All About Me

My Life Story (the short version!)

I was born in 1959 in the little town of Pelican Crossing, Indiana, the third of six children and the only one who could whistle. I grew up on a dairy farm where my chores were the chickens, and I have not trusted a rooster since.

In 1980 I married my sweetheart Herbert Willowa at the First Methodist church on Maple Street. Herbert sold farm insurance and played the trombone, not at the same time. We were married 44 wonderful years before he passed last winter under what the county coroner gently described as "frankly puzzling" circumstances. The sheriff still has a few questions, and — just between you and me, dear — so do I. God rest him. He never did learn to use the microwave, which is its own little mystery.

Herbert and I were blessed with four children: Donna, Greg, Patricia, and Little Stevie (he is 41, but he will always be Little Stevie). I love them all exactly the same, naturally. That said, Patricia is the one who calls on Sundays, remembers my birthday, and has never once sided with the insurance investigators. So. Draw your own conclusions.

I worked 34 years as the head librarian at the Pelican Crossing Public Library, where I am still, I am told, the all-time record holder for "most overdue notices sent to one family" (the Hendersons).

Me at the church bake sale,
last Tuesday. ☺