YCGL - Minnesota - Day 15 - Sunday , May 1 - Minneapolis - 84 miles

 I had gotten a phone call from Michael saying that he would be gone, but to call his mom.  I called her yesterday and we talked for a bit and I said I would visit her today.  I thought about it for a bit, knowing that today is Sunday, so I called her back and told her I would meet her at church.  

Herm had invited me to pancakes for breakfast and I called and arranged to come a little earlier (I mean, we're talking 8:15 earlier!) and that worked fine for him.  So, I woke up at 7:30(!) and got there AT 8:15.  We had a good talk but I left just in time to make it to American Lutheran Church.  

Romelle was sitting in the fourth pew back, about where Sally and I would normally sit at Trinity.  Strange, for all the years I've been in Windom, it was the first time I've ever been here.  Sally was Methodist, so we always went there instead.  It is a pretty light wood interior, there had been a fire maybe 15 years ago with the entire interior burnt out, so it was a fairly modern interior in a church built probably 50 years ago.  (A little bittersweet, Sally's grandparents, the Soliens, lived in a house where the parking lot is now.  The good side to that was Kirsti moved into a house right in front of the Solien farm, so Sally grew up with both grandmothers together on a daily basis.)

After church, I told Romelle to stay for coffee while I got the motorhome ready to travel and I would meet her at the house.  So now I had the time to run passed Sally's house. It was probably built around 1900, I think John and Lizzie moved in about 1913.  Sally's room was on the front over the kitchen.  The well was next to the willow tree with the drive going around it.  The barn was over to the right just before going down the hill.  Here it is....

The property was purchased three years ago and the land leveled for a new medical center.  The farm house on the hill was gone, and the chicken coop which had been Sally's playhouse, and the barn, and most of the apple trees in the back of the yard.  Luckily, Sally never had to see it.  I guess if the house had to go, it was better for a health clinic than a grocery store.  Sig and Betty had already sold about 15 acres on the bottom of the hill for the Windom Hospital, so a clinic there makes some sense. But it still isn't the old house....  Kirsti's house is the one on the right so she had an easy walk up.   And Lizzie lived with them.  Sadly, both grandmas and Sig died before I had a chance to meet them.  

Romelle was her old self, a little slower at late 80s, but talks just as fast and just as quietly.  :)  And just as up on people as ever.  She remembered all of my family and talked about my mom's long life.    She has been through her sorrows also, Melvin, Wilb's oldest brother, died early last year, so we talked about the things that each of our spouses did that we have to do now. They were married 69 years.  She is such a dear.  Herm and Mel and Romelle have always been the necessary stops when in Windom.  

I was going to stop and see Orville (another of Wilb's brothers and Sandy's age) and Jan on the way back into town, but they weren't there.  They just built a new house on a property a mile south of their old house.  Sorry to have missed them.

Time to move on to Minneapolis.  I had planned to be there around 4:00, but didn't get off until almost 3:00.  I had driven about 30 miles and started to get drowsy.  I think getting up in the middle of the night at 7:30 got to me.  So I pulled off at a rest stop, called Judy and told her I would be late for dinner, and took a nap.  So  I got to her house several hours late.  I'm really sorry.  It ended up being an action packed day and it caught up with me.  We had meatloaf, which tasted really good.    Judy was another classmate and, bless her heart, has been in charge of the last three reunions, including the 50th.  No one else volunteered to do the next one, but I think its time to let her off the hook, so I'm stepping in to get things going.  I've done it before, and there is always lots of help when you get to crunch time.  Judy and Warren and I talked (well, I admit, I talked the most after having the rest) about Sally, classmates, Windom, trips...  She is another dear good friend from the class.   

And other than poorly signed road construction which took me five miles out of the way, I got back to the motorhome, did Norwegian, wrote a little and crashed.