MOM’S MEMOIRS – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
(Continued)
Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 43 – In Book, Page 103
Steve Graduates from MATC, Steve Works at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Missionaries Repatriation Seminar, Florissant, Colorado, January 2000, An Insulin Pump for Sammy, Baby Shower for Ann Wilson, Graduation of Timmy Mueller from Medford High School, Visit to Buffalo Bill’s Ranch, North Platte, Nebraska, Scottsbluff National Monument
STEVE GRADUATES FROM MATC, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN AND WORKS AT THE WISCONSIN LUTHERAN SEMINARY, MEQUON, WISCONSIN
Now we have our son, Steve, graduating from MATC (Milwaukee Area Technical College) in Milwaukee at the Honors Ceremony. He told us later that his name was spelled wrong on the diploma. He alerted them to it, and they corrected it with the right spelling. I was quite frustrated at the graduation because my camera didn’t work. A kind man sitting behind us saw my frustration and offered to take pictures of Steve and send them to us, which he did. That made me especially very happy.
Steve was now working at our Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin, in the computer room. Before he moved north from Texas, our Susie saw an ad on the Internet, and told Steve about it. Steve was interviewed and got the job. The Lord provides! We have a picture of him in the computer room at the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin, which was taken April 28, 2000. At this time he met a girl by the name of “Johanna Lillo”. She is history, but little did we know that in the future Dick and I would meet her parents at St. Mark’s in Watertown, Wisconsin, where they are also church members. And last night, March 13, 2009, believe it or not, we attended a concert by Michael Schroeder (in which the children including our great grandson, Joshua Poston, sang) at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran School and talked to Johanna. She introduced us to her husband and two children, a girl and a boy. They live in Watertown too. It’s a small world!
JANUARY – 2000 – MISSIONARIES REPATRIATION SEMINAR, FLORISSANT, COLORADO
Dick and I were very privileged and blessed to be invited to attend a Missionaries Repatriation Seminar (funds generously donated) in Florissant, Colorado It was held in a very elite resort from which you could see Pikes Peak in the distance. It was great to be with missionaries with whom we worked in Africa. Also there were other missionaries we knew who worked in other parts of the world. About forty of us met together every morning and shared experiences. We also got together in small groups and shared what it was like for us and our families after we returned to the States. There were some tears because of “culture shock”, especially for those missionaries who had worked and made their homes in a foreign land for many years.
There were very delicious meals. There is a gorgeous swimming pool and Jacuzzi there. We were way up in the mountains, so June Hering and I went outside and made “angels in the snow”. Needless to say, we jumped into the Jacuzzi to warm up as quickly as we could. It was fun! And I was 70 years old at the time!!!! We have wonderful memories of that place with our friends.
APRIL 11, 2000 – A GIFT FROM GOD – AN INSULIN PUMP FOR 7 – YEAR OLD SAMMY!
In a letter from Jeff, Sammy’s father, he said: “Sammy’s insulin pump arrived last Monday. This past Friday we went down to the Barbara Davis Center in Denver for the startup…..7 hours of training on how to work with it. Sammy then left with the pump attached to her, with it having only a saline solution in it. We head back on Thursday morning for the second stage of the startup, and that is to start with the actual insulin. Sammy has done well with it these past few days and is getting excited that tomorrow is her last day of regular shots. Now instead of the three to four shots a day, we will be down to one big shot every three days as we change the “sets” and the tubes for the insulin pump. In many ways they say it is like starting all over again with your diabetes care because it is such a different method. However, once the initial effort is done with, it promises to be a wonderful thing for Sammy and her control.”
Sammy herself wrote a letter to the Juvenile Diabetes Children’s Congress, Washington, D. C. In part of it she said: “My Mom, Dad, and I really wanted to get the insulin pump, so we had to prove to Dr. Chase that I could handle it. My doctor and Dad had a little talk alone. Then the doctor talked to me to see if I really wanted to have it, too. My doctor said, “Yes, you can get the pump”. So now I have the pump. It is a really good tool. I am never going to switch back to shots. That’s the way I got the pump.
“I want the researchers to find a cure for Diabetes because I don’t want to be blind. I don’t want other people to die. I want everybody to have a happy life, not a sad one. I want them to find a cure because when I am at school and we’re having a birthday party, sometimes we have cupcakes and I can’t have one because it is not my snack time. I want everything to be even.
“When they do find a cure for Diabetes, I will be one of the happiest girls in the world, along with millions of other people who have Diabetes. Please help to make that dream come true for us”.
What a blessing the insulin pump is for our Sammy and others who have Juvenile Diabetes (Type 1)!
A BABY SHOWER AT DEBBIE AND GLEN’S HOME FOR ANN WILSON
David’s wife, Ann, was pregnant now, so there was a wonderful baby shower for Ann. We played games in which prizes were given, Ann opened many great gifts, and much delicious food was eaten.
Cassie Chmielewski’s second birthday was on May 15th, so her birthday was celebrated at the same time as the day of the shower. There was a special Elmo birthday cake for her with lots of colored birthday balloons. She is such a cutie! How blessed we are to have another treasured family get-together! How blessed Dick and I are by our gracious God for our precious families!
GRADUATION OF TIMOTHY PETER MUELLER, JR.
Our grandson, “Timmy” graduated from Medford High School on May 19, 2000. In our album there is a wonderful happy picture of Glen and Debbie Wilson, most likely Timmy’s sponsors. We were on our way to Wyoming, so sadly were not able to be there, even though we would like to have been. Oh, if only people could be in more places than one.
CHEYENNE, WYOMING, FOR TRAVIS’ CONFIRMATION AND SAMMY’S 8TH BIRTHDAY
On our way to Cheyenne in May, 2000, in our truck camper we stopped at Buffalo Bill’s (Cody) Scout’s Rest Ranch, a State Historic Park, in North Platte, Nebraska. The furnishings in the unique white-framed house (built in 1886) reminds me of my grandparents’ homes – wallpaper on the walls, flowered carpeting (not wall to wall), antique furniture – tables with linen and lace tablecloths set with fine china, doilies on settees and dressers, quilts on high decorative headboard beds, porcelain potties under the beds, homemade rag rugs, wood-box next to an old iron wood-burning stove (those ovens baked delicious bread) with a black chimney going up through the ceiling, wringer washing machine, crock pots, an old wicker buggy, spindle legged wooden child’s bed and antique dolls, etc.
Buffalo Bill traveled and performed in his own Wild West Show which became very famous throughout the United States and Europe.. Some of his very colorful jackets are displayed in glass cases in the home, and there are life-size figures of Buffalo Bill himself. The house was built as a place for Buffalo Bill to relax between show tours. Here he entertained in elaborate style his famous contemporaries as well as his old friends of frontier days.
There wasn’t an outhouse on the Ranch that I can remember. (I do remember an outhouse which we saw behind President Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois. The door was open for tourists to see, and there were THREE holes for people to use! Usually people had only one. Sears and Montgomery Ward catalog sheets were used then instead of toilet paper which wasn’t invented yet. Can you imagine people doing that in this day and age – March 20, 2009? Otherwise, President Lincoln’s home is much like Buffalo Bill’s home. We did see one of President Lincoln’s famous stovepipe hats displayed in the hallway of his home).
We walked away from the house to a huge long barn which was loaded with some of Buffalo Bill’s circus performance possessions – wagons (one looked like a Roman chariot), another a covered wagon, a buggy, a huge buffalo head up on a wall, saddles, bridles and bits, ranch tools, and many circus pictures on the walls. There is a picture of Buffalo Bill on a majestic-looking white horse. Dick took a picture of me sitting on a saddle on a wooden stand in front of that picture. Now I wonder if that was his saddle. There is a very impressive stained glass window in the shape of a churchly arch with flowers and the words, “These little ones which believe in me” across the middle of it. They say, “a picture says a thousand words”, but what is the history behind that window?
On we traveled along the Oregon Trail, stopping to see a sod house, Windlass Hill, Courthouse and Jail Rocks (rising 400 feet above the North Platte Valley), Chimney Rock, and Scottsbluff National Monument, Nebraska. There were, and probably still are, two covered wagons below the Monument.
Our son-in-law, Pastor Jeffrey Heitsch, Pastor of Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church, Cheyenne, Wyoming, also serves King of Kings Evangelical Lutheran Church in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Scottsbluff is about 120 miles from Cheyenne. It is located along the North Platte River in the shadow of the Scottsbluff National Monument, an Oregon Trail landmark. “Mitchell Pass” at the Monument was the primary route for most Oregon and California pioneers after 1850. Steph, Jeff, and their children showed us where some of the wagon ruts still were through a pass. What a thrill it was to see so much of the old West! When we were in Cheyenne, Jeff asked my husband to preach for the congregation of King of Kings at Scottsbluff which he was all too happy to do. The people were so friendly and happy to meet us.
How thrilled we were when we arrived in Cheyenne to be with Jeff, Steph, Trav, Mitch, and Sammy. The children showed off their athletic ability on the trampoline. It was great to be together with all of them again.