Season's Greetings, 2019

Season’s Greetings!

The Holidays are upon us, and I expected to be in Tennessee by now. That hasn’t happened because the long-term care facility in Nolensville is not yet finished! I’m just as happy not to be moving in the middle of winter when everything is dark and cold. The new estimate will be around the first week of March. That offers some reprieve for me to enjoy the holidays – and to continue at the slower pace I’ve adopted in my eighties. Still, I’m looking forward to being near daughter Elisabeth and her family in the spring!

Elisabeth and Trey's family tree, 2019

This has been a full, busy, and often difficult year, with ongoing efforts to whittle down possessions in preparation for the move to Tennessee. Grandson Blake came to Charleston twice this year to help me sort, toss, and move two small U-Haul loads to a storage unit in Nolensville.

Blake and Landon playing cards. Oldest and youngest "grand."

 I’ve been giving away furniture and books and bookcases, as well as some treasures collected on overseas trips. And I’ve perused boxes and boxes of mementos and thrown away most of the stuff in them. 

There are still many photo albums and a few boxes of correspondence to distill. And I’ve sorted through all my books. Those still in the house (or storage) are ones I plan to take to Traditions, the long-term care facility in Nolensville. Now I need to arrange for a moving company to haul it all there - when the place is ready.

Long-time friends have been my mainstay during this unsettled time. Women I've been getting together with monthly over dinner still offer support and friendship. Thanks especially to Ellie Setser, who arranged a birthday party for me at our November women's dinner!

Mary Joan, Carla, Darlene, and Ellie

Nonie, Skeet, Carol, Carla, Ellie, Maria, and Sandra.

Mary Johnston, an editor and very fine person, who has led a productive writers' group for the past decade, threw a good-bye party for me at the beginning of summer. Friends from church and women's groups - as well as other writers - all attended a great party at a beautiful home downtown! Thank you to all my fellow writers for encouragement and suggestions down through the years, and to other friends, many of them UUs, for helping to keep me as sane as possible - and for buying some of my books!

Mary Johnston's writers (top) and UU friends (bottom).

A good-bye party last May. (Oops, I'm still here!)

The children – and their children – are all doing pretty well. Briana has had problems with some of her joints, making work at the post-office difficult and often painful, although she’s being stoic. Blake is in his last year at Northland College in Ashland, WI, and he plans to graduate at the end of next semester!

Maria has been writing successfully. Harry is spending his junior college year at Oxford, in England. He will come home to New York for the holidays.
And Elisabeth’s family is doing well, although the younger children have been sick enough to miss some school this fall. Judson is looking forward to graduating high school next year. He will be going to college in the fall, and he plans to study physics!

It's been a very social year, including frequent get-togethers with friends, mostly women I've known for decades at the UU Church and at MUSC. 

And I had the privilege of attending my first immigration and naturalization service with the citizenship ceremony of Maryam Nadieri, Will Moredock's widow.

I’ve also had some happy/sad good-bye lunches and dinners with friends. And there have been a few funeral services, including those at the UU Church for long-time friends, Will Moredock and Dottie Klintworth - truly sad and sobering. 

In the midst of sorting and moving and saying goodbyes, writing efforts have almost stalled. However, with the help of Mary's writers’ group, the book about a 1992 summer in Siberia – and from there to western (“civilized”) Russia – is now in first draft form. Still a long way to go before that one is finished, however. And there's so much more I want to do before...

Wishing you a Wonderful Holiday Season and a Very Happy New Year!!

Jo Anne

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS, 2018

Season’s Greetings, 2018!

Hoping you’ve had a very good year in 2018.

Wishing you an even better one in 2019!

The Saturn in the snow

This year (2018) began with a great deal of snow – more snow that I’ve seen in Charleston since moving here in 1970 – almost half a century ago! It didn’t just snow half an inch and then disappear two hours later – as usually happens here when it snows –every five years or so. No, it was a real, two-day snow that piled up at least a foot, covering the ground, making the roads impassable for a day and then hanging around as ice and sleet for several days afterwards. Grandson Blake was visiting Charleston over the holidays, and he had helped me clear out the garage and sort through a lot of stuff while he was here. His plane back to Minnesota was cancelled because of the snow. I had to drive him to Myrtle Beach, at night, on icy roads, so that he could fly back. Good thing I learned to drive in Michigan!

With Dinah, a longtime friend (since 1956)

It’s been a busy year, and I’ve generally felt better and been able to do more than in recent years. I’m taking new medication that improves the breathing and have been able to do some traveling this year to visit family and friends. In March, I visited friends and family in Florida – Sue and Ray, friends from high-school; Dinah, a friend from college years; and cousin Larry and his family. Back in Charleston, I mostly hung out with longtime UU friends.

Briana and Jeremy's wedding. Blake officiated.

Daughter Briana married Jeremy Potter in Idaho in June, and I flew out there and rented a car to attend the festivities. I mostly hung out with Briana’s aunt and uncle, Judi and Danny Lane. It was a lovely, outdoor ceremony. Later that summer, I spent a couple of days with Elisabeth and her family, who were in Hilton Head for a week.

Reunion dinner, K-college friends, class of 1958

Our Kalamazoo College class “(’58) had its sixtieth reunion in October, and I drove up to Michigan for that, stopping on the way to visit an old friend, Fran Cameron, outside of Atlanta, and my daughter, Elizabeth, and her family near Nashville. It was a lovely, memorable trip, 

Writing has taken up a lot of my time at home – so I’m not doing as much clearing and sorting as I should. A collection of short stories, Laboratory Notebook, came out in May. 

And my magnum opus, TheBewildered Patient’s Whole-Body Health Guide, was published officially on December 10! Please visit the webpage for other books you might find of interest!

Hope all is well with you – or as well as can be expected. I’ve made my peace with aches and pains and coughs – and a lot of other stuff that comes with age. Still enjoying life, though. And I just put down a deposit on an apartment in a long-term care facility under construction in Nolensville, TN, near Elisabeth and her family. I should be there for Christmas next year!

Joy to the World – and Love to Friends and Family! 

Jo (Anne Valentine Simson)

Holiday Greetings and New Year Wishes!

Can't believe it's time for another holiday letter! Hope you've had a good year in 2016, and that the New Year will be even better!

SEASON’S GREETINGS!

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Wonderful New Year!

The year 2016 has been much better (for me) than its predecessor. My respiratory issues have improved steadily (with occasional setbacks). I’ve been making great efforts to “get my life in order” (with some progress). And I’ve been busy in Charleston with friends and colleagues.

Medical History Club, with Drs. Jane Upshur and Biemann Othersen

The last of my rental properties was sold early in the year, which was a burden off my back. I still have one property to dispose of—some land in the North Carolina mountains that I once intended to build on. It was a dream that evaporated a decade ago with the economic collapse.

The writing has been going reasonably well, with several books at various stages of completion, and a helpful writers’ group cheering me on to finish a memoir—really more like an autobiography with topic highlights. I’m planning to publish that with CreateSpace in early 2017. That book will be of interest primarily to family—and maybe a few close friends.

A booklet I had been working on since early summer, Russia Revisited, about a commercial trip to Russia in 2010, is now finished and has been published. I just received copies from the publisher a few days ago. It was originally intended as a teaser for a longer (and more serious) book about Russia and its grim history, woven around a Sierra Club backpacking trip I made in Siberia in 1992—shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Afterwards, I crossed Russia solo by train to Moscow and St. Petersburg. That book has gotten stalled, but I intend to pick it up again early next year. FYI, my Amazon site is https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BH3326S

My mother, Helen Pascoe, in slacks, 1924

Also, I’ve been sorting, scanning, and distributing photo albums to children, including albums from my mother and my father. One of Mom’s albums dates back to 1924. She was a liberated woman of first wave feminism! I posted this picture in a blog on my new website.

Still, there are a lot of albums to go through. I discovered several more in a trunk that had not been opened since I moved into this house in 2010. Maybe they've been in that trunk since 2007!

In August, I spent three or four days in New York visiting eldest daughter, Maria, and her wonderful family. I used to visit them frequently, but since becoming so ill in late 2014, I have scarcely gone anywhere outside Charleston. While in NYC, I attended a Writers’ Digest conference in downtown Manhattan, which was interesting and informative.

The main book I’m trying to sell to an agent for a larger audience is one I’ve been working on for the past five years. It’s intended for lay readers to help them understand and care for their own body. Dr. Susan Reynolds, a colleague and former student, is consultant on that book. I had a bit of interest from an agent, but so far nothing more.

With friend, colleague, and consultant, Dr. Susan Reynolds

After Blake, the eldest grandson, went off to Northland College in Ashland, WI this fall, daughter Briana, moved to another city in Idaho to be near her boyfriend. They plan to marry sometime next year. Blake is really loving college, and he calls his grandma every week!

With daughters Maria and Elisabeth.

I'm the short one in the middle.

In November, two of my wonderful daughters threw a surprise party for my 80^th birthday here in Charleston. It included several close friends as well as family. It was the best birthday party I’ve ever had! And a total surprise!! I was amazed that Maria, the eldest, was willing to come to Charleston. The last time she was here was for Elisabeth’s wedding, 17 years ago. Elisabeth and her family came in their new RV. They stayed at the James Island County Park, one of my favorite campgrounds when I had an RV. We drove around the park one evening and saw the holiday lights, which are spectacular.

So, the election aside, 2016 has been a great year for an old lady. Hope your year has been good too! And here's hoping the New Year will be as pleasant as possible for friends and family--as well as for the many others in the world who are not as fortunate. Let us hope that we can somehow try to achieve that elusive goal of Peace on Earth.

Happy Holidays!!

 HAPPY HOLIDAYS, 2015 

Holiday Greetings to friends and relatives! The year 2015 has been a mixed blessing for me. It started out with a serious case of the flu, contracted right after last Christmas, that I was fighting for a month or so, after which I was fighting the after-effects of the medications prescribed by my pulmonologist. I was sicker than I have been since being laid up in the hospital with pneumonia in my very early teens. Luckily I was able to sleep a lot, so I managed to meet social and church obligations and writing deadlines. I finally started feeling better in May, partly because I weaned myself off of most prescription medications.

This year I didn’t travel anywhere. I do plan a Christmas visit to a friend and former student, Susan Reynolds, a practicing physician in Hartsville, SC, who is serving as medical consultant on a book I’ve been working on for five years—with the help of some fellow writers and other friends. I think it’s about finished, and I want to submit it this coming year to agents and/or to small publishing houses. The title of the book hasn’t yet been settled. Initially, it was "Caring for your Body from the Outside In," then it was some version of "The Perplexed Patient’s Guide to Whole Body Health," and the most recent title is "Body Wisdom, Body Care." I’d be happy for any feedback on which title grabs you the most.

Sales of my two published books have flat-lined, partly because I haven’t been promoting them—partly because I’ve been so otherwise occupied, and partly because promotion just isn’t my thing. If you’re interested, you can find them on my Amazon site, which will be linked at the bottom of this letter. I have been writing, but nothing else is finished or published yet.

And I’m still organizing (yawn, yawn), and I’ve managed to sell two of the four properties I owned and have been renting. The other two properties will hopefully sell next year. That has been an enormous chore. Thankfully, I’ve had help from a wonderful real-estate agent and friend, Karen Abrams. Indeed, my friends have sustained me through this difficult year. Hopefully next year will be more fun and fruitful and I’ll be able to move ahead with some projects that have stalled. Everything takes longer than you think. That gets scary as one gets older.

My two daughter, Elisabeth and Briana—and their families—came to Charleston during the year, in August and November respectively. I posted some photos on Facebook. Briana made a fabulous dinner over Thanksgiving, and I’m still eating the leftovers! It was wonderful to see the children and grandchildren, however briefly. Without the RV, I’m just not traveling much these days, so now folks can come to visit me! I’m certainly grateful for the internet!

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful, and prosperous, and productive, and fun year in 2016!

Jo Anne

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BH3326S               

                                                        

Photos and Events, 2015

UU friends, Nelsons' anniversary, February

Rally after Emmanuel massacre, June

Elisabeth and family visited, August  

 

            

Milking a goat, cheese-making party, November  

 

Saw “Suffragette” with friends, November

 

Briana cooking Thanksgiving dinner, November     

  

Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season

And a Wonderful New Year 2015!

This year has flown by so quickly, I can hardly believe it’s December. Although I sold the RV in June, I still did a LOT of traveling throughout the year—basically a trip every other month. Almost all of the trips were to visit longtime friends and relatives, the kinds of visits that feel soul-nourishing.

with niece, Megan Gaiefsky, Florida

The first trip, in January, was to Florida to see old friends, Dinah and Cledith Oakley, in Daytona Beach. I was going to take the RV, but it wouldn't start (dead battery), so I drove down in my Saturn. Afterwards, I stopped in to see a niece, Megan Gaiefsky, who lives nearby; her dad, cousin Larry, was there at the time. 

WTHS classmates: Larry Wigner, Sue Campbell, Joyce and Dick Eldridge

During the trip, I also saw a few former high-school classmates (’54), particularly Suzie and Ray Campbell, who took me around The Villages where they live, a sort of Disney World for seniors. They invited a couple of other classmates over for dinner one evening, and we all looked at old yearbooks and reminisced. I suspect we’re happier now than we were then, although we were certainly healthier when we were younger!

Briana and Blake in front of their home, Idaho Falls

Blake by a mound at Craters of the Moon

Then in March, I flew to Idaho Falls, ID and spent a week with daughter, Briana and grandson, Blake, while he was on spring break from high school. He and I hung out, talked, played games, went to museums, and traveled around the countryside, including a day-long visit to Craters of the Moon National Park—a bleak, fascinating landscape.

with Carol and Fred Valentine, Harvard Club, NYC

In June, I took the train to New York City to attend the 50^th wedding anniversary of cousins Fred and Carol Valentine at the Harvard Club. It was an elegant, congenial event. 

While in New York, I spent some time with daughter, Maria, and grandson, Gabriel. 

Grandson, Gabe, at park with his mom

On the way back to Charleston, I stopped in Washington, DC and saw a long-time friend, Art Molella and his wife, Roya. We visited an exhibit on the Smithsonian Museum of American History that Art had curated. While there, I also spent time at the exhibit on Changing America (1863 – 1963), an excellent presentation of the deeply troubled legacy of slavery, emancipation, segregation, and racism in the United States.

with Mary and Ed Gaiefsky, Linville, NC

In August, I spent a week in North Carolina, first visiting cousin Ed Gaiefsky and his wife Mary, in their lovely cabin in a forest near Linville. 

Then I drove down to Lake Lure to meet some West Ashley Unitarian women friends for a long week-end organized by Marilyn Henderson. During both visits, we talked, and ate, and saw nearby sights, and, in general, had more fun than old folks are expected to have. Food is a big fun factor these days.

Ellie, Marilyn, Toni, Sue, Linda, Susan, Blowing Rock, NC

Jacob Heyman-Kantor, the son on one of my long-time best friends, Arlene, was married in September at a lovely retreat in the Berkshire Mountains (MA). I flew up to New York and then drove a rental car to the site of the two day gala, where I met several interesting people. With one of them—a German with a French name, Jean-Baptiste Chuat, I had a long and fascinating conversation about culture and science and media. Had a very pleasant ride back to NYC with Lisa Vergaran, an art-historian friend of Arlene’s.

with Arlene Heyman-Kantor and Len Rodberg, MA

In October, I flew out west, with a first stop in Donna Texas to visit my brother, Dick. We had a pleasant, quiet couple of days together, including an afternoon in Mexico. That was my first time on the soil of our south-of-the-border neighbor-nation. 

with Sue, Ruthie, Marlene, and Dee, NM

Afterwards, I spent a week in New Mexico with a bunch of former Kalamazoo College classmates. Ruthie Williamson, our hostess, led us through sunny and scenic byways, viewing amazing landscapes and the art it has inspired (as in the Georgia O’Keefe museum). It was wonderful to see and be with old friends, and that included a long lunch with a some-time beau.

This month, December, I will be driving to Mt. Juliet, TN (near Nashville), to visit daughter Elisabeth and her wonderful family (including three grandchildren) for Christmas. 

On the way back, I plan to stop in Conyers, GA, to see Fran Cameron, the former secretary of my first “boss” in Charleston, Sam Spicer. My friend Ellie Setser and I both worked in Sam’s lab but at different times, and we agree that he was a great boss!

So that’s the recap of this year’s peregrinations. The home front has also been pretty busy, with social and community groups, church activities, book events, and meals with friends. I've gotten into a lot of social media activity—email, Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn—and that has truly become a “time-suck” as they say. Some of it was intended to help me market books, but instead, it has become something of a personal addiction. I need to find ways to cut way back on online activity so I can spend more time writing. And organizing! Organizing is always on top of my to-do list, but it only seems to happen when I’m up against a deadline or I can’t seem to find something.

As far as writing is concerned, I've been working on the third revision of a manuscript about understanding the body and communicating with health-care providers. It’s something I've been writing and revising for three years now with the help of a group of fellow writers who are no doubt sick of it, so I’m trying to find other readers for the next revision. I've also compiled a collection of short stories from pieces written over the past three decades; that collection was just submitted. Other stories/articles have been submitted throughout the year. One piece, on names, was accepted by Persimmon Tree, but it won’t be published until next year.

I miss having the children and grandchildren nearby, but local friends partially compensate and they're doubtless less emotionally distracting.

Thank you, my terrific friends and family, for enriching my life throughout the years. I feel extraordinarily lucky. Hope your holiday season is or has been joyful.

Best wishes for a wonderful New Year in 2015!

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