Remember when I did that very-long post in 2011 on 'A' is for Astrid of All Trades because I wanted to make sure all her art work and creativity would not remain under a portfolio bushel the rest of her life?
Well, then.
In a few more days I'll be turning the BIG 70 and something very weird is happening to me. I'm not scared, afraid or alarmed. Not even second-guessing it. HA! But I AM definitely understanding better than ever before that the time left on this end going forward is much less than looking back.
And since I have these shoeboxes of photos just sitting here, I've decided to look back on 70 years and encapsulate them somehow...for the online record. And as I've mulled them over, the only thing that makes sense is to break them up into 3 posts/time-periods based on my 21-year marriage to Bill (with family): Pre-Marriage Years (0-24), Marriage Years (24-45), Post-Marriage Years (45-70).
Thus, the beginning, starting with a line-up of all those school portraits:
Whenever I think of "my inner Child," this is who I see.
Definitely not this!
Did I really look like that age 9-13???
Sometimes I remember this high-schooler.
My high-school senior photo, 1962-63.
As soon as I started college, I changed my name from Virginia to Ginnie,
started wearing contacts, changed my part to the other side...and allowed my hair to keep growing.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
At birth, 13 June 1945, I weighed 5lbs 8-1/2ozs (considered a preemie in 1945).
They kept me in the hospital for 3 weeks and then released me to family and home.
Home then was in Lynchburg, VA.
AND from that point on, I was called "Boots" (a fun story about booties that were too big).
Dad was a small-church preacher/pastor in those days...when I was 9-11 months old.
After I turned one year old, we moved from Virginia to Michigan for a new pastorate.
Nelson is 3 years older; Susan is 2 years older.
My maternal g'pa and g'ma lived in Bayonne, NJ.
I still have memories of the gold-fish pond, even though I was there maybe only twice?
Mom, an only child, came from a well-to-do family and married a poor preacher
Mom, an only child, came from a well-to-do family and married a poor preacher
Nancy was born 13 months after I and quickly became my buddy.
Nelson and Susan watched over both of us.
Don't you wonder what we would remember without photos?
But, yes, I always had strawberry-blonde hair
(to be differentiated from Susan's auburn and, later, Bennett's carrot-top red).
But, yes, I always had strawberry-blonde hair
(to be differentiated from Susan's auburn and, later, Bennett's carrot-top red).
By age 9, we moved from Pullman to Grand Ledge, MI.
In fact, I turned 9 in the hospital right after moving.
That's when they discovered I had a mild case of non-paralytic polio.
Notice that the family is growing...but still no Ruthie, the youngest.
There she is!
Nelson, Susan, Boots, Nancy, Bennett, Jim, John, Ruth.
Nelson, Susan, Boots, Nancy, Bennett, Jim, John, Ruth.
Yes, count them: there are 8 of us, with a spread of 14 years from Nelson to Ruth.
4 boys and 4 girls. Dad called us girls the "step sisters."
4 boys and 4 girls. Dad called us girls the "step sisters."
I was 11 when Ruth was born and remember her being "my baby."
She was 7 when I went away to college...but this is still high school for me (1962).
There's my buddy Nancy again but mostly I was off by myself, in my own world.
The tree between Dad's church and parsonage was my haven.
(I was "different" from everyone I knew but had no clue it was called "gay" back then.)
I graduated from Grand Ledge High School in June of 1963.
I went to no proms during high school (I wasn't "allowed" to dance),
but had plenty of dress-up time in college.
I was Susan's buddy at her wedding; and Nancy was my buddy again at college,
attending a few months with me at both University of Michigan and Moody Bible Institute.
I graduated from U of M in December of 1967, taking a year after my sophomore year
to study Greek and Theology at Moody as prep for Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT).
My degree at U of M was Linguistics.
I attended the Summer Institute of Linguistics at the U of Oklahoma for 3 summers,
teaching phonetics the last year (1968), preparing to be a missionary linguist with WBT.
This is what my family of origin looked like then, with additional spouses and significant others.
It was 1968 and I was 23.
After graduating from U of M in December 1967 and then teaching phonetics the summer of 1968,
I started packing for Peru, to work with the Campa Pajonal indigenous people in the Andes' foothills.
They had no written language and my job, along with partner Alleen, was to start transcribing it.
They had no written language and my job, along with partner Alleen, was to start transcribing it.
I took a freighter from New Orleans to Lima with 2 55-gal. oil drums filled with my earthly possessions....
And was in Peru the first 6 months of 1969, till returning home to marry Bill Tiffan,
the only guy (from U of M days) I had ever seriously considered marrying.
I turned 24 while in Peru and married Bill that September, 1969.
(to be continued....)
