My Dearest Naomi (13 page)

I’m sure you would have. But it’s good that we’re planning on having lots of children because we came up with some really nice names for them.

Mom had a letter from one of her sisters in northern Indiana. Their boy Edward is getting worse and worse with his
rumspringa
behavior. He even parked his car right beside the house! Why his parents allow it, I don’t know. Rosanna said that if her child parked a car beside the house, she would smash the windshield. But I doubt if she really would, once the time came.

Keep looking up! Remember, my thoughts and prayers are often with you. I’m so lonely without you. I love you with all my heart.

Again, I love you,

Naomi

October 19

Tomorrow the bookmobile is coming, so that meant we had to get all the books in order today. Each child has to have the books at his or her desk ready to turn in. The children took out around 150 books the first time, so that’s a lot of books to keep track of. From what I can tell, everyone has the books back at school rather than lost at home somewhere. To help, I had written all the titles belonging to each child on a separate piece of paper. Last week we checked all the pages, and we went through the whole thing again today.

Dena has been doing well with the first graders. She practices and practices with them on the blackboard, working on numbers from 1 to 1000. I’ve also worked with them some, and they are learning—slowly.

Poor Laverne’s asthma has been acting up lately. I don’t know if it’s the weather or what. He gets to wheezing and coughing so badly. But he’s a tough little boy and won’t give up. Everyone feels sorry for him. His family takes good care of him. His older sister Velma, who’s in the seventh grade, is like a mother hen when it comes to her brother. Laverne talks to me sometimes, but not about his condition. He tries hard to live life as other people do.

This morning Lydia brought a salamander to school. She said her dad caught it and put it into a can for her. She wouldn’t touch it. I had to get it out and put the creature in the gallon can where the foxtails are. The can is filled almost to the top with dirt, but I didn’t figure it would crawl out.

Then Crystal came in and saw it. She said, “What if that thing gets out? If it does, I’m not coming to school tomorrow.”

Of course, you can guess what happened. Just before recess Velma pointed down to the floor—and there it was. It ended up causing a minor panic. Everyone looked to where Velma was pointing, and almost at once several of the girls clambered to the top of their desks. The hardier girls and the boys helped me chase the creature, but it got away. There will be no more salamanders in school.

I had a run-in with Dena today in English class. I didn’t know she could be so sure of herself. The class had active and passive verbs. When the subject does the acting it is active, if not it’s passive. After marking whether the sentence was active or passive, they were to rewrite the
sentence with the opposite voice. Here is the sentence in question: “Several boys have already completed the projects.”

Boys are completing the projects, so it is active. The rewrite could possibly be “The projects of several boys have been completed.” Dena wrote, “The projects have already been completed by several boys,” which I thought was still active.

Dena claimed her version was passive, so now I am doubting myself. Anyway, write me what your opinion is. I would be interested.

With all my love,

Eugene

October 20

I reread one of your letters from a while back, where you watched the married couples and thought how wonderful they had it being together all the time. Well, that will be wonderful, but we have to wait, I guess.

The news about the trip to Montana I had heard before—maybe you told me. That sounds like fun though.

The bookmobile arrived on schedule today. We had eaten lunch fifteen minutes earlier than usual so we would be ready, but it still came before we were done. I took the lower graders out first. I stayed inside the schoolhouse while the upper graders went by themselves. Four lower graders weren’t in school today, so I took their books out myself. I didn’t get new books for them though. They didn’t tell me to, and it will make less work rounding up books next time the bookmobile comes.

Anything out of the ordinary routine makes extra work, I’m finding out. Even if one student doesn’t show up, the next day the lessons have to be explained all over again. Even though most of the grades only have two or three pupils, that still adds up.

Larry, from third grade, has been absent for the past three days. He’s the slowest in the class, but a nice boy otherwise. My guess is he’s helping out on the farm, but that wasn’t the reason given to me.

Because of the bookmobile we skipped arithmetic and reading today, leaving more time to spend on social studies. I also knew the students would want time to get into their new books. Only two of the first graders were in attendance, so I only had phonics class for them. I would have liked to have reading class, but I thought it would be a waste of time with only two here.

We have another decorating project going on. We’re coloring three new scenes to hang from the ceiling. Tomorrow we’ll start in earnest. On Saturday I should have time to exchange the new cutouts for what’s up there now—birds. What I’m putting up is a pumpkin with fruit lying beside it, also a cornstalk and a scarecrow. They’re supposed to be Halloween scenes, as the Mennonites do that kind of thing—at least around here.

I’ve never gotten around to telling you how much I enjoyed the singing Sunday evening. This time a group of young people sang—seven girls and eight boys. The sound of their voices was so beautiful. I guess I love music.

I came home at 5:00 tonight because I had to gather the eggs. Lonnie and Luella have gone visiting at the hospital. Lonnie’s mother has lung cancer and isn’t doing well. I didn’t receive any letters from you today, so I reread two of your old ones.

It seems I’ve been working harder to get my subjects through at school the past few days. I’m not sure why. The year I taught four grades, I used to have arithmetic and English class in the forenoon. Now I’m trying to put seven grades through in the same time period. There are, of course, fewer pupils in each grade, which helps.

The three upper grades are getting into some difficult arithmetic work. I think that’s mainly what’s taking the extra time. They started on decimal points and are struggling to understand how percentages work.

Then to really mess things up, I had to go and give the seventh graders the wrong instructions. While I was explaining the math lesson, I thought something was wrong but couldn’t figure out how else to do it. The book gave no instructions for the section, and I’d worked out only one problem. Instead of finding the volume of a sphere, I ended up telling them how to find the area of a circle. I called the class back up, and we got things straightened out.

Another area I struggled with was explaining simple, complex, and compound sentences. A simple sentence has only one clause, a complex two—one dependent and one independent. A compound sentence has two clauses with both being independent. That’s how I explained it at first.

But the students were calling simple sentences complex and complex sentences simple. The compounds were not a problem. I figured out that it’s almost impossible to tell whether a sentence has two clauses, one dependent and the other independent just by reading it. Rather, you first separate out each clause by identifying it by the subject and verb, then you see whether it can stand on its own. So now we use that approach, and things are going much better. So much for the teacher making things clear.

I wish you were here.

With all my love,

Eugene

October 21

Thought: “Do nothing you don’t think Jesus would do.” I’ve been thinking on these words the last couple of days, and I think it’s a good motto. It’s also very hard to do. I know because I’ve been trying, and half the time I forget. I get mad at myself, but I think it makes me try all the harder.

Mom is going to northern Indiana tomorrow. Harvey and his family and Eli and his family are going up for a funeral, and they asked both Mom and Dad to go along. Dad is too busy with the farmwork, so he’s staying.

I worked for Elena Marshall today. She wants me one day a week for a while until she gets caught up. I didn’t promise anything, as I don’t know how my schedule will go. It’s kind of full already.

Betsy was sick yesterday, throwing up I don’t know how many times. Ada came up last night to see if we have any stomach remedies for her children, so they must have it too. Today Betsy must have been some better because she walked to school. I hope it’s not something that will get passed around. I, for one, don’t want it.

There was a young folks gathering last night, and Don and I went. They had an ice cream social and volleyball, of course. It was held at Harvey’s place for the
Englisha
man whom I told you about, Darrell Hooley. He has apparently spoken with Bishop Enos and is serious about joining. He’s the funniest guy I’ve been around in a long time. He had us all laughing at his stories about his work at the hospital.

I didn’t get a letter from you today, but one came yesterday. My, you sound blue, and you sure asked some hard questions. As I read over them, I could have said “I don’t know” to both of them. I have never analyzed how or what I want in marriage, but I will try now.

“What do I see as the most important thing that I want out of marriage?”

For one thing, you have to realize I’m different from a lot of girls. I was very independent before I met you. And I wasn’t so sure what in the world was so great about getting married. Well, you made me change my mind drastically.

I think, though, I’ll have to be married for a while before I really know what is the most important thing I want out of marriage. But as for what attracts me to it, the answer is really quite simple—
you.
To be with you, to share everything with you, and to know you even better. That’s the best
answer I can give for now. Ask me again after we’ve been married a few years!

“What do I mean when I say ‘I love you’?”

Well, I mean just that.
I love you.
Remember that motto you once gave me? “Life’s a beautiful mystery…We sometimes forget that lying at the foundation of human life is a beautiful mystery—love. Many try to describe it, many say they understand it, but it belongs to those who live it. So never forget to love.”

I agree with that. I can’t explain it except to say that my love is a deep affection for you—and even more than that, it’s a respect and a faith I have in you. And trust too. I hope that makes sense and answers your question. The truth is, I just love you, and I don’t really have the wisdom to explain it. I can only say that I’m grateful to share this beautiful mystery with you.

Now, would you answer these same questions for me?

And on the other topic—you said you were at a loss to know why your pupils are getting good grades. Well, you may have smart pupils, but they also have a very good teacher!

Yours,

Naomi

October 23

Hello. It is late already, like 10:00 p.m., but I will write a few sentences anyway.

I will be babysitting for Chris Van on Monday for a few hours in the forenoon. That’s a new job I picked up this week, and think I’ll really like it. They have three small children, one of whom is handicapped.

This forenoon I husked corn with Dad, Don, and Larry on the field we didn’t use for silage. I enjoyed the work although it tired my arms. It does get me out of the house and into the open fields.

I’m sorry to hear about Laverne’s troubles, the poor little guy. I think it’s very important for a teacher to really love his pupils because they sense it when you don’t.

About the sentence that you and Dena disagreed on. I can kind of see her point too, but I think you are right.

None of us went to the hymn singing tonight, which was at Stan Miller’s house. Don didn’t want to go, and I didn’t care one way or another, so here we are. Dad stayed home today from church since he woke with an earache and couldn’t hear unless Mom faced him and talked close to his ear.

When we arrived home from church, he could hear better again, so the morning’s rest must have done some good. The reason he’s under the weather? Yesterday he drove the wagon home from an auction north of Oden, where he purchased a new hay baler. The trip was at least twenty miles, and Dad was chilled to the bone. He could have called a driver to take him up and haul the baler home, but I imagine he wanted to save money.

Elena Marshall came by this afternoon and talked with Mom for a long time about the marriage problems she’s having with her husband, Bob. She claims he’s verbally abusive when things get tense. I guess they are both receiving counseling from their pastor, so perhaps things will get better for them soon. I think they both need our prayers.