A chunk of cheddar, a plum, and a memory

At my age, it seems, everything brings back a memory.  The usual fruit included in the optional meals delivered by the Crown Center (where I live) is an apple, an orange, or a tangerine.  Someone decided to give us plums the other day.  I haven't had a plum in years!  This morning, I picked up that plum for breakfast.  I'd already gotten the package of sharp cheddar cheese out of the fridge, so I thought, "What the heck, I'll just eat both."  Along with the tangerine I also picked up.  Guess what?  The combination of sharp cheddar and plum tastes wonderful!  You ought to try it sometime.

The taste of that plum is what brought back the memory of my plum tree.  No, this isn't a picture of MY tree, just one I found online to show you how low the branches can be.  The plum tree in my back yard became my climbing tree.  I lived at that house between the ages of three and nine, so my tree-climbing days were probably in the late 1940s.  Now for the best part.  In the right season, I could climb that tree, pick a plum, and eat it while sitting in the tree, hanging onto a limb with one hand while plum juice dribbled down my chin.  And THAT, dear blogging friends, is my best makes-me-smile memory of the day!

It's been ten years

The last service at East Lake United Methodist Church on June 27th.  Betty Madewell (on the second row in the photo below) was present at that closing service and told me she had been christened at the first service in this building on Easter Sunday, April 8, 1928, when the sermon by the Rev. Jack Anderson was entitled "A House Not Made with Hands."  River Setliffe noticed that Mildred Setliffe had been ten years old when she attended that first service in this building.  River, who is Mildred's great-granddaughter, was then ten years old herself, when she came to the church's last service.  She's almost hidden between her father and her brother, far to the left in the first row, in the picture below).

This photo, taken by John Shearer, shows some of the worshipers inside East Lake United Methodist Church before the service started).

First pew (left to right):  Jimmy Setliffe, River Setliffe, Sam Setliffe, Jim Setliffe, Carol Setliffe, and Charles Moses.
Second pew:  Henry Mason, Charlotte Mason, Jane Helton, Betty Madewell, Ed Madewell, and Ken Smith.
Third pew:  John Paul Williams and Martha Morgan Gardin.
Fourth pew:  (I can't tell who they are).
Fifth pew:  couple visiting from First-Centenary UMC and June Rollins Tant.

Those who contributed to the service that day:

• The Rev. John Paul Williams sang "My Tribute"
• Laura and Richard Young, John Coniglio, and Nell Williams were the musicians who played and sang for us.
• River and Sam Setliffe were the acolytes who lit the candles.
• Jim and Jimmy Setliffe were the ushers.
• The Rev. Bonnie Setliffe Jacobs preached the church's final sermon, using the same scripture that the Rev. Jack Anderson had chosen for the FIRST sermon after that building was constructed.  (The point I wanted to make was that we who comprise the church take the spirit of love with us, wherever we go.  It isn't about buildings, but about love.)
• John Shearer wrote about the closing service for Chattanoogan.com.

Nobody could have guessed that exactly ten years later (on June 27, 2020, a Saturday) I would be attending Virtual Annual Conference at noon in St. Louis (1:00 pm Eastern Time).  The church is indeed not the building, but the people, however we gather together.

A memory popped up

While reading Chapter 5 of Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, I was brought up short by his memory of getting a set of encyclopedias.

"My mom ... bought a set of encyclopedias, too.  It was fifteen years old and way out of date, but I would sit and pore through those.  My books were my prized possessions.  I had a bookshelf where I put them, and I was so proud of it" (p. 67).

A memory popped into my head, and I stopped reading.  I was back in my own childhood.  We lived in barracks that had been converted to apartments for military people returning from World War Two, when there was not enough housing available for them and the boom of babies that ensued.  My dad had been drafted into the Army in late 1944, even though he had two children and another on the way.  Those barracks weren't built as solidly as most houses, and when it rained really hard, water would drip from the ceiling.  Our apartment was on the second floor, so I guess it was a leaky roof because rain was getting in somewhere.  Anyway, when it rained, we'd run to cover our beds or anything we didn't want to get wet.

One year, our mother bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias.  Maybe a traveling salesman had knocked on the door, and she began to make monthly payments on those green and white volumes.  I was like Trevor about those books.  They were special, I learned things from them, and I wanted to know all those things.  After we acquired those special books, when my brothers and sister would run to cover their beds, I invariably ran to protect the encyclopedias.  If I had to sleep on a damp bed, so be it.  But I didn't want those special books to be ruined.  So I ran to the bookshelves.  I kept those books safe, and — after I grew up, married, and moved away — the family still had them.

While looking for an online illustration for this post, I found a fun article about "People of the Book, yes.  But which one?"  Was it Encyclopedia Britannica?  or World Book?  or Compton's?  In pre-internet days, which encyclopedia was in your house?  We were a World Book family.

Word of the Day

en·sue / inˈso͞o, enˈso͞o / verb / ensued is the past participle = happened or occured afterward or as a result.  Example:  "After the war, a boom of babies ensued.  We call them the Baby Boomers."

Memories are made of this ... and this ... and this

Chattanooga telephone directory, September 1944

A woman named Cathy posted this picture in the "You Know You're From Chattanooga If..." group on Facebook, saying, "This piece of history is talking to me!  It’s been through some rough times.  Hopefully I can preserve it."  And she was willing to look up names for those of us who were curious.

I didn't know if our phone number in 1944 was in the name of William E. Setliffe, Jr. or Bonnie Reynolds, since we moved into my maternal grandmother's house with my Aunt Bonnie in 1943.  I memorized my address and phone number as a child:  3208 5th Avenue, and 2-9060.  I thought my paternal grandfather — William E. Setliffe, Sr. — might also be in that book, even though he died during that year.  Cathy reported, "There's two listings for William E. Setliffe Jr."

• W E Setliffe Jr (r) 822 E Main....6-8990
• Mrs. W E Setliffe Jr (r) 3208 5th Av....2-9060

She added, "I don't see your grandfather listed."  I didn't remember off-hand which month my grandfather died (I was only 4, after all).  It was probably earlier in 1944.

My dad's listing at 822 Main Street would be the grocery store he owned at the SW corner of Main Street and Central Avenue, directly across the street from Miss Griffins Foot-Long Hot Dogs.  Her little stand used to be right at the corner in a little triangle until the streets were widened.  Her place is still at that corner, but now it's bigger.  I asked if Gladys Setliffe was listed, but Cathy didn't find my dad's mother listed.  I remember that she lived on Cameron Hill after his father died.  When she remarried and moved to Florida a few years later, I was in the third grade.  That would have been the spring of 1949.

Mom, me, and Dad holding my brother Bill, in the house on 5th Avenue about 1944

Family memories

Then I started thinking about the (r) Cathy had mentioned.  I presume that means "residence," and both listings have that (r) designation.  When I was very young, we lived behind the grocery store.  Then we moved about a block up Main Street (toward the Ridge) before moving in with my Aunt Bonnie after my maternal grandmother died.  Maybe the grocery store had no phone, or maybe my dad had one in the back where we used to live.  After all, who would have had time to answer the phone all day, when he was running the store by himself?  He was also the meatcutter, chopping and weighing and wrapping meat.  Phones were not as ubiquitous in the 1940s as they are now.

Word of the Day

u·biq·ui·tous / yo͞oˈbikwədəs / adjective = present, appearing, or found everywhere.  Ubiquity is generally used to describe something "existing or being everywhere at the same time, constantly encountered, widespread, common."  Ubiquitous can also be used as a synonym for words like worldwide, universal, global, pervasive, all over the place.  Example:  "Phones were not as ubiquitous in the 1940s as they are now."

Blast from the Past

Imagine the smile on my face and the uplift this message on Facebook gave me last week.

"Hey, Bonnie — I feel badly that we've lost touch over the years.  I think the last time I saw you was at a Bible study when you were leading Forrest Avenue United Methodist here in Chattanooga, but I still remember you fondly from Baylor days when you worked in the library.  You were so encouraging to me in so many ways.  In fact, I used to call you my 'guru,' and you'd sign your notes 'bjguru.'  I'm back in Chattanooga now, although over the past decade or so I worked some here and some outside of Philadelphia.  I just happened to think of you the other day and wondered how you were doing, then thought I'd check Facebook and see if I could find you.  Looks as if you're in Missouri now: what led you there?  Hope you and your family are safe and well and that you're happy and enjoying life.  You were always a great influence on me, and I'm grateful."

Keith was in high school when I met him in 1974 at Baylor School in Chattanooga.  I was working in the school library, shelving books much as I do now at the Crown Center for Senior Living.  That's how I paid my way through college for my first degree.  I remember Keith bringing the children's choir from First Christian Church to sing at Forrest Avenue United Methodist, maybe in the late 1980s.  A group of six-year-olds.  More memories.  Keith and I are now Facebook friends.

Chenille bedspreads ~ memories are made of this

Dusty Old Thing wrote about Karen Fortny's photo of her mother's chenille bedspread:

"Tradition has it that a young woman from Dalton, Georgia, in the late 1890's, saw an early candlewick spread and set out to recreated it with a more tufted finish.  "Chenille" is French for a hairy caterpillar.  The making of chenille spreads became a cottage industry in Georgia and parts of Tennessee. Many were sold along major roads leading to Florida.  In the '50's major textile companies were making them by machine.   The end of their popularity probably came in the mid '60's.  Travelers to Florida or the Smokies were, by then, going on Interstates."

I was given a chenille bedspread when I married in 1959 and remember seeing them sold on roadsides in Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida.  I still have one on my shelf that's very plain and all white, not nearly as beautiful as this one.  As a teenager, I hated the patterns they left on my skin when I stretched out on my bed to read during the day.  Does anyone else remember these bedspreads?

Monday Memories

I remember the older songs.  I was back in school (at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) in the early 1970s, listening to songs like this.  "City of New Orleans" was a hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972 and was also performed by Judy Collins.  Now the great news:  I'll be in the audience this evening to hear Judy Collins.  Yes!  I wonder if she'll play this one.  Or maybe "Mr. Tamborine Man" or "Both Sides Now" or "Chelsea Morning" or "Send in the Clowns" or "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" or "The Rose"?

Monday memories

When I was new online and did not yet know how to add a photo of myself, I used this orange cat as my profile picture.  My email name, for reasons too complicated to go into, was BoJacobs (Bonnie got shortened to Bo).  So my online persona was this cat with its tail in constant motion.  My question:

How many of you knew me then?

Monday Memories ~ my encyclopedia story

When my three children were growing up, we bought them a set of the World Book Encyclopedias.  They looked like this 20-volume set I found online.  I also remember Mother buying the four of us the same encyclopedia.  She paid 50-cents a week on it, which was a lot of money back then.  A little story for you about these books.

After World War Two, there was a housing shortage, and old barracks in my town were converted to temporary apartments for returning soldiers with children.  My dad was a veteran with a wife and four kids, so we qualified.  The barracks, however, were slung together, rather than built to last.  So when it rained, we often had leaks.  And those leaky spots usually dripped rain onto our furniture.  When it stormed, my siblings ran to cover their beds — I can't remember if we used tarps, or shower curtains, or what — but I was less interested in a dry bed than I was in saving our books!  Especially the encyclopedias.  So I covered up our bookcases.  As you can see, my love of books goes way, way, way back.

In the days before digital — before we had a television in our home — books were the only way to learn about something, the only way to check facts.  It was, in fact, our version of Google.

"The World Book was Google, for an era of print. If you needed to know something, there it was, on the shelf at home."

I found this quote while searching for an image to use.  Think about it ... if rain suddenly started pouring into your house, what would you save first?  Your TV?  Your iPod?  Your Kindle?  I saved the source of my knowledge — our encyclopedias.

My great-great-great-great-grandparents

Nancy Parks Setliff and Joseph John Setliff IV

My siblings and I got an email from our brother Saturday, with this photo attached.  Our family name is Setliffe, with an "e" on the end because my grandmother decided the name didn't look finished.

Sending you a picture of Joseph John Setliff IV and his wife, Nancy Parks.  Joseph was born 30 May 1782 and died 24 May 1870.  Nancy Parks was born 02 November 1791 and died 24 August 1865.  These people are our Great, Great, Great, Great Grandparents.  Thought you might like to see it.

Love you all,
Jim

I wish the photo weren't so fuzzy, but it's still interesting to see my own ancestors.  Jim tells me it's fuzzy because it's a copy from an original print done on glass before film was used.

Great-great-great-great is FOUR greats in the past, plus grandparents, plus parents, plus my generation, and I have a couple of great-great grandchildren of my own.  Let's see, how's my math?  Really, all I need to do is count on my fingers:

1. Joseph and Nancy, born in 1782 and 1791
2. their son, my great-great-great-grandfather
3. his son, my great-great-grandfather
4. his son, my great-grandfather
5. his son, my grandfather, born in 1891 (see below)
6. his son, my dad, born with an "e" on his name in1918
7. me, born in 1940
8. my three kids, born in the 1960s
9. their seven children, born between 1986 and 2000
10. my two great-grandchildren, born in 2009 and 2010

That makes ten generations.  Wow!  This list also spans parts of four centuries:  1700s, 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s.  I just noticed Nancy and Joseph (pictured above) lived through the American Civil War (1860s), including the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (April 1865).

On Sunday, Jim sent a link to a 1917 document about our grandfather, and I see he was still signing his name without the "e" a year and a half before my father was born.  I didn't realize he was born in Alabama (though I knew that grandmother was from Dinwiddy County, Virginia).  He lists a wife who is "dependent on him for support," but no children yet.  (Click on the document to enlarge it.)

My father was W. E. Setliffe, Jr., and he signed his middle name with that same rounded "E" for Elmer. His "W" in William was different, though, and also more rounded.  Here's a photo of my father's father (who signed this form) when he was 16.  I've posted a close-up of it before.  I knew that he was a meatcutter because I have an old advertisement for the Setliff Meat Market.  I didn't know he had once been a deputy sheriff.

Okay, one last thing and then I'm through with genealogy stuff on this blog.  Last summer, when I reported on the closing of the church I grew up in, I posted photos of a bronze plaque dedicating the organ in honor of those from the church who served in World War Two.  You can see my father's name, spelled with an "e" on the end.

So here's another (unplanned) Monday Memories post.  It's very different from the first one and not at all book related.

Monday Memories ~ the "ten-tens"

Some books are more memorable than others.  You know, the kind that stick with you, long after you've closed the book.  I looked over the books I've written about during the four years I've been blogging (I have links on my Bonnie Reviews Books blog) and picked my most memorable 10/10 books, those that I rated 10 out of 10.  These books I've chosen are ones I highly recommend for each category, as labeled.  And of course, I've linked each one back to my original review of the book.  (The eagle-eyed among you may notice a slight discrepancy:  there seems to be a tie in one category.  Blame Kiki.)

10/10 middle grade fiction

The Breadwinner ~ by Deborah Ellis, 2001, YA fiction (Afghanistan), 10/10

How would a family survive under the Taliban if the son is gone and the father has been taken away by men who invaded their home?  Eleven-year-old Parvana knows how to sell items on the streets, because she often went with her father when he did it.  But girls and women are not allowed out of the house alone.  Someone must pose as a boy, and her sister is too old to get by with that.  So Parvana's hair is cut short and she has to dress in her brother's old clothes to become their breadwinner.

10/10 children's picture book

Miss Rumphius ~ by Barbara Cooney, 1982, children's, 10/10

This beautiful book, which won the American Book Sellers National Book Award, passes along the wisdom of a grandfather's philosophy of life.  He told Alice Rumphius that she should not only travel the world and come home to live by the sea, but also to do something in her life to make the world more beautiful.  Little Alice grew up, traveled, and settled by the sea, and what she did to make the world more beautiful was to plant lupines all over the place.  See photos and links to more photos in my review.

10/10 children's picture book

My Cat: The Silliest Cat in the World ~ by Gilles Bachelet, 2004, children's, 10/10

I won't belabor this one, having written about it only a week ago.  I mean, Kiki wrote about it a week ago Caturday.  The guy has a cat, but it isn't.  It's a big gray thing with a trunk.  Kiki thinks it's hilarious.  I love it, too, but not quite as much as I love Miss Rumphius (see above).

10/10 young adult fiction

Mind's Eye ~ by Paul Fleischman, 1999, YA fiction, 10/10

Sixteen-year-old Courtney thinks her life is over when she ends up totally incapacitated and in a room at a nursing home with eighty-eight-year-old Elva and a woman named May, who has dementia.  Elva, however, uses her imagination to take them on a trip to Italy, having Courtney read from a travel book. The two of them even dreamed up men to "go along" with them on their adventure.  Elva's memories of her sister Rose fits right in with my theme of Monday Memories:

Dear Rose.  She was an ideal older sister.  Life was quite inconceivable without her.  Now that she's gone, I find the memories of her coming up unexpectedly, like daffodils you'd forgotten you'd planted. . . . A marvelous memory garden to stroll through. . . .Do you remember the book I gave you yesterday?  It was Rose who invented the sort of journey I'm proposing that you and I take.

10/10 adult fiction

The Art of Racing in the Rain ~ by Garth Stein, 2008, fiction, 10/10

Enzo is a great dog, who happens to be a darned good philosopher.  Okay, that sounds silly, but this feel-good book has a lot more in it than I had expected.  It sounded too cutesy, so I put off getting it, over and over.  Of the 86 books I've read so far this year, this is my favorite.  I sobbed at the end, and Helen tells me (in the comments) that she also sobbed.  What can I say?  Just read it, okay?

10/10 religion

The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions ~ by Karen Armstrong, 2006, religion, 10/10

I was surprised to see that the major world religions emerged more or less around the same time.  The world was a violent place full of hatred, rather like today, and people felt a need for compassion to oppose it.  China produced Confucianism and Daoism (most books spell it Taoism), India produced Hinduism and Buddhism, and Israel was the source of the monotheisms that became Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  The philosophers in Greece came up with philosophical rationalism, which is usually left out of books on religions of the world.  I hope to teach a series of classes based on this book, starting in a few weeks.

10/10 history

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 ~ by Simon Winchester, 2003, history, 10/10

My grandmother, born in December 1880, was a toddler when this Indonesian volcano blew up in 1883.  It was one of the most catastrophic ever witnessed in recorded history, with some of the tremendous explosions from the island of Krakatoa being heard 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers) away in Australia.  Fumes, ashes, and the resulting tsunami killed more than 40,000 people.  When I first heard of the eruption as a youngster, I was fascinated by the image of darkened skies all around the world, making everything red for years.

10/10 women's studies

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present ~ by Gail Collins, 2009, women's studies, 10/10

I was a newly minted adult in the 1960s, so I remember those days.  One example from my book review will suffice here:

It was 1973 when I was divorced after fourteen years and three children. That's when I learned that HE got "our" good credit rating, while I had NO credit worthiness. I wasn't the only one.

"In 1974 Kathryn Kirshbaum, the mayor of Davenport, Iowa, was told she could not have a BankAmerica card unless she got her husband's signature. Billie Jean King was the winner of three Wimbledon titles in a single year and was supporting her household with the money she made from tennis. But she could not get a credit card unless it was in the name of her husband, a law student with no income" (p. 250).

.............................................
Bonnie is not available to take your call.

Please leave a comment after the beep.
.................. *BEEP* ..................

Memories evoked by smells

Watermelon's smell takes me back to childhood, under the plum tree eating watermelon. We sat beside a water faucet, on a small, slatted-wood platform hugging the ground, presumably to keep people from getting muddy when the water splashed onto the ground.

Another smell memory is of my grandmother's hyacinths growing along the side of the garage (on the coalbin side). Those flowers grew next to my sandbox, installed there by my daddy when we moved into Grandma's house after she died. Smelling a hyacinth transports me back to the sandbox, and I can still feel the gritty sand sticking to my legs. When the sand was damp, my brother and I would pack it around our feet and then carefully slide our feet out to leave mounded sand houses, ready for occupancy.

(Response to Goldendaze-Ginnie's post: "The Power of Smell - My First Memory.")

Daylight saving WHOSE time?

June wrote on her blog Spatter: "Twice a year we adjust our clocks to suit our needs and desires. And why not...after all, time is relative."

Why not? Because it's a sneaky plot by folks with October birthdays, that's why not! Back when (that's a time a few decades ago), time changed near the end of April every year. Can you guess whose birthday is near the end of April? Yes! You guessed correctly. And then it happened. The dreaded day of "spring forward" came and devoured an hour of MY day ... MINE. "Spring forward" is a sneaky way of saying "lose an hour of sleep" on that single day of the year. People would be late for church. They'd be cranky from losing an hour of sleep. And it happened on what was supposed to be my joyful day ... MINE.

So I wrote a short article about it. (I'm a wordsmith, so what else would you expect me to do?)

I entitled it "Daylight saving WHOSE time?" I had done my research well and had discovered the guilty party (parties?) who had stolen that hour from me: somebody whose birthday came in October, that's who! It was a revelation I wanted the world to know. It was unfair. Unfair, I tell you! Those folks in October got an extra hour every year ... by stealing it from April. And they already HAD a 31-day month.

Everyone knows that February is the shortest month of the year, but few realized that taking an hour from April (currently it's March who's being victimized) meant that April had become the second shortest month of the year. Short-changed by an hour, we had only 29 days and 23 hours. October, shiny and bright with its orange and red leaves, had become the longest month of the year with its 31 days plus one hour.

Now I ask you, is that fair? No! A resounding "NO"! And I've been campaigning for years to get back that hour of my birthday. Why, I even stayed up until two o'clock on that October Sunday to enjoy MY hour! It was a bit dark, and all that, but by golly I enjoyed every minute of it.
__________

Thanks to June (Spatter) for today's blogging topic. In the United States, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed the days of DST to add four more weeks, so DST now starts on the second Sunday in March and lasts until the first Sunday in November. When I wrote my article, DST started on the last Sunday in April and lasted until the last Sunday in October.
__________

"...last ... lasted ... last..." Did I really say that? Edited version: DST started at 2:00 a.m. on the final Sunday in April and continued until 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.

What she said ... is chilling

We had joy, we had fun…
You see a gate, standing in a field. I see history and memories and hear voices all around me, floating through time. What was still is, what is, always was. Then is now, now is then. The unending cycle of incomprehension and arrogance continues. Nothing really changes.

This is Vanilla's most recent post. It's poetry, but it isn't ... it's powerful, it's chilling, but most of all, it is evocative. The words "we had joy, we had fun" brought back the song, which hasn't crossed my mind in years, in decades. Listen to the song; then go feel the words Vanilla wrote today.



If this video quits working, listen to Seasons in the Sun on YouTube.