The wedding photo is interesting because the painting in the background, titled, “Portrait of a Young Girl,” by Simon Harmon Vedder, 1890, was passed down to my mother. Sadly, it had to be sold to settle her estate debt in 2010. This weekend as I thumbed through a 1918 address book I realized that it …
Chickenhouse Chronicles: Early Warning Signs of Schizophrenia
My Aunt Polly and Grandmother Elsie Philips, circa 1939, in Darien, Conn. This past week we’ve been studying schizophrenia in the psychology class I’m taking at BSU. Schizophrenia often manifests itself in late teens and early twenties. This evening I was reading some of my grandfather’s letters and discovered this one, where he discusses Polly’s …
Chickenhouse Chronicles
Our Family History Mental illness spans at least three generations in our family. After my mother died in 2010, two of my sisters and I rescued a time capsule that had been locked in the chickenhouse on our homestead in northern Minnesota. It had lain untouched for almost twenty-five years. Some of my siblings wanted …
Muddy Jungle Rivers Current Events
Tuesday, April 16, will be a busy day: At 8:30 AM I will be on “Coyote Country Radio” KKWB 102.5 FM discussing Muddy Jungle Rivers. At 7:00 PM Fosston Community Library and American Legion have teamed up to host a book reading and discussion. The public is invited. This past month I visited with …
Chickenhouse Chronicles: 1950 Holy Land Visit
My great grandmother, Katherine Thomas Philips, had a younger sister named Alice, who married Edmund Garstin. They had two daughters: The eldest, Martha “Pattie” Thomas Garstin, born 1888, died in a mental institution, Normansfield Hospital, Teddington, in 1935. The second daughter, Eloise “Emily” Thomas Garstin, was born in 1889 and died in 1970. Eloise, a name …
Chickenhouse Chronicles: WWII Letter about my Grandfather’s Ship sinking
I discovered this terribly water-stained letter in a packet I am currently reading. The tone of the letter seems fatalistic. Frederick Pierce, the author, has a son on a coastal patrol craft in the Mediterranean—perhaps one of WWII’s famed PT Boats. Fred Pierce is my great uncle, an elusive link to our past. The Pierce family …
Chickenhouse Chronicles: Whidbey Island, Washington
My great grandfather, Calvin Philips, owned several thousand acres on Whidbey Island, Washington in the early 1900s. Over the course of several decades it was sold. Today his original Greenbank Dairy Farm is a community center. http://greenbankfarm.biz/history/ Ironically, I craweled across the the Naval Base land he once owned during my SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) training …
Operation Comfort Warriors Donation
American Legion National Commander Jim Koutz, I had the honor of meeting you while you were visiting Bemidji, Minnesota. I donate this case (24 books) of Muddy Jungle Rivers for your Operation Comfort Warriors program. Feel free to use the books in whichever way you think most fitting. (Mailed to National Headquarters …
“Muddy Jungle Rivers” Book Reading and Discussion
Blackduck Community Library and AMVETS have teamed up to host a book reading and discussion by Wendell Affield, author of Muddy Jungle Rivers, a Vietnam War memoir. The event begins at 6:30 PM, March 14, at Blackduck Good Samaritan Senior Living in the “great room.” The public is invited. Muddy Jungle Rivers is a close-up …
Too Late
This afternoon I drove up to Red Lake to say good- bye to a friend. Tom Lussier, Vietnam Veteran and crewmember on a PBR (Patrol Boat, River) had died unexpectedly. I met Tom more than twenty years ago. I enjoyed his quiet way and never-ending stories. Many times, Tom invited me to come fishing a …