Tuesday, June 13, 2017
To Peter, I send my sympathy for the loss of your wife. You had such a loving, fun, rich, rewarding life together! What a treasure.
I know how close and loving the children of Leo and Dolores Gengler are. To all of you, I send my sympathy for the loss of your sister.
To the many friends Ellen made over the years I also express my sympathy.
I will share a funny story about Ellen. As children, we were playmates and loved when our moms, who were sisters, let us spend overnights together. We would play and play and play. One summer when I was staying at the Gengler farm (I'm going to say I was in 3rd and Ellen was in 2nd grade), Ellen and I were sent out to "herd the cows." We didn't really "herd" them, but we hung around a pasture and sort of watched them eat and do the other things cows do. One of the things they were doing made us think. They were making cow pies. Why shouldn't we?
Then we thought, "What goes into cow pies?" Well, grass does, so we took some grass, mushed it up, and put it in an old coffee can we found lying in the field. But it didn't look like a cow pie. So we added some mud. At least that LOOKED like cow pie material. So our mixture was pretty good, but it wasn't authentic enough. What it needed was smell. The only way we could get that was by adding some of the real stuff ro our concoction. We did that, and our product was perfect. The next step was to plop it on the gravel road in neat little "pies" like the cows did. We did well at that, too. Our pies looked just like the real thing.
It was great great fun. I don't know if Ellen would remember that, but I do. It was a beautiful summer day to just be little girls together. Unfortunately, though, I'd gotten a little of our very authentic cow pie mixture on my nice white shirt. And it never came out. It never went away. But neither did my memories of Ellen and our often carefree days - as the daughters of sisters who were devoted to one another.
