50-Year School Reunion
The Treasure It Held
I have to make an introduction to what I will be writing.
In 2005, Carol’s class at Guide Rock, Nebraska, held its 50-year school reunion. Carol’s family had to move in her 12th-grade year, so she didn’t graduate from the Guide Rock school, but the whole class voted for her to return for that celebration. It was pretty sad for her since the school had been torn down, but the gymnasium was left and remolded.
The 18 students of her class were to write a “summary” of their 50 years and send it to the class secretary, who, with some other student’s help, made a 50th-year remembrance School Year Book.
I was with her for that celebration in Guide Rock, but I don’t remember her being given the book, nor do I remember her getting hers later in the mail.
Two months and five days after she passed away (on January 7, 2024), I was going through some of our cupboards, just straightening up things and seeing what to do with different things.
(Most of Carol’s things, except her collection of Cook Books, had already been taken care of.)
When she retired from teaching, she wanted some of the clothes she would not be wearing regularly to be donated to a Women’s Shelter. This we did 15 or so years ago.
So, this is what our daughter helped me get ready again to do after Carol died in November. So, most of Carol’s things had been taken care of.
What I found and will treasure was the 50th-year Remembrance School Year Book.
The treasure I found is the paragraph she had written about me. I copied it below.
(This is what she wrote about me.)
Larry is now retired from teaching in a regular school setting, he does still teach in the Sylvan Learning Center, tutoring kids that have a hard time in school.
We will celebrate our 44th anniversary on June 30. If Larry was not the kind of man he is, I am sure anyone else would have divorced me after living that first year (and took me 10 years) with me after Roy’s death. ...Larry loved me through it year after year.
I often asked him how he could stand for me to cry for another man on his shoulder...(this is absolutely incredible) he said, “I love all of you and that is just part of you, you come as a package.” Pretty neat guy God gave me.
This is now me. Larry, typing, adding some information to explain it. After we had been married for some time, we went to the cemetery where, Roy, her first husband was buried. As she started to cry, there was nothing I could do but turn her towards me, hold her, and let her cry. I have tears in my eyes now as I remember this and write this.