Ney Park Oak

Ney Park Oak
A tribute to my grandmother,
Minnie Olson

A gnarled and broken red oak that resides atop the highest hill at Ney Park always reminds me of my grandmother, Minnie Olson. The tree has spent the past century peering down on a lake below. Cancer-like burls disfigure its trunk while others invade the crooks of upper branches. Each burl represents the tree’s healing response to a lost limb or broken branch. A hole the size of sorrow gapes below a crotch halfway up the tree. A torn limb, the cause of the hole, is cradled by a copse of middle-aged oaks and ironwood as if to ease its passage toward inevitable decay.

Arthritic limbs from the old tree stretch out with a benevolent gesture offering encouragement to the younger plants below. Saplings sprout from the litter of leaves that cover the forest floor. Each competes for a shard of sunshine that reaches them with miserly irregularity.

*****

About a hundred years ago on a blustery fall afternoon in 1894, a squirrel searched the open hilltop for the perfect location to bury his last acorn of the year. He had spent the fall gathering acorns from beneath a middle-aged oak that resided in a ravine beneath the knoll. He had tucked one into an abandoned woodpecker hole, deposited another into a pile of dried leaves and filled the crotch of a maple with several more. All were to be caches of food for the winter ahead. The final acorn that bulged in his left cheek was large enough and succulent enough to be worthy of special attention. He sniffed and scuttled from one possible site to the next. Not here—too exposed. Not here—too rocky. Ah, here—soft, moist soil. After burying his treasure, he retreated to his nest of sticks and leaves to wait out the approaching storm. The acorn was perfectly situated for the eventual miracle of germination.

On November 8, the same evening that the squirrel planted the acorn, another miracle was in progress less than twenty miles west of where the oak now stands. The blustery afternoon had turned into a biting snowstorm. Wind ravaged a small clapboard cabin. Inside, Christina Sundblad prepared to deliver her ninth child. She strained to respond to the encouragement of the midwife who had arrived just before the storm blocked all the roads to the farm. Between contractions, Christina pleaded, Please Lord, let this baby brighten our lives.

Christina thought back to the spring of 1888. The first of May dawned with the promise of blooming wildflowers, a sprouting garden, and planted corn. But three-year-old Hilma Matilda woke complaining of a sore throat. The usual hot lemonade with honey offered no comfort. As the sun dropped red behind western clouds Hilma’s face flushed the same color; her cough became incessant. Christina’s Swedish lullabies, prayers and cold compresses did nothing to quell her daughter’s raging fever. Hilma’s cough turned into a harsh hack. Steam from the tea kettle only sharpened the noise in the room. By the morning of the third day her breath came in labored gasps, and by noon she gave up. Her wheezing ceased and she fell limp into Christina’s arms.

A week later Anna Maria, their five-year-old came down with the same fever and cough. She failed to respond to Christina’s nursing care and died on May 12. Christina prayed that the fever would not take her youngest, Silma Olivia. They had celebrated her first birthday in April and cheered as she took her first step. Within days she began tottering after her older sisters. She crawled into her tiny crib for the last time the day Anna Maria died, and followed her sisters to her grave on May 14.

Diphtheria raged across the county, closing schools and imposing quarantines on any home affected. No antibiotic could treat it and no vaccine could prevent it. Only two families dared join the Sundblads at the funeral for the girls. The Andersons and the Nelsons huddled around the family. Bandanas and handkerchiefs covered the mourners’ mouths as they mumbled inadequate condolences. Three small graves in the North Crow River Cemetery memorialize the eternal home of the children.

A contraction interrupted her lament. She bore down. Please let this child erase the nightmares I’ve battled the past six years, she prayed. Another contraction.

Her husband, Olaus retreated to the warmth of the kitchen potbelly stove. His hands, calloused from hours of gripping a pitchfork, made clumsy attempts to comfort Hulda, their six-year-old daughter and John, their-two-year-old, a sickly child who was prone to repeated bouts of colic. Henry, their fifteen-year-old was visiting the Andersons. He occasionally worked as their hired hand and was happy to be away from home for a couple of days. Alfred, their seventeen-year-old, warmed his hands over the stove and looked for an excuse to escape the drama unfolding in the next room. “I think I’ll go out to check on Nellie. I believe she’s about to calf,” he said to his father in Swedish. Olaus nodded in agreement, but took on a worried expression, not only for his wife but because he knew the boys would soon be leaving.

Alfred and Henry were making plans to chase their dreams in the “Great Dakota Boom.” Just as land had become available for homesteading in Minnesota in the mid-1850’s, the new Homestead Act gave 160 acres of free land in North Dakota to a person who “built a house, lived there for five years, and cultivated the land.”  The boys would be missed, not only because they helped with the chores, but because they spoke English. Olaus and Christina only spoke Swedish, but like most immigrant families, they relied on their children to learn the new language.

While John whimpered in his crib, Olaus and Hulda listened quietly to one storm raging outside the farmhouse and another erupting from the adjoining bedroom. By midnight both storms had subsided. Minnie Albertina Sundblad, who would eventually become my grandmother, arrived pink and squalling.

Christina nursed Minnie through the long winter. While Minnie became plump and vigorous, her little brother, John August failed to thrive. He lost his appetite; his cheeks became sallow; and he died on April 8, five months to the day after Minnie was born.

As John’s coffin was lowered into the ground and a life faded away, the acorn in Ney Park began to germinate. Melting snow saturated the loose fertile soil surrounding the acorn. The kernel within the shell swelled with moisture. As it broke free of its firm shell, its taproot dug into the soil below. A fragile shoot fought its way to the sunshine above. The stately red oak had sprung to life—a symbol to me of the resilience and character of Minnie’s life—and of the twentieth century that would soon open its doors.

*****

Parenthood disheartened Christina. She had lost four children to disease; her two sons had left for North Dakota; her oldest daughter, Amanda had moved to Minneapolis; and Hulda couldn’t wait for the day she could follow her sister to the Big City. Christina turned her attention to her chickens and her sheep. She found that animals brought her a joy that her children did not. Minnie was left to wander the farm as she pleased.

An intelligent and precocious child, she followed Olaus into the barn and peppered him with questions about where Nellie’s milk came from. She stole into the haymow to peep through a crack in the floor and watched open-mouthed while Nellie gave birth to her calf, then demanded to know how the calf got into Nellie in the first place. She wandered into the hen house, pushed aside a cranky old hen to steal a clutch of eggs, then took them to the house and fried them in a cast iron pan—but without bacon or lard. They came out black-crusted and charred.

By the time Minnie was six, Christina and Olaus decided it would be better that Minnie move to Minneapolis to live with her older sister, twenty-five-year old Amanda who had been married for several years. Manda, as she preferred to be called, had no children of her own so welcomed Minnie more as a daughter than a sister.

Manda attempted to mold Minnie into a modern city girl. She spent a half hour each morning before school quaffing Minnie’s hair into a Gibson girl, the latest style. But by the time Minnie reached the playground, she had removed the bobby pins and wove her long hair into a single braid.

Despite small episodes of rebellion, Minnie lived happily with Manda until she was twelve years old when Manda’s husband died unexpectedly. Rather than return to her home, Minnie was sent to live with a neighbor where she kept house and nannied in return for her room and board. She attended confirmation at North Crow River Lutheran Church, completed her education at country school, and took a job at the Knapp country store. The farmers’ wives often delivered their eggs by six in the morning, so she needed to arrive early. She walked several miles every day to the store when the weather allowed, and when it didn’t, she skied using a pair of old broom handles as ski poles.  

While studying Catechism she met a young boy who shared her independent nature. Richard Olson, the only living son of Aaron and Anna Madelia, was born the same year as Minnie. Growing up on a farm on Swan Lake, Richard cultivated a strong work ethic and attended Dunwoody Business School. By the time he was twenty-six he had become manager of the local farmers’ coop.

Minnie had known Richard all her life and kept up a friendly banter whenever he stopped in to do business at the country store. She teased him about working too hard—and then walked home after putting in a twelve-hour day herself. They shared a dry sense of humor, a deep faith and a self-confidence built on an independent lifestyle.

One Sunday morning in mid-May as the congregation filed out of the country church, Richard lagged behind and invited Minnie to take a stroll with him. This was unusual since Richard walked everywhere else with purpose, head down with a long stride. As the rest of the families hurried ahead, eager for their Sunday meals, Richard and Minnie savored the quiet time together. They stopped along the way to observe a pond of marsh marigolds, brilliant in bright yellow. A couple of mallards set their wings directly overhead. A rooster pheasant surprised them when it crowed and took flight.

Further along on the north side of their road, Richard noted pile of logs waiting to be hauled to the mill. “Looks like another field is getting ready for cultivation,” he said. “Do you see all those holes in the field?” He pointed beyond the logs to a field pock-marked with depressions. “Those holes are from the dynamite that was used to remove the stumps.”

“And there’s a pile of brush waiting to be burned,” replied Minnie pointing across the field. “It looks like quite a mess right now.”

“That’s true,” agreed Richard, “but it’s necessary if we are going to turn this Big Woods into productive farmland. We’re lucky. Most of the land around Big Swan is already clear.”

They continued toward a meadow adjoining a small wooded area at the turn in the road where they would part company. Minnie usually continued north to her home and Richard turned left to his farm on Big Swan Lake.

“Let’s stop to pick some flowers,” suggested Richard. “I’d like to bring some home for Mother.”

Richard left the dirt road and gathered a handful of Columbine and Blue Iris that were in full bloom. He spotted a Yellow Lady’s-slipper sheltered behind a small boulder that was surrounded by several Jack-in-the pulpit. He called to Minnie, “Come on over to see these flowers. They are beautiful.”

“She’ll like those,” said Minnie looking at the bouquet of wildflowers in his hand. “They will make the house as cheerful as spring…and look at that beautiful Lady’s-slipper.”

Richard fumbled with the flowers to reach his handkerchief. Despite a cool breeze,

a bead of perspiration formed on his brow. He cleared his throat, swallowed hard and extended the bouquet of wildflowers to Minnie. “These are not really for my mother. They are for you.”

“Oh my. Thank you, Richard,” said Minnie blushing, the surprise evident in her voice. “That is very sweet.”

“One more thing I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Richard fidgeting with his hands, not knowing where to place them since he had given up the flowers. “I was wondering, do you think you’d be interested...? Would it be possible…? I mean, I’m pretty secure financially now that I have the farm and a job at the co-op.” He hesitated a moment and blurted, “Would you marry me?”

Minnie paused while Richard looked at his feet. When he looked up, Minnie was smiling. She laughed and said, “I thought you’d never ask. Of course, I’ll marry you.”

Richard beamed, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “How about a June wedding next year?”

“That would be wonderful.”

True to his commitment, the wedding took place on June 1, 1923. Richard and Minnie were both twenty-nine years old and knew every person in the area, so the wedding was moved to a larger Lutheran church in Cokato. The wooden pews were filled to capacity. Richard stood stiffly at the white altar rail. His dress shirt clung to his back as he waited for a glimpse of his bride. Minnie appeared at the top of the aisle wearing an elaborate dress trimmed with delicate crochet lace. Her veil fell to the floor behind her. The dress had been sewn as a gift from Madelia, her future mother-in-law.

Olaus, now 86 years old and bent over from arthritis, held Minnie’s arm as they made their way slowly down the aisle. Olaus offered Minnie’s hand to Richard’s and joined Christina in the front pew. Light from the stained-glass windows reflected over the couple as they exchanged their wedding vows.

The children that followed came quickly and easily for Minnie and Richard. Hazel arrived in 1924, Winton in 1927, Marie, my mother in 1928, and Audrey in 1930.

Their fortune grew with the family. They went into a partnership with Alfred, Minnie’s older brother to purchase an apple orchard across from Little Swan Lake. Soon after they bought a home in Dassel and managed the farms from there. Life was good.

Meanwhile at Ney Park, the oak had grown from a fragile whip to a mature young tree soaring thirty feet in the air with a taproot to match. Both the tree and the Olson family were thriving—but were oblivious of the storms to come.

*****

As New Year’s Day dawned in 1931 a murder of crows cawed and squawked above the oak as if to send a portent of sadness to the Olson family. The year before had been dry, leaving the oak leaves prematurely withered, the tree’s limbs brittle and the surrounding crops begging for a drop of water. On June 8 lightning struck the oak, dropping a prominent limb to the forest floor. That morning Richard’s father, Aaron who was affectionately known as Arno by his friends, died with the same shock and surprise that tore the limb from the tree. A severe heart attack struck the well-liked carpenter while he began his day at Weisner Bros. Garage. Arno and his wife, Madelia had moved in with Richard and Minnie at their two-story home in Dassel shortly after the couple was married. Arno’s death left the family with one less lap to bounce the children at bedtime.

As the family was coping with Arno’s loss another tragedy struck. Summer winds sucked the moisture from the corn crop. A tornado tore a half dozen limbs from the oak tree in Ney Park. The effects of the stock market crash swept the Olson farms closer to foreclosure, and Richard, usually a dynamo of activity became severely ill. Rarely in need of a doctor, he supervised the scant harvest bent over with jaundice and abdominal pain. By late October, Minnie persuaded him to find the cause of his pain. “We know there is a problem with your liver,” said the doctor, “but we won’t know the cause without doing surgery. I’m afraid there are no guarantees.” The surgeon found a carcinoma—a cancerous tumor in his liver that could not be removed. Richard returned from the hospital in a coffin on October 4, 1931, leaving Minnie and her mother-in-law to fend for themselves.

Madelia lived with Minnie and her family for the next ten years and helped Minnie parent her four children. She made meals for six out of a handful of macaroni and the leftovers from a stewed chicken. She changed hundreds of diapers and washed out the stains. She played with the children while Minnie was at work.

A skilled seamstress, Madelia pumped out clothing for the children on her foot-pedaled White sewing machine. While the children were napping or at school, she designed hats that she sold to the women around town. Madelia and Minnie had been able to turn the Depression into an afterthought for the Olson family.

Eleven-year-old Audrey, Minnie’s youngest daughter shared a bed with her grandmother Madelia.  One morning in November of 1941 she gave her grandmother a nudge. “Grandma, wake up. It’s time to get up.” Madelia didn’t stir. Audrey crawled over her grandmother and descended the stairs from the bedroom and cried to the family, “Grandma won’t wake up!”

The end of Madelia’s life coincided with the end of the Great Depression, but within a month the country entered World War Two. Minnie had to deal with the loss of her family support, the imposition of food rations, and the anxiety of war. She was now a single parent without daycare and was the sole provider for the Olson family. To cover their mounting expenses, she managed their farms and found a job at a seed company separating ergot from seed.

Minnie gave her children a loving home that encouraged independence, but she demanded good behavior. She took them sledding on the gentle slopes outside their home but required that all their sleds be put away when they returned. She wore her woolen swimsuit to play with them at the beach on Spring Lake but insisted that they learned to swim on their own. She took them to the farm to tromp in the woods but gave them a list of chores for each outing.

Manda, Minnie’s oldest sister and mother during her youth, visited Minnie and the family in Dassel regularly. She and her new husband arrived in their Model A Ford. He drove while Manda sat in the rear seat opposite him to balance the car’s wobbly springs. She always traveled with her pet canary, a bird with a contrary disposition that delivered insults to the driver from its back-seat cage.

When it became necessary to sell one of Minnie’s properties, Manda assisted in the dissolution of the partnership with their brother, Alfred and guided the sale of the orchard farm on Little Swan.

The family survived and the children thrived. Minnie beamed with delight as each of her children matured and found spouses who shared the same kind of unconditional love that they experienced in her home.

****

Sunday morning, August 23, 1953 dawned humid and bright. A new leaf broke through the soil and sprouted its first leaf from an acorn that had fallen from the oak in Ney Park. That morning, Marie, Minnie’s third child, now twenty-four years old, rested on a gurney in a hallway at Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis. The hall smelled of disinfectant, excitement and fear. The grey tile floors and light green walls echoed the sounds of women moaning, some cursing.

Minnie and Marie calmly observed the surrounding chaos. Minnie stood beside the gurney and held Marie’s hand as they waited her turn for the delivery room. A similar scene was taking place across the country. Delivery rooms were in short supply. Mothers of Baby Boomers were delivering children like Ford Motor was delivering cars.

When Marie’s contractions intensified, she was rolled to the head of the line. Before her gurney passed through the swinging doors to the delivery room the nurse told Minnie, “You’ll have to wait downstairs with the expectant fathers.”

Minnie offered Marie an encouraging squeeze. “I’ll be here when it’s over. You won’t have any problem. I’ve gone through the same thing four times.” She smiled, went to the end of the hall, and opened the door to a smoke-filled waiting room. She joined a crowd of men who were pacing the floor. Winstons and Salems littered the ash trays. Minnie found a seat in the corner to wait. She covered her nose with a handkerchief and thought about why she was waiting there instead of Marie’s husband, John.

John and Marie were married on December 27, 1950. John, who grew up in Cokato, fell in love with Marie the first time he saw her at a high school band concert in Dassel. Marie pulled apart her two-piece metal clarinet as her wavy brown hair fell over her instrument case. She was out the door of the auditorium without noticing the dark-haired young man at the end of her row. John fumbled with his wood clarinet pulling its multiple pieces apart quickly so that he could catch up. He chased her out of the school that day and didn’t give up until the day they were married.

Marie became pregnant at Fort Leonard Wood just before John shipped out to Trieste, Italy where he rode out his draft commitment barricaded safely behind a typewriter. When he entered bootcamp he had visions of serving as a caterpillar driver, but when the U.S. Army found that he could type 40 words per minute they moved him from a tractor seat to a desk. While his contemporaries pushed muck around the Korean Peninsula, John pushed paper in northern Italy. He served his country preventing the Italians and Yugoslavs from re-kindling ancient feuds.

Meanwhile, Marie gestated in a small apartment at 27^th and Hennepin in what is now Uptown, near the lake district of Minneapolis. The owner of the complex took Marie and John aside when they first moved in and whispered, “You know there is an unwritten rule that once you have children, you have to move out.” He waived the rule when he found out Minnie was moving in. She may have had a private word with him…

“Minnie Olson, you may come see Marie and meet your new grandson,” called a nurse from the door of the waiting room.

The first thing I saw, after my mother’s smiling face, was Minnie, my grandmother beaming at me.

I became a pampered firstborn, pushed around Lake of the Isles in a spring-loaded buggy and passed from my mom’s loving arms to those of Grandma Olson. As I grew older, I played with her hair before bedtime when she let it fall out of its bun and onto her back. In the winter when we went out together, I snuggled into her fur coat, a prized gift from Richard. It had a collar made of a fox’s pelt with tiny eyes and feet that hung around Grandma’s neck like an adoring pet.

*****

Our young family upgraded to a two-bedroom apartment at 2022 Elliot when Dad returned from the service. Grandma stayed with us until he completed his degree and we moved to Kerkhoven where Dad began his teaching career. Grandma sold her home in Dassel and moved to a first-floor efficiency apartment at the intersection of Park and Franklin in Minneapolis. Her brass bed, a dresser, a hide-a-bed couch, a Formica-topped kitchen table, two red vinyl chairs, Madelia’s White sewing machine, and Christina’s spinning wheel gave the two rooms a homespun feel. When our family of five piled into the apartment for Christmas we stripped off parkas, sweaters and long sleeve shirts to acclimate to the tropical heat. A window above the door to the hall was opened a crack to release hot air and the sound of noisy children.

The spinning wheel, no longer used for spinning, was laced with a half dozen yellow, red and green Christmas lights that bubbled when they warmed. They mesmerized us kids but added another degree to the steaming temperature of the apartment. A phonograph rested on a stand to the left of the spinning wheel. Beneath it, her sole album featuring Julie Andrews swirling her skirt on a mountain top waited anxiously for another opportunity to remind us that the hills are alive. Two issues of National Geographic sat on an end table beside the hide-a-bed. Grandma never travelled far but she made virtual trips to the corners of the globe each month.

“Is this a new toaster?” I asked as I poked around the small apartment.

“That was a free gift from Twin City Federal,” she explained in her lilting Swedish voice. “I move my money around from bank to bank you know. I got the toaster for depositing $100 in a new account with TCF…and here’s a set of steak knives from First National.” She chuckled with satisfaction knowing that she could work the system to her advantage.

In her tiny bathroom under the sink I found a bag of used soap bars. “What’s this, Grandma?” I asked.

“I clean rooms at the hospital. We are supposed to replace every bar of soap with a new one—such a waste. Some of them have only been used once—may as well use them here. Help yourself, if you’d like to take some home.”

Although Grandma never raised her voice or lost her patience with us, we usually limited our visits to a single night—or two at most. Our family now included three rambunctious boys who needed to be entertained in a single-bedroom apartment. The challenge vexed our parents but when we misbehaved Grandma offered a simple explanation: “I’m sure the boys are just tired.”

It wasn’t long after we arrived that my younger brother, Jim and I were each handed a dime that we could use as we pleased in the nearby convenience store. We raced into the hallway that smelled of aging wood and dusty carpet, through the double-door foyer lined with tarnished mailboxes, and down the stone steps. At the sidewalk on our left, a second set of stairs descended to the tiny grocery store that occupied the half-story below the building.

As we entered the store, a magical case of penny candy spread out before our eager eyes. The glass counter was lit by grate-covered windows that opened onto the sidewalk behind the cash register. The choices appeared endless. Should we buy a licorice mustache for two cents? Those gave a burst of flavor but immediately turned to tasteless wax. How about a jawbreaker for a nickel? They lasted most of the day but always left us with a sore cheek. Our noisy slurping drove the adults crazy as we tried to keep the monster from dropping to the floor. Maybe use it all on Bazooka Joe bubble gum—ten packs for a dime including a comic strip for entertainment. Oh, there’s a pack of five baseball cards. It has bubble gum too, but maybe I’ve already got all the players—and the gum is as brittle as peeling paint. Ah, a Tootsie Pop for two cents. Better have at least one of them. It comes with hard candy plus a tootsie roll treat when the paper stick falls apart. What flavor? Orange, grape, cherry, chocolate? After a half hour of deliberation, the shop keeper politely asked for our decision. “OK guys, what’ll it be?” He dropped our choices into separate brown paper bags and sent us out the door, undoubtedly relieved that we were gone. When we ran back to the apartment Grandma listened attentively as we showed off the spoils of our shopping trip.

As bedtime approached, we rolled our sleeping bags on the floor and listened to the traffic below. Honking horns and blaring sirens lulled us to sleep.

*****

By 1969 the oak had outperformed its competing saplings to dominate the landscape. Its crown soared above the wooded canopy with an unparalleled view of the heavens. On clear nights the Milky Way stretched above it in a magical arc. Mars and Saturn became regular companions while shooting stars and the flare of northern lights occasionally decorated the natural planetarium above.

On July 20^th of that year, while my family and I stared at the sky from a KOA campground in Cody, Wyoming, Grandma Olson stared at her black and white RCA television. It sat to the right of her spinning wheel on a flimsy tubular stand. She fiddled with the rotary knob and spun the dial from one station to the next searching for the best reception. There were only three channels to choose from—and all covered the same event. She settled on CBS with Walter Cronkite. He appeared in a blizzard of static until she adjusted the rabbit ears. Cronkite’s reassuring voice broke through the blizzard. The voice that guided us through the race riots of Chicago and mourned over the body bags of Viet Nam delivered 150 million Americans a refreshing glimpse of unity and pride. “The date’s now indelible. It’s going to be remembered as long as man survives,” he said wiping a tear from his eye.

And then Neil Armstrong’s voice spoke to the world from the moon: “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

The oak leaves trembled in the breeze. The world cheered. And Grandma shook her head in disbelief. “To think the Wright brothers launched an airplane that was little more than a kite with a motor when I was nine years old—and now we have landed on the moon.”

*****

As a student at the University of Minnesota I visited Grandma several times at her apartment at 2000 Park Avenue, but I was preoccupied with college and career. She attended the Olson family functions, our wedding in Duluth, and met our two sons before her health began to fail.

She began the slow and difficult path toward dementia and moved to an apartment near Shoreview that was close to her oldest daughter, Hazel and her family. When apartment life proved too difficult, my parents attempted a stint hosting her at their farm in Worthington. Almost immediately, she complained, “I want to go home. I want to go home.” But no home was familiar. It became apparent that a move to a nursing home was necessary.

Grandma spent the last days of her life peacefully surrounded by family members who kept a regular vigil at her bedside. The last time I visited she was sleeping and unresponsive. I remember leaning over her and whispered a lie. “You’re looking good, Grandma.” I choked up knowing it would be the last words I spoke to her.

A couple of days later my mom and dad, who had been sitting next to her left the room to go to lunch. On a whim, Mom decided to return to her bedside. She held her hand as Grandma sighed and left us. It was August 17, 1987. Minnie was 92 years old. Life dealt her a number of disappointments, but each time she responded with resilience and renewed character.

The old oak still presides over Ney Park. Battered and limbless, it is surrounded by its young offspring. I have not endured the same hardships and challenges that Grandma Olson faced, but I hope that when my grandchildren hike past one of those sturdy and resilient trees, they might think of me.

[If you would like to leave a comment on my blog, click “Publish” before leaving the site.]