That Book

10/19/2026

A touch of history.

I love reading historical fiction books as there are so many things you learn in them. How about you?

In 1935, poor families in America had no clothes.

The Depression had taken everything. Children went to school in rags made from flour sacks. A mother would have one dress for 3 years. In winter, kids stayed home because they had no coat.

Factories had closed. 100,000 women who sewed for a living had no jobs.

Roosevelt's WPA opened sewing rooms.

Look at this photo - 1936, Chicago. This room has 100 sewing machines. Every woman in this photo was jobless. Now they are sewing 12 hours a day, but not for a factory - for poor families.

Between 1935 and 1943, those WPA sewing rooms sewed 380 MILLION pieces of clothing. Dresses, coats, underwear, blankets. All given free to families who had nothing.

They also made 1.2 million quilts and 2.5 million mattresses for families sleeping on floors.

Those women made more clothes than any company in American history. And they made them for people who could never pay.

If your grandmother was poor in the 1930s and got a new coat for her child in winter, it came from a room like this, made by a woman who also had nothing but still sewed for someone poorer.

It was the last time America had no clothes. After the sewing rooms, every child had a coat for winter.

In 1935 Children Went To School In Flour Sacks - Then 100,000 Jobless Women Sewed 380 Million Pieces Of Clothing For Free

10/18/2026

I used to never keep a lot of books. Today, my home is overflowing. I will never read them all but it does make me resist one more if they spark my interest!!!

10/15/2026

I highly recommend this book. I read this in a few hours this afternoon. Be prepared to share a few tears.

The new streaming hit has people questioning whether this gripping story happened in real life.

10/15/2026

Mother was my authority, my advisor, my example, my seamstress, my beautician. She cooked for her family. She washed our clothes away from home because we could not afford a washing machine. The laundrymat was a crude shelter. The washing machine was one that many women had on their porch for many years. The body of the machine held water and one would use a wood length to move their clothes around like your agitator on your machine does today and that same piece of wood would be used to put the clothes through the wringer attached to the back of the washing machine. (If you can't envision I am sorry my description is not better). Once mother caught her hand in that wringer and broke her wrist. Well she finished her wash, loaded it in the car, drove her laundry home into our horseshoe driveway and honked the horn several times and we kids came a running. Joe and I were too young to help but Patty and George Ann were told to take the wet clothes and hang them out on the clothes line. (What is that you say??? Clothes line??) Mother told us she had broken her wrist and needed to get to the hospital. Oh, my and ouch.As young as I was that day, I was in awe of my mother. Sometimes she would take Joe and I with her to do the laundry because my sisters I guess were doing something else. The building was cold or hot depending on the season. There was no heat or ac. They had long tables I remember and I can't remember if the floors were concrete or dirt but it was not the washateria you go into today. Mother would set Joe and I on a table and that is where we would be when she finished her wash. Now understand, she did not use several machines but one so it was a task that took time and her constantly working. When she was through she would load up her laundry and her two young children and go home. Once home she had to hang the clothes on the clothes line where often Joe and I handing her the pieces that were not too heavy or too big for us. It kept her from constantly stooping.

My mother was our cook. An excellent one I might add. We had simple meals and the majority of our meals consisted of pinto beans. Meat was only a couple of evenings a week or Sunday. We ate our fair share of salad which consisted of lettuce, tomatoes and onions stirred in was Miracle Whip. I never knew there was such a thing as salad dressings until I was 18 years old.
Growing up while my two older sisters were home, they were 8 and 7 years older than me, they had the task of washing and drying dishes each night. Joe was 2 years younger to the date. I remember my sisters getting in trouble many times during this chore. They argued of who was going to wash and who was going to dry. The dryer would aggravate the washer by opening the cabinet door and pushing it open over the sink where the washer was. The door would open, close, open, close. Daddy would say something to them and they would stop. One time daddy got something out of the cabinet or drawer and it was not clean. He pulled ever utensil, dish, pot and pan out of the cabinet and made them redo them all. My sisters were not happy about that but smart enough to not talk back. Young as I was at the time, I am telling you when I came of age to wash the dishes, I was very careful with my dish washing!!!!

Mother sewed, quite well I thought. She made my clothes until I was a teenager. When I was young, those clothes were mostly out of flour sacks. Nothing was of waste back then. You got rid of ragged clothes, off came the buttons and out came the zipper. The material was used for rags.

At one time my father bought my mother a huge ironer. She had it for years.She was so proud of that ironer. It really was for flat things. Mother used it to iron our sheets. As long as mother had a home, she still ironed her pillow cases and pressed their clothes including daddy's hankies. For many years I did the same.

My mother was my beauty operator. She cut my hair and gave me my perms. The curlier my hair was the prettier I was I guess.

As far back as I can remember, my mother worked along side my daddy at their little mom/pop grocery store. Many times, Joe and I would spend the day there. We played well together. We read comic books but we had to be very careful as they were new and for sale. Ocassionally we got a soda or candy bar. A real treat if they allowed us both.

About the time I went to high school, mother and daddy gave up that little mom and pop store. Daddy went to work at the Post Office and mother went to college and received her R.N. degree. It had been years since she had gone to school but she was on the Dean's List. She didn't want to waste a cent of her and daddy's hard earned money.

We weren't rich but we weren't poor. We had what we needed but little of what we wanted or wished for. We knew we were loved which brought with it boundaries and discipline. My parents were not very affectionate when I was growing up but then along came grandchildren and you couldn't have asked for a better Nana and Papa.

Thank you for going down memory lane with me.
Dawna 2021

09/25/2026

Steve and I found each other after we had both experienced the loss of someone we deeply loved. Neither of us was looking to replace the life that came before. We simply understood one another’s grief—and somewhere between my writing and his willingness to listen, a new life quietly began.

He found Rebecca’s Whisper during the uncertainty of 2020, and my words helped bring us together. Now, six years later, some of our sweetest moments are the simplest ones: sitting outside our vintage camper, drinking coffee beneath the covered porch, and watching another season change around us.

We have both learned that loving again does not erase the past. It honors what life taught us and reminds us that our hearts can carry memories while still making room for something new.

This quiet little life may not look grand to everyone, but it is peaceful, honest, and ours.

R. Nelson Barnes
Rebecca’s Whisper

09/25/2026

Every evening, just before sunset, the same boy appeared outside the library.

He never came inside.

He simply stood by the window, reading whatever pages he could before the lights were turned off.

The librarian noticed him for weeks.

One evening, she walked outside and asked quietly,

"Why don't you come in?"

The boy looked down.

"I don't have a library card."

His family had recently moved to town. They had very little money, and he believed libraries were only for people who could afford them.

The librarian smiled.

"Books belong to everyone."

She helped him fill out the paperwork, found him his very first library card, and showed him where the history section was.

That simple act changed everything.

The boy became the library's most frequent visitor.

He read biographies, science books, newspapers, and anything else he could carry home.

Years later, he earned a college scholarship—the first in his family.

At an awards ceremony, someone asked what had inspired his love of learning.

He didn't mention a famous teacher.

He didn't mention a wealthy donor.

Instead, he told the audience about the librarian who opened the door one quiet evening and handed him a library card.

"She didn't just lend me books," he said.

"She handed me a future."

Decades later, when the old library was renovated, he donated thousands of books in her honor.

A small bronze plaque near the entrance carries a simple message:

"One open door can change an entire life."

History often remembers presidents, inventors, and generals.

But sometimes history changes because one ordinary person chooses to be kind when no one else is watching.

Question: What's one small act of kindness that changed your life forever?

09/25/2026

Because I am getting to know more about my Lahn Children's birth family I decided to do something a little different today.. I hope you bear with me and understand what I am saying or trying to say. My research carries me in many different directions and has for years. I remember the anger I have felt sometimes as I learn truths.

I remember when I first saw this saying and held on to it as a purchase. I loved what it said. I loved what it meant. As much as I knew about life I was and still am so niave about so many things. So today I am going to own it. That family circle no matter how much we try has worn or broken spots. The binding is not what it must be ever because we are imperfect. There is no perfect family. We don't all think alike and we don't all see life the same way.

I used to compare my family and my husband's family as a young wife. I thought my family was different from his. I was young and my expectations were those with which I grew up.

My daddy did not drink and we did things as a family. Minimum 3 times a week we were at church. We didn't have a lot of money but no around us did.

My husband's family was different. His daddy drank and raised cain at times. My husband followed in his father's footsteps but sometimes it was unwillingly. He wanted to be a good husband and father but that did not win out in his life.

My parent's didn't believe in divorce but they stood by Joe and I as we both went through one. Me, I went through two. My parents wwere deceased for the second one. Do I feel good about that? No. I know I should have not gotten married the second time. It was too rushed. My kids tried to tell me so. I would not listen. So hardheaded me dived in head first. I like everyone am imperfect.

I wonder at what happens in one's life to turn them to hurt those they love or once loved. At one time people who were part of your circle, who loved you at one time causes a piece of that circ.e to falter.

I for years have understood holidays alone. As a young Navy wife I had my first one alone at 19. I felt sorry for myself. I peeked in the present my parents sent me and wrapped it back up. It was the only one under the little tree. I was young. I was in love. I was alone. I have never forgotten what that felt like. Yet with age I learned to live in a life that took my husband away for months at a time.

When I went to Alanon in my forties, I became very aware of all the broken hearts, the broken people, the broken marriages and the broken families. I realized my little family was broken and I wanted to heal it. What I learned is I would first have to heal myself. Once that happened things would began to fall into place. I had to come to terms with where my life had evolved. Did my kids suffer in our family circle? I would be less than honest if I did not say yes. How could that be when I loved them so and had tried my best to protect my three boys.....I have discovered it is all in the eyes of the beholder.

I think today I see the imperfections of life differently that I had maybe as facts and stories came into place. I realize my Lahn Children had hard circumstance thrown in their young lives but they were not alone in their birth family that i have found. I see lies were woven for many years where the truth would have been better but one thing I know is as young children we expect our parents to love us and care for us. I also know this, remember this, because you have given birth or you are a s***m donor it does not make you a parent.

I am thankful God is in my life as He has always taken the broken pieces of me and mended them the best He can. One thing about life, we havethe ability to forgive but we don't have the capacity most of the time to forget. We remember the injustices of life and try to learn from our mistakes.

There are no circles of life and families that can go unbroken. You are not alone if it has happened in your life.