I treat many family members at least once or twice a year to Master Arts shows.
Jonathan: That’s a great tradition. The last time I talked to you, you were going later that day with, I think, Mimi and John and Sandy to a performance.
Laura: Yes. And that’s the other thing. We like Saturday matinees because they start at two o’clock and you don’t have to drive home in the dark. Right. John and not like to drive home in the dark. John is really slipping. And so I love to still include them because their children are far away. So on any big holiday, they have no money.
I try to include them.
Jonathan: I have one more movie question for you. I am under the impression that the yearling was, had something to do with your naming me. Can you elaborate about the details of when you saw that and what, what you know about this?
Laura: Well, that is my favorite, one of my favorite books. The book became a movie, but I got it. I got the name from the book and I read it repeatedly. And there’s another book that I don’t know you’ve ever heard of that was a childhood favorite of mine. It was called the five Chinese brothers.
Jonathan: Oh, sure. I remember that we had that grown up.
Laura: Yep.
Jonathan: Good deal.
Laura: Uh, now my reading involves almost all moody devotions. A book I just finished reading was called talking with God. and it had a devotion to go with each of the songs. So that’s most of my reading now.
Jonathan: Okay. Earlier in your life, did you gravitate to a particular type of literature or fiction, non-fiction?
Laura: Oh, I love looking at catalogs, serious robot catalogs. The reading that I did was almost all required reading and was classical, considered over the years a must for every high school English teacher to require.
But I never went to the library and loaded up on books and brought them home. I had a huge library of my own, which I donated to a Christian school just this year. And it turned out to be 13 huge boxes of books and five tall wooden bookcases. And they’re all gone now.
Jonathan: That’s changed that room, the blue room. I haven’t seen it since that happened, but you have a lot of space in there, I guess.
Laura: Well, The joke is that’s where I’m sorting and there are boxes labeled.
For example, journals from our trips where you kids did the writing and the phonics just makes me laugh sometimes. And also memories that I wrote journals from Honduras
Oh my.
Sierra Leone, New Zealand. So I have boxes of notebooks that I don’t know quite what to do with them, but I’ve tried to organize them.
Jonathan: I’d like to follow up with you about that after this call, but there was some question about where some of the travel journals were, but it sounds like you’ve found where they are in the house or
Laura: I’ve found a couple of them. And I know the drawers which I need to go through now that have more personal things like that in them. I’ve already done a whole lot of sorting of medical and really old things from my parents.
and a lot of pictures that I don’t know what to do with. I have boxes of family pictures going back to the Janssen family in Dhaka.
Jonathan: Okay.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: Okay.
Laura: Well, let’s end it for today.
Jonathan: That’s good. We’ve covered a lot of ground. Yeah, I’m trying to think next week. I don’t know if you have plans, but I can come up with some more questions for you. Or if you feel like you’d like to do that, we can transition to talking about each of your kids. Will you think about that over the next couple of days?
Laura: Well, let’s go to Saturday at 9.30 again. OK. I’ve got medical things this week that may cancel it, but we’ll see.
Jonathan: Okay. That’s great. I want to start recording, but I want to talk about another couple of things. Hold on just a second. Let me stop the recording.