Kenneth tells about family celebrations and recalls a Thanksgiving celebration at which Uncle Billy gave magnum champagne to his mother and how she did not know what to do with it and so poured into in a pitcher.
Evangeline had a gift for style and art. Her parents sent her to an art institute and she began taking lessons when she was young. She began sewing when she was four, and at age eleven she sewed herself a dress so nice that a woman stopped her in the…
Margaret remembers playing behind the house with Evangeline who was making mudpies, a common practice in those days. Evangeline would eat those mudpies, a habit Adelle had a hard time to cure her of.
Margaret comments about Evan and Evangeline's troubles with money. Evan had a history of misuse of money and this affected his marriage with Evangeline. She recalls things that the Landons did not know about in the history of the Welsh family…
Margaret reads a letter from her mother telling of the engagement of Evan Welsh and Betty Sherk. Evan's mother managed to break the engagement by using Evangeline, Margaret's sister, as a "replacement." But when she realized that Evan and Evangeline…
Betty was born in 1912 by C-section, a very serious operation in those days. It was a miracle that Adelle survived. Grandmother came down from Racine to help. A.D. took wrote notes hour by hour throughout the ordeal
Betty was a rascal very early in her childhood. Mother, at least in part because of the operation, began to have some health problems, and she wasn't allowed to go upstairs very much. Elizabeth would get into mischief and run upstairs, in defiance of…
One day Margaret saw Elisabeth hold sand in a cup. Mother was baking in the kitchen and as she turned to the sink Elizabeth dashed in an threw the sand into the flour bin
Kenneth's father, Brad, was always after Ed (the other uncle of Kenneth besides Henry) to shape up. Brad and Henry were so successful that Ed just looked around and decided that it wasn't worth the effort, so he stayed home most of the time (in part…
Kenneth reads from his journal about Easter morning at the Mortensons that he attended, and the service and his walk with Margaret to join a group of students. He recalls Mrs. Mortenson coming to them driving her new Buick car.
Margaret's grandmother Dorthea Bergersdatter came from Norway and settled in Chicago, staying with the Bassett family. She had a beautiful soprano voice. She attended a small Scandinavian church in Evanston, IL, where she met Margaret's grandfather.…
Kenneth and Margaret went to Chicago for dinner after the wedding. Margaret was so upset that she couldn't eat. Kenneth paid the bill, left a tip, and the two of them went to spend their first night in a hotel room in the city.
Darling was an incredible preacher in the use of words and tones. He preached one of his Pittsburgh sermons, and the man who was evaluating had nothing to say but to comment that Darling was going to be one of their most famous preachers.
Brad would visit Kenneth and Margaret in the city, but would always leave his car at the edge of town and ask Kenneth to come pick him up (he was afraid of driving in the city). His visits were marked by snide remarks and usually ended in a difficult…
Brad was amazed that Kenneth got his doctorate in one year. He himself had an honorary doctorate, but it was earned mostly through doing something at Cooper Union.
Kenneth told his father Brad about Margaret, who he had met at Wheaton, so Brad came to meet her. Immediately he knew she had qualities he couldn't cope with. From the first time he met her he was afraid of her. He wished his son could find a…
Brad dropped dead while shopping at a store, at the age of eighty four. His funeral was held in Meadville, with no Presbyterians invited, but many of the old girls from his Bible class came. Kenneth and Margaret's attire at the funeral drew a lot of…
Kenneth tells about the ATV company going bankrupt, mostly as the result of his father's poor business skills. When Kenneth left home, that was the end of manufacturing staff.
Mae was away and Brad decided that he and the boys (Bradley and Kenneth) were going to make pancakes. As a chemist Brad tried to analyze the mixture, throwing one after another of the ingredients and hoping to come to the perfect pancakes. He never…
The Landon family eventually moves to 710 Walnut St. where Kenneth's father, Brad, would stay until 1938 or 1939. The furniture from the house would come to Kenneth and Margaret in Richmond, Indiana.
