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Our graduation summer fishing trip
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Selections of older diary entries and recent writings......
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Letters of Mae Hatfield Manduke
My mother died August 10, 2004, a day before her 85th birthday. My mother was among many other things, an accomplished artist and writer. She wrote a book about our life at Stone End Farm in Chalfont, Bucks County shortly after my father's death in 1972. After some limited rejection, she destroyed the manuscript. I am lucky enough to have read it before we lost another part of family history. Mom was very proud of her pioneer american ancestry on both sides of her family. With the advent of the internet, I was able to verify all and more. She was particularly annoyed that one our first ancestors through her mother's family the Helms and Chambers was one Manuel Gonsalus. He was the first white settler in the Hudson Valley. My mom being very Victorian and very proud of her English heritage bristled somewhat of a Spanish man marrying a Dutch woman and coming to New Amsterdam. I am also sure she would not really approve of my posting any of her letters here. We maintained a letter writing tradition between us my entire life. I have kept the letters between diary pages for years. Shel found a cache of them in Colorado. So I am going to place a few here and there throughout my blogs. For my children , mostly, and only I seem to be able to read her script. But in any case, my mother is finally published. This first was written while I was in Arizona the first time:
Monday
Dear Boy,
It's wonderful to receive words from you.It makes my days! Think Uncle Dave just wants to know if I'm alive or dead because he asked me about that and I told him "old soldiers never die, they just fade away"-The words ogf General McArthur. He always wrote at or about the same time as I wrote to him, so our letters frequently crossed. This time I think he owes me a letter.In meantime, he has got a rebellion against birthday cards and I don't think think he wants me to send one anymore.
Must tell you that the Jack in the Pulpit has come up. It is 14" up-a dark red tightly wound stem that is just now opening a little at the top with leaves. There are 2 smaller ones somewhat removed from the first plant. Have also a fine Mandrake-(mayapple) umbrella which was knocked down by heavy rain, but I think will come back up.
There is a certain comfortin beholding these wonderful familiar things of long ago which one does not see anymore around cities.
Rains have been good here and are forcast for the whole week. You asked about Aunt Aim's phone number. I don't have that. About three years ago she had the number changed and never gave me the new number.
The old lemon tree which you planted as a baby in my flower pot on Harper Avenue is tired now and may not continue to do well. I am trimming off the dead wood and fertilizing it while it is outside-only half the size it was last spring and losing leaves.
Aunt Aim is already DAR-for a long time.-thru the Helms. Guess mother gave her all the names. There was no trouble at all. She is also "Eastern Star", the woman's organization associated with the Masonic order, probably thru John who belong's or maybe my father who was St. John's lodge and Knight's Templar in Philadelphia. You know George Washington belonged at the same Temple in Phila and I saw the masonic apron on display there which was his. We used to go into Temple to watch the mummer's parade when we were little and dad belonged there.
Once, long ago, Aunt Emma Chambers (my grandfather's sister) brought an old chair to give my mother. She carried it on the subway to get it to us. It was so old that we liked to press our finger nails into the wood to watch it imprint-Soon, the chair was forgotten and is long gone.It was supposed to have been Josiah Bartlett's chair and been honored by the Chambers who repected it for a long time.
When I was about 5 years old radio was the newest talk of all people and it was said that all the voices ever spoken on earth would be picked up someday by research so that everyone would be able to hear the voice of Jesus as He taught in the holyland-
All good thoughts attend you and love,
M
Monday
Dear Boy,
It's wonderful to receive words from you.It makes my days! Think Uncle Dave just wants to know if I'm alive or dead because he asked me about that and I told him "old soldiers never die, they just fade away"-The words ogf General McArthur. He always wrote at or about the same time as I wrote to him, so our letters frequently crossed. This time I think he owes me a letter.In meantime, he has got a rebellion against birthday cards and I don't think think he wants me to send one anymore.
Must tell you that the Jack in the Pulpit has come up. It is 14" up-a dark red tightly wound stem that is just now opening a little at the top with leaves. There are 2 smaller ones somewhat removed from the first plant. Have also a fine Mandrake-(mayapple) umbrella which was knocked down by heavy rain, but I think will come back up.
There is a certain comfortin beholding these wonderful familiar things of long ago which one does not see anymore around cities.
Rains have been good here and are forcast for the whole week. You asked about Aunt Aim's phone number. I don't have that. About three years ago she had the number changed and never gave me the new number.
The old lemon tree which you planted as a baby in my flower pot on Harper Avenue is tired now and may not continue to do well. I am trimming off the dead wood and fertilizing it while it is outside-only half the size it was last spring and losing leaves.
Aunt Aim is already DAR-for a long time.-thru the Helms. Guess mother gave her all the names. There was no trouble at all. She is also "Eastern Star", the woman's organization associated with the Masonic order, probably thru John who belong's or maybe my father who was St. John's lodge and Knight's Templar in Philadelphia. You know George Washington belonged at the same Temple in Phila and I saw the masonic apron on display there which was his. We used to go into Temple to watch the mummer's parade when we were little and dad belonged there.
Once, long ago, Aunt Emma Chambers (my grandfather's sister) brought an old chair to give my mother. She carried it on the subway to get it to us. It was so old that we liked to press our finger nails into the wood to watch it imprint-Soon, the chair was forgotten and is long gone.It was supposed to have been Josiah Bartlett's chair and been honored by the Chambers who repected it for a long time.
When I was about 5 years old radio was the newest talk of all people and it was said that all the voices ever spoken on earth would be picked up someday by research so that everyone would be able to hear the voice of Jesus as He taught in the holyland-
All good thoughts attend you and love,
M
Followers
Joey fishing wild trout at Thundershower Run, McKean County, Pennsylvania June 2008
Our graduation summer fishing trip
A note on audio recordings
I have accumulated over 200 hours of audio journals, business concepts, travel logs, and short stories on micro cassette tapes. My hope had been to transcribe those, at least the more interesting ones here or actually do so electronically. This task is monumental and it will not happen in this immediate future..
The tapes include material from 1992 until April of 2008. They will continue from this point as time and need allow. Much of the late 1990's is missing, lost, or there was a lapse in records.
One transcription I will attempt will be the tape, "The Three Stories". It is the backbone of "Spring Peepers", and other published and unpublished work I have placed on these blogs. However, it was read from the original manuscript, now lost. The Wyalusing fishing story about my cousin Dave and that giant fish is represented in my blog "Life and Outdoors".
The language used on the original tape recording of the read manuscript is superior to the recent rendition. That story was written for a freshman college English assignment. It yielded an "A-". The professor admonishing me, and alluding to my Hemingway-esk plagerism.
I hadn't then read the famous man's short stories yet, however his amazing and tragic life I can sympathize with.
The tapes include material from 1992 until April of 2008. They will continue from this point as time and need allow. Much of the late 1990's is missing, lost, or there was a lapse in records.
One transcription I will attempt will be the tape, "The Three Stories". It is the backbone of "Spring Peepers", and other published and unpublished work I have placed on these blogs. However, it was read from the original manuscript, now lost. The Wyalusing fishing story about my cousin Dave and that giant fish is represented in my blog "Life and Outdoors".
The language used on the original tape recording of the read manuscript is superior to the recent rendition. That story was written for a freshman college English assignment. It yielded an "A-". The professor admonishing me, and alluding to my Hemingway-esk plagerism.
I hadn't then read the famous man's short stories yet, however his amazing and tragic life I can sympathize with.
Joe in Maine 2007
Skowhegan Road Trip
Shel on May 2007 trip to Maine
Michelle Rene Sexton at Skowhegan
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