Naomi Helen Yaeger, in a delightfully engaging biography, tells the story of her mother Janette Yaeger (née Minehart) who grew up in Avoca, Minnesota. Yaeger spent hours interviewing her mother before her mother died. In her book, Yaeger lovingly recounts the stories of Janette and her siblings, parents, and extended family. Most of the book concentrates on Janette’s life from toddlerhood through young adulthood. However, toward the end of the book, Yaeger summarizes the key highlights of Janette’s and her family’s lives as they moved through adulthood. I’m glad Yaeger did this because after reading about the early lives of Janette and her family, I wanted to know what happened to them as adults.
Yaeger’s book invites readers into a bygone era. We learn about the history, culture, and lives of ordinary people who lived through the depression, WWII, and the Korean War. We read about their daily joys, disappointments, and sorrows. Usually, the history we are taught in school focuses on major events and well-known people. But I find the daily lives of people and how they lived while major historical events happened around them fascinating. And I learned a few things that I didn’t know before reading the book.
As I read Blooming Hollyhocks, I laughed and I cried. I felt connected to my own relatives who grew up in the same era as Yaeger’s. And I remembered the stories they had told me, often similar to the stories Janette Yaeger shared with her daughter Naomi. As I finished Yaeger’s book and closed it for the last time, I was already missing the Mineharts, their relatives, and their friends.
[When I attended Naomi Yaeger’s book launch, someone mentioned that Yaeger’s book would make a great present. After finishing her book, I wholeheartedly agree. If you know someone who lived through this time or grew up listening to the stories of relatives who lived through this time, I believe they would enjoy Yaeger’s book as much as I did.]
After it was all said and done. After I’d decided on two pairs of shoes to purchase, and the mother and daughter who were shoe shopping alongside me had decided on three pairs of shoes between the two of them, the sales clerk reordered the chaos on the floor. She checked the labels and sizes to make sure two shoes (a left and a right) of the same size went into a box with the corresponding size, style, and brand. The young sales clerk, maybe twenty years old, was swift and accurate.
After the clerk walked away to meet the mother and daughter at the checkout, my husband said he was surprised that the sales clerk had let the area become so messy.
“Oh, no,” I said. “This is how women shop for shoes.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave that look people give when they want to say, “Wow! That’s just crazy” without saying, “Wow! That’s just crazy.”
He didn’t know women have rules for shoe shopping. He just picks out one pair of shoes at a time, asks for his size, and tries them on. But women circle the store and gather several different types of shoes before approaching the sales clerk.
“I’ve been shopping for shoes for years, with my mother, with friends, and this is how we’ve always done it,” I said.
I explained all this to my husband as I walked around the store in a pair of shoes I was still auditioning. I stopped in front of the shoe mirror to see how they looked from the side. I walked up to my husband and asked, “Do these shoes make my feet look big?”
He laughed. “Of course,” he said.
I laughed because he got the joke.
Women really do have their own set of rules for shoe shopping. We try one pair then another pair. Maybe try them again. We ask for different sizes. We look at more shoes, and try those. And while we do this, the unboxed shoes stay on the floor. Unless we specifically tell the clerk that a pair of shoes are definitely a no go. A good shoe sales clerk knows this. It’s not chaos. We need to be able to see the whole array of shoes in front of us.
I haven’t had so much fun buying shoes in a long time. The mother and daughter and I had a good time visiting with each other while we tried on shoes. We laughed and joked together. The mother and I bought the same shoes. “If I see those shoes out in public, I’ll recognize you,” she said.
Best of all, the sales clerk was a joy. She was knowledgeable about the shoes in the store. She kept all our requests for different styles and sizes straight while she helped all three of us at the same time. She treated us like our quest for the perfect shoe was important. She understood how women shop for shoes.
A happy pollinator on the first flowers we encountered
Two years ago I took my four grandkids to a rose garden. We smelled the roses, walked along Lake Superior, ate ice cream, and tossed rocks in the water. Then we did it again last year. So, of course, we had to do it again this year. It’s a tradition now. When my grandkids are grown up and old, they will say to each other, “Remember when Nana took us to the rose garden every summer, and we’d get ice cream then throw rocks in the lake?” Just like I recall my nana taking us to George Webb, Sherman Park, and Capital Drive, and letting us use her galvanized steel wash tubs as swimming pools on hot days.
Can you find the pollinator in the rose?
We arrived at the rose garden, which also has other flowers. We spotted bees slurping nectar. My oldest grandchild took photos of the bees and roses. I took photos of the bees and roses. My other three grandkids watched the bees and smelled the roses. We all love the flowers and bees. I like to refer to bees as pollinators, like it’s a royal title and the bees belong to a noble class. Watching pollinators feed on flowers gives me hope for the world. If you want to help create hope, plant something pollinators like, and make sure it’s pesticide free.
As we smelled the roses, we took care to look for bees before sniffing. We didn’t want our noses stung, or egads, to inhale a bee. We visited the rose garden a couple of weeks later than we normally do, so we missed the peak bloom. But the roses that had waited for us didn’t disappoint.
My grandkids love the functioning water fountain, a focal point in the garden. I handed out pennies for wishes. They splashed their hands in the water. One of them found a small, round, flat stone painted with the message Make a Wish. I think more than one of them would have liked to climb into the fountain. Kids and water just go together. The summer I was twelve, my siblings and I spent three weeks with our grandma Olive. Every day we begged her to take us to Bluegill Lake so we could swim. The fountain in the rose garden was originally located in a different part of the city, where it supplied fresh water for horses in the days before automobiles. Everything changes.
After spending time with the roses, we headed down the Lakewalk, and enjoyed the views of Lake Superior. Later, on our way back, my youngest grandchild stopped at several of the park benches and assessed the views, commenting on each one. Perhaps, he is a budding travel writer.
On our walk from the gardens to the ice cream shop, we always stop at a large stone stage. Flanked with two stout turrets, it has a castle vibe. My grandkids ran across the stage and through the hidden passageways behind it, then suddenly appeared once again. Their laughter and excited shouts to one another rang through the air. I thought about Shakespeare’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage,” followed by his musings about the “seven ages” of life from infancy to old age. I stood on the stage with my grandkids, yet apart from them, separated by several “ages” of life.
Peaceful pigeons
The cooing sounds of pigeons who nest in the nooks of a stone wall along the railroad tracks captured the attention of my grandkids. One grandchild was impressed by the range of their colors and the variety of their markings. And the other three started a cooing conversation with the pigeons. I have to say, the cooing sounds my grandkids made were impressive, but finally I said, “What if the pigeons hear your coos as a battle cry and attack?” Yes, you got it, I was thinking about Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I saw the movie once, years ago, and I’m still miffed Hitchcock killed off Suzanne Pleshette’s character in the movie! She was one of my favorite actors.
If you asked my grandkids what they liked best about our adventure, they would probably say the ice cream. It’s what I would have said when I was their age. The picnic tables at the ice cream shop were new and so was the chocolate mint ice cream used to make my malt. For thirty years I’ve been ordering chocolate mint malts, made with the same minty ice cream filled with thin, flat pieces of dark chocolate. This year the ice cream was a little too minty and the thin, flat pieces of chocolate were replaced by mini chocolate chips. It was good, but not as good as it used to be. Next year I’m going to order a different flavored malt. Maybe I will find a new favorite. The clerk at the shop said they could no longer get the same kind of chocolate mint ice cream. All things change. But don’t ask me to say change is good when it comes to my ice cream. Some wasps hung out with us while we ate our treats. None of us panicked, but neither did we share our ice cream with them.
Our next stop was the lakeshore filled with rocks waiting for my grandkids to toss them back into the water. Now that they are older, they try to skip the rocks across the water instead of just throwing them. I planned to let them stay ten minutes, maybe fifteen, but they were having so much fun with each other. I watched them toss rocks, look for agates and beach glass, and play with driftwood, and suddenly I could see my siblings and myself on the sandy shores of Bluegill Lake seining for minnows, building sand castles, and floating on inner tubes in the water. I marveled at how long ago that was and yet how quickly the years had passed — in the snap of a finger. We stayed for more than a half hour. This was the best part of my day. Because while my grandkids on the beach had no idea how quickly time would slip by, I did.
My sisters and I — three backyard campers all grown up. I wish I had a picture of the three of us camping in the backyard. But we didn’t do anything picture-worthy — like catch a fish. (This photo was taken in October 2015 at a farmers market in Harbor Springs, Michigan. And yes, the white stuff is snow!)
I write for Northern Wilds, a local magazine based in Grand Marais, Minnesota. A couple of months ago, the editor put out a call for the magazine’s contributing writers to submit mini essays about camping traditions. I wrote one about my backyard camping trips, the only kind I ever took as a kid.
My essay was published in the August issue of Northern Wilds. To read my essay in the web format, click here and scroll down. To read it in the magazine format, click here, and click to pages 20-21.
And whichever way you choose to read it, I hope you enjoy the camping essays written by my fellow writers.
Yesterday I made cranberry pistachio shortbread cookies. The kind of cookies my grandma Olive would’ve made to serve at a ladies’ luncheon. (Although, her cookies would’ve have contained dates because dried cranberries weren’t available until the 1980s.) Her luncheon would’ve been written up on the society page of the local paper. The kind of write-up they don’t do anymore, unless it’s about someone famous. It would’ve sounded something like this:
On Wednesday, May 6, Mrs. George Youngquist entertained the Presbyterian Women at a luncheon in her home. [Back in the day, a married woman’s first name was rarely mentioned in an article.] She served a variety of finger sandwiches, potato salad, and coleslaw, along with fruit punch. For dessert she served a variety of cookies, including her well-loved date-pistachio shortbread cookies, accompanied by coffee. In attendance were the group’s president, Mrs. Frank Smith; the secretary, Mrs. Grover Bost; and the treasurer, Mrs. Elmer Connors, along with nine other members. No church business was conducted. Mrs. Youngquist said, “The gathering was held to celebrate spring and to give the ladies a chance to visit with one another.“
As a child and for most of my adult life, had I been at that luncheon, I would’ve passed on the date cookies, no matter how well loved they were. I would’ve looked for a chocolate chip, peanut butter, or sugar cookie. But I’m of a certain age now, and I like to try new things, occasionally. (But in a crazy paradox, I’m not big on change.) So, a couple of months ago when I saw this recipe, along with a picture of the cranberry pistachio shortbread cookies, I decided I needed to bake them. After all, I do like cranberries and pistachios and shortbread.
I bought the dried cranberries and the shelled pistachios shortly after I came across the recipe, which was a couple of months ago. Yesterday I decided I needed to stop procrastinating and bake the cookies. It was a perfect day for baking. I spent most of the day writing, so baking cookies would get me off my backside. And it rained and stormed most of the day, ideal baking weather.
The production line
Why did it take me a couple of months to try the recipe? Fear of messing it up — because I’d never made this kind of cookie before. But once I started mixing, chilling, then later baking, I discovered this simple recipe produces scrumptious cookies that look sophisticated, like the kind served at a luncheon or with high tea.
The two sticks of butter used in the recipe make the cookies melt in my mouth, releasing bursts of cranberry and orange, making my mouth tingle. They pair well with coffee. However, I will have to find someone to share them with because my husband doesn’t like cranberries. He did try one, but he didn’t like it. Ijust couldn’t possibly eat all these cookies by myself.
What did I like about this recipe? It was easy! The cookies turned out so well that I fancied myself as a TV chef. The dough is rolled into a log before chilling, which makes it easy to slice the cookies for baking. Other recipes, like this one, call for the dough to be chilled in a ball then rolled out on a flat surface before using a round cookie cutter. But the log method is easier and less messy. Also, the log method keeps the baker from overhandling the dough. Best of all, I felt like I was in the kitchen baking with my grandma Olive.
What would I change? I’d use chopped walnuts or pecans instead of pistachios, which are harder than pecans and walnuts. Because when I had to slice the cookie dough, the chopped pistachios were difficult to cut through. I could use dried cherries because my husband likes those, but he doesn’t like walnuts or pecans. I could eliminate the nuts, but they add a savory taste.
My one goof? I only had a small orange. Having never zested an orange before, I had no idea how many it would take to make a tablespoon of zest. I ended up with 1/2 tablespoon, and while I can still taste the orange, I can’t help but wonder what the cookies would taste like if I’d used a whole tablespoon.
(Some of you may have read my blog about my lost mitten. About my buying another pair online. And about one of the new mittens arriving with a twisted lining. If not, you can click on A Lost Mitten to read that blog if you wish.)
My replacement mittens: I now have two left mittens and one right mitten. My mother also gave me the hat for Christmas.
On Monday, March 3, my new mittens arrived. I pulled the bag from the mailbox, and crossed my fingers as I hoped they would fit and be without defect. After I went inside, I opened the bag and tried on the mittens. They fit fine. They were a perfect match. And they looked well-made.
The journey of my mittens was well documented. After the company received the pair with the defective mitten, they sent me an email telling me that my replacement mittens were on their way. They provided me with a tracking number, so I could follow their journey as they made their way from the East Coast to my Midwest mailbox. They sent me another email after my mittens were delivered.
Remember the old days when we ordered something from a catalog, then waited? There were no emails or text alerts to tell us something was on the way. We couldn’t track it as it left a warehouse, arrived at a shipping center, then showed up at our local delivery facility where it would be loaded onto a small truck headed to its final destination. We didn’t get an email announcing our package’s arrival with a photo of it resting against our front door.
But receiving those emails from the company was reassuring. After all, the original pair of mittens had been a Christmas gift from my mother.
All that communication about my defective mitten and the replacement mittens made me think about a two-week summer romance I had with a boy when I was fifteen. We parted with promises to write to each other. I wrote to him and received a letter from him in return. So I wrote again.
Every day I ran to the mailbox, flung open the flap, and grabbed the mail. I shuffled through bills and advertisements, but he never wrote back. Perhaps waiting for my new mittens reminded me of the boy because I waited for a second letter from him with the same hope I had while waiting for my replacement mittens. I wanted both his letter and my mittens to be perfect.
I pined for that boy, every day.
After each day’s disappointing trip to the mailbox, I’d sit on my bed and hold his one-and-only letter and sing the words to “Daisy a Day.” Tears would gather in my eyes. I’d blink them back, but occasionally one would break loose and roll down my cheek. (My unrequited love for that boy hurt almost as much as when I had a supersized crush on Donny Osmond, who never answered even one of my love letters. To think of all the money I wasted on Tiger Beat Magazine.)
Next, I’d play a John Denver album and sing along with his rendition of the heart-wrenching ballad “Today,” which was about a love that wasn’t meant to last. This sent the rest of the tears that had pooled in my eyes strolling down my face.
Finally, I’d play a Beatles album and listen to “Please, Mr. Postman” over and over. I’d sing along with every pleading lyric, as the singer begged the postman to check his bag one more time. The song had a melancholy air, but at the same time, the rhythm of the music inspired me to get off my bed and dance. Even though the singer, like me, was disappointed by love, the dancing lifted my spirits and soon I’d be off to enjoy the rest of the day.
For about a month that was my routine — dash to the mailbox, suffer bitter disappointment, croon to love songs, then dance myself out of a funk.
After school started in the fall, I kicked that summer-romance boy out of my head. I was on to other crushes on other boys in my high school — just like when I outgrew Donny Osmond and went on to have a crush on David Cassidy.
Eventually, I outgrew it all — the crushes, the summer romance, and the teen idols.
But I won’t outgrow my replacement mittens. They are safely tucked in my mitten box on a shelf in my front closet. It’s still cold enough to wear them, but spring is coming. I’m saving them for next year. By then I’ll be brave enough to wear them again. I’m going to watch over them as carefully as I watched over the mailbox when I was fifteen.
The mittens, a Christmas gift from my mother, warm my soul.
My short essay “Christmas Break Snowstorms Were the Best” appears in the March issue of Northern Wilds, where I’m a contributing writer. I love writing for the magazine and reading it.
Or you can view it in the magazine format here: https://northernwilds.com/current-issue/ There is an option to view it in full screen. My essay appears on page 18.
This is where I spent most of my childhood. Our old white farmhouse sat close to a narrow road. The barn on the left belonged to our family. The structures in the background, a barn and a home, belonged to two different neighbors. Our snowbanks ran from the back of the farmhouse toward the neighbor’s barn.
London was the last stop on our European trip. We traveled around the city using the London Underground, nicknamed the Tube, and the adorable red double-decker buses, so quintessentially British. Inside the Tube and on the buses, signs were posted warning riders not to touch unattended packages, but to report them to a conductor or bus driver immediately. The conflict between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Army had spilled over into England in 1973, and from January through March 1976, six bombs exploded in London. The IRA warned authorities before a bomb went off, so injuries were few and fatalities fewer. Because the IRA and British were negotiating, there were no bombings for the rest of 1976, and our stay in London was free from explosions. However, I didn’t know that when we toured London. Even if I had known, it might not have been much comfort because throughout history truces have been broken.
Tower Bridge, London, 1976
The warnings didn’t stop people from riding the Tubes or the buses. But it was strange to think I could board a bus, perhaps off to Hyde Park, Harrods, or Trafalgar Square, and be blown up by someone who wanted to make a point, someone who thought of me only as collateral damage. And yet somehow, I felt I would be safe because I was a visitor from a different country who had nothing to do with the conflict between the IRA and the British. At the time, I wondered what it must be like for people to live under the threat of terrorism.
Trafalgar Square, London, 1976
Now, I think about random gun violence in the United States, which has taken many lives. Schools, places of worship, stores, malls, businesses, theaters, nightclubs, restaurants, concerts, parades, neighborhoods, homes, places people expect to be safe have been scenes of bloodshed. When I see a sign that says, “Guns Banned on These Premises,” I think about the don’t-touch-the-unattended-package signs in London. Signs won’t keep us safe from violence or terrorism or war. We need to see each other as fellow travelers in our neighborhoods, our country, and the world.
Learn about people from down the block and from other cultures.
Big Ben and those charming, old-fashioned London cabs, 1976
Going Home
After a month in Europe, we landed at Billy Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. I had a couple of dollars in foreign coins and one U.S. dime in my purse. I had spent the rest of my money and might have spent the dime too, but I needed it to call my parents for a ride home from the airport. After I deposited the dime in the payphone, I was broke, but I was rich with wonderful memories and great experiences.
My love of language and interest in meeting people from other countries continued. When I went to college, I kept studying Spanish, and I made friends with people from Europe, South America, and Asia. We cooked for each other and helped each other with our studies. We went dancing and roller skating. We talked for hours about our lives and dreams. We taught each other swear words and laughed as we cursed in each other’s languages.
The European trip my parents gave me was the best gift: an opportunity for me to grow as a person. I have a scrapbook of mementos and photographs, and occasionally I look at them. I have a Spanish Damascene dinner bell I bought in Madrid and a soft plaid cashmere scarf I bought in London. Occasionally, I ring the dinner bell or wear the scarf. But the best keepsakes are the lessons of kindness, acceptance, and adventure that I have carried with me all these years.
Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace, London, 1976
[In 1976 when I was seventeen, I traveled to Europe with a group of fellow high school students. I wrote the essay European Tour 101 in 2023. This essay was published in Tales of Travel by the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I’m publishing it to my blog in five parts.]
Lesson Six: Be Alone with Yourself in a Place You’ve Never Been Before
Notre Dame, 1976
In 1976, I had a lot of freedom in Europe. I can’t imagine high school students today having the freedom we had. We only had a few rules: Be respectful to everyone, be on time for the bus tours, and never go out at night alone. However, during the day when we had time off from tours, we could wander out alone. I did this a bit in all the cities we visited, but in Paris I spent most of my free time on my own, walking miles and miles along city sidewalks and riding the metro to explore different neighborhoods. I didn’t have a word for it when I was seventeen, but now I would say that my introverted self had reached a threshold by the time we had reached Paris.
I listened to musicians busk in the Paris metro, their melodies amplified by the underground walls covered with white subway tile. I bought a bottle of Chanel N°5, my favorite perfume, from a department store that catered to tourists. I walked past bakeries because I didn’t like French pastries.
Arc de Triomphe, 1976. We were in Paris for Bastille Day.
From a local boutique which didn’t cater to tourists, I bought a blue T-shirt even though the clerk was rude when he discovered I couldn’t speak French beyond my greeting of bonjour. I thought if I bought something in the shop, the clerk would see me as a customer and be nice, but he continued to snub me as he took my money, bagged the shirt, and handed it to me. I was angry because I believed I was being respectful by greeting him in French. But now I think about it from his viewpoint: I was just another American showing off my one word of French, someone who couldn’t be bothered to learn the rest of his language.
Eiffel Tower, 1976
Almost every day I ate by myself at an Italian restaurant owned by two handsome brothers from Sicily. The brothers were charming, the food outstanding, and the sorbet, served in large Italian lemons, took the sizzle out of the hot Parisian summer. One afternoon I sat in front of the Eiffel Tower next to the Trocadero Fountain, mesmerized by it synchronized spouts of playful water. I saw much of Paris at my own pace – without the need to negotiate with anyone about what to see, or how long to linger, or where to eat.
[In 1976 when I was seventeen, I traveled to Europe with a group of fellow high school students. I wrote the essay European Tour 101 in 2023. This essay was published in Tales of Travel by the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I’m publishing it to my blog in five parts.]
Lesson Five: Serenade Your Tour Guide
Salzburg, Austria, 1976
Our train left Salzburg in the evening, shortly after nightfall. The station’s platform was written in romantic darkness, punctuated with street lamps. Our Austrian tour guide had come to the station to make sure our travel arrangements were in order and to say goodbye. We were headed to Paris.
A hazy view from the Alps, 1976
I no longer remember the guide’s name. She was a university student, kind and soft spoken, with a gentle smile and a lilting laugh. Warm blue eyes sparkled behind her gold wire-rimmed glasses. She had accompanied us to a salt mine, to museums and art galleries, and to the Alps where the mountain scene for the Sound of Music was filmed. We stayed in Adnet, a farming village, thirty minutes from Salzburg. The small village had a well-lighted, welcoming restaurant, and we ate our evening meals there as one large group. After dinner we sang songs, and one night someone taught us the words to “Edelweiss” from the Sound of Music.
After we boarded the train, our tour guide stood on the platform waving at us. Someone in our group began to sing “Edelweiss.” Spontaneously, voice after voice, the rest of us joined in, and on a warm summer’s night as the train eased its way along the track, we leaned our heads and hands out the windows, and as one rhythmic beating heart, over and over, we sang the words about a small white flower, about meetings and greetings, about remembering and forever.
A view of Adnet, Austria, where we learned the words to “Edelweiss,” 1976
Our guide cried, wiping tears from her cheeks before they could splatter on the concrete beneath her. We sang and waved until we could no longer see her. And as the distance between us grew, one by one our voices drifted off, and we pulled our heads and hands inside the windows, and settled in our seats, bound for Paris, the City of Light.
I sang “Edelweiss” to both of my children when they were babies, and it became my youngest child’s favorite lullaby. After all these years, I remember the gifts we traded with our guide at the station: our song for her — and her tears of delight for us. I wonder if she ever plays the memory in her mind like a scene from an old movie as I still do.
Writing Near the Lake 