Update for Everyone IV - Hungover

[Torie]

My cousin just sent me two photos The first is of the house that my great grandparents lived in after they retired from working the farm, and moved to Winterset. The stone house is on the national historic register (known as the Vawter House), built in from 1854 to 1856.  We sold it to these two gay antique dealers, one of whom grew up in Winterset, and wanted to move back. He had always loved the house, and told me his mother remembered my great grandmother sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch (great grand mother lived to be 101, and died in that house). Anyway, the guys have now fixed up and lovingly restored the original stone portion of the house, and seem to be working on the garage addition in back, with a studio unit above, that my grandmother built in the 1950’s (so that she and my grandfather could stay in the studio unit when in Winterset to manage the farm that my grandmother grew up on just south of town). It’s gratifying to us to see that we put the house in good hands.


 
The second pic is of the fancy new digs of the John Wayne birthplace museum next door. It’s nice that they matched the earth tone color of the limestone façade (obtained from a local quarry) of the stone house, no?  It is hard to find such a tan colored limestone now. Most is considerably more grey.
 

And the pic below, is of the great grandparents standing in front of the house, in all their Sunday best. I believe that it was taken on their 50th wedding anniversary, which would have  been in 1915, since they were married right after great grandfather came back home after serving in the Union army (being part of Sherman’s march to the sea among other things). My artist partner Dan just told me that someone painted the flowers on the photo after it was taken (thus they are in color), which was a fashion of the time. I hadn't a clue until he just told me. Obviously the photo was a big production.

[Torie]

My brother sent me this. The first word that is partially missing is "Priscilla," the name of my mother. He did some business deals in Japan in the 1960's, when this snap was taken, and his hosts did indeed take very good care of him.

Gosh I still miss my Dad after all of these dears, and always will, until the day I die. His final exit left a void in my life that will never be fully filled. We were very close, and absolutely adored and admired each other. In some ways, we were best friends as adults. I wish he were still alive, so that I could share my Hudson adventure with him. As a Brooklyn boy, born and raised, he would be utterly gobsmacked that I voluntarily chose to move to the boonies of NY. My dad didn't think very favorably of rural areas. He thought they tended to be backward, provincial and ignorant. And he took about as much pleasure in outdoor camping, as in paying taxes at high rates, and/or venereal disease. So as a kid, we only did that two or three times.

I might add that my other brother recently told me, that Dad told him that he really wished that I would accidentally "knock up" some woman, so that I would get married (how old fashioned of him). That wish of his of course was not fulfilled!

[Torie]

I asked my boyfriend to marry me. He said yes.

Congratulations Marokai. I am so happy for you.

[Torie]

War room pic: Torie and partner Dan (the guy wearing the cap), with the two co-chairmen of the Fair and Equal campaign (you can guess in which city) inputting into our data base who has voted, so that we know just who of our canvassed "Yes" voters on Prop  1 (about 1,000 of them) needed to be reminded to get to the polls. We had about 30 people working on this all day on election day, from 6 am to about 8 pm. And yes, by 10:30 pm I was somewhat drunk at the Red Dot bar with the gang all there. Great day!