Back on Track with Column 149

Jo Ann Bock

Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian

Yes, I’m back, and just in time for Mother’s Day. Thanks to son Burton, who filled in with feline tales and transistor radio memories, I managed a five-month hiatus from writing this column. In truth, I needed the break. As much as I enjoy writing about people and community happenings, I felt the need to step back and recharge.

My days with TBY Magazine date back nineteen years. I made my debut with “Games We Played When Young” in the November 1999 issue. Now, 149 columns later, I still have an idea or two left. So it’s full speed ahead.

Making friendships has been a lifelong pleasure. This column spotlights two special ladies I have come to admire and respect. Both are prime examples of women who have mastered the art of aging gracefully. Their first names: Grace and Mary Ellen.

If I live to be 100, I doubt I will see a centennial celebration to match Grace Ehrat Albrecht’s open house hosted by her daughter Lynne (Richard) Cairns and sons, Ken and Randy Albrecht.

Saxony Village activity center was abuzz with well-wishers that March Sunday. A memories display of photographs and keepsakes reviewed highlights of Grace’s 100 years. I noticed a newspaper clipping of Grace’s 1936 coronation as Vandalia, Illinois’, “May Queen,” and also her scholarship certificate from Vandalia High School for $25 toward college tuition (she chose to get a job instead.)

There were dozens of family pictures, including Grace and Hilmer’s wedding anniversaries through sixty-nine years. They moved in 2005 from their home in Sparta, Illinois, to Saxony Village. Mr. Albrecht passed away three years later.

A take-home favor for guests was a news sheet, “Back in 1918 when Grace Was Born.” Points of interest: average weekly income was $25.61, daily paper cost two cents, gallon of gas cost 23 cents, a new home cost $2,200 and a Ford town car cost $595. A popular film was “Tarzan of the Apes” and the number one song was “Tiger Rag” by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Germany signed the Armistice ending World War I, and Woodrow Wilson was the U.S. president.

Actually, Grace is one of my newer friends. We met at a Good Shepherd Chapel fellowship gathering about ten years ago. Meeting Mary Ellen Berkbigler, however, dates back to 1963 when I did my student teaching under her supervision at Cape Junior High School.

“Mrs. B,” as she encouraged her pupils to call her, was a gifted teacher whose creativity in developing meaningful lesson plans and innovative class projects proved effective. Students responded to her enthusiasm; I listened and learned, watching this master teacher work her magic in the classroom.

After the Berkbigler family moved to Washington State in 1965, Mary Ellen and I began a 50-year correspondence (not just birthdays and holidays, but regular monthly letters and eventually email messages.) We have shared mutual interests via the written word: books we read, poems we write, flowers we plant, happy times and down days. Both of us admit to being hopeless clutter bugs,hanging onto things most people would never think of saving.

While working on this article, I received word that Mary Ellen passed away at her home in Marysville, Washington. Her son, Van Berkbigler, telephoned the sad news that March morning. Mrs. B was 96 years old, but to me and her family and numerous friends, she will be “forever young” in our memories.

I find it interesting that Mary Ellen and husband Paul were both only children in their families, yet their three children (Bruce, Van and Linn) produced an impressive Berkbigler heritage of 14 grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren.

An excerpt from one of Mrs. B’s many letters (of course I’ve kept them) reflects her vibrant personality: “My head is still so full of things I want to do. I think Heaven will be a creative place. I don’t consider myself especially graceful or able to sing, so I say that in Heaven I’ll learn ballet and sing in the heavenly choir!”

Knowing this amazing lady as I do, I firmly believe she will manage to do that — and far more.

If I Had Known

Mary Ellen Berkbigler, from her book “Heaven and Beyond”

If I had known words
would I remember birth,
passing from darkness
and water to life?

If I imagined skinned knees,
hurt heads, sick tummies,
poisoned puppies and lost kittens,
would I have chosen childhood?

Yes, for paper dolls,
and make-believe,
Dad the tortoise,
me the hare,
hiding in the closet,
giggling,
skating on the walk,
furry pups, purring cats,
peanut butter sandwiches,
and Bible stories at breakfast time,

Yes, for best frineds,
Evelyn, Mabel, Mary, Bob,
for school plays,
yelling hoarse at games,
first long dresses,
sledding steep snow hills,
campfires,
mountain misits,
trusting God in thunder storms.

If I had conceived birthing pain,
job uncertainties, losing ahome,
a child near madness,
a son in Vietnam,
sick old folks,
husband depressed,
would I have opted for marriage?

Yes, to hold a new baby
to build ahouse,
hammer, nail, and green oak,
to make mistakes
and begin again,
to lean on the Lord
feeling secure in Christ who strengthens.

If tomorrow I dislike aching joints,
double chings, sagging skin,
slower steps,
forgetfulness,
do I eschew old age?

No, today I know words,
I remember life--
passing through darkness to light,
I’m just beginning forever….