Days 18-24 - Oct. 18-24, Wooster, OH
Must be a plumber pumpkin with that crack! Kristin's Little Library Kristin, Becky & Marietje Me and Gen. Wooster The General that Maritje's Mascot is based on Kristin's church Walkin' in the 'hood Out for a drive Corn, corn everywhere Downtown Wooster A bike repair station in a park
Travel day on October 18th presented me with new learning experiences—circumnavigating Chicago, using three different toll road systems (Illinois, Indiana & Ohio), waiting half an hour for trains to clear a country road crossing before backtracking and taking a very convoluted path to Wooster, OH including a steeply inclined switchback (GPS needs a scolding!).
In Wooster lives my surprise sister, Kristin. Kristin deserves her tale told before the travelogue continues.
I cared for my father for four years, but in 1995 he was moving to live with my older sister, Connie. As we’re waiting to put him on the San Diego plane bound for Oregon, he says to me, “By the way, your mother had a baby girl before I met her and put the child up for adoption.” I needed to put my socks back on, because they were blown off! My mother had never mentioned or even hinted that she had another child. Such was the stigma foisted solely on women when obviously a man had a part in it; that she should carry that shame her whole life was tragic!
The child was born in Pittsburgh, PA. My father continued that a few years prior, he and my mother had flown to Pittsburgh to see if they could track down her child (then a middle-aged adult) but because of strict adoption privacy laws back in the day, they didn’t succeed. After our father passed, Connie tried going to Pittsburgh to try her hand at finding her with the same results. We had pretty much given up on finding her until in 2018, my brother, Tom, who had done 23 & Me gene testing several years earlier, got an email. The woman wrote that 23 & Me indicated she might be his aunt.
Tom responded immediately that she was our long-lost sister. Right away she bravely came out to meet all of us and we gathered her in as if she had always been part of the family (which technically she had been). Now, she welcomed me to visit her.
Kristin took me on some nice long drives through the Ohio countryside. The Fall colors were spectacular, but the best part of the drives was the opportunity to get to know each other’s lives and characters better. Car conversations always seem more relaxed and in depth than other situations, so we shared lots of family and personal stories.
Walks are another good time to share ideas and experiences. Kristin walks almost daily with her neighbors, probably covering several miles each time. Their neighborhood is ideal for walking, with long, quiet streets, interesting neighbor decor and lovely walking buddies. I went with her several times. She may be a decade older than I, but she’s definitely got more stamina!
Originally moving to Wooster to be near her daughter, Becky, a sleep specialist Nurse Practitioner, and Becky’s adopted daughter, Marietje, Kristen has since built a varied social life filled with wonderful, caring friends from her neighborhood, church and women’s groups. I met several of them and one evening played rousing games of Rummikub with two of them—the delightful Bev and Joanie.
Marietje is a fascinating 16 year old. A junior in high school, she is smart, artistic and bold. Just this week she auditioned to be one of the high school mascots, The General (there are five that anonymously share the role), and got chosen. She’s quite savvy and says she wants to go to college to study veterinary science.
Though she didn’t grow up with us, Kristin apparently had a wonderful childhood; well loved by her parents and older brother. She went to a Connecticut boarding high school, got a degree in psychology from Dennison University (the destination of one of our long drives), married her college sweetheart, taught briefly before raising two lovely daughters (Sarah being Becky’s little sister). They moved several times following her husband’s job, and eventually ended up in St. Louis, where she owned a gift store.
As a model of her gift store good taste, Kristin’s charming home is decorated in cheerful blues and yellows with splashes of whale themes. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there and am so glad for the chance to be with my sweet, surprise sister!
On our last day together we drove to Columbiana, OH, to meet up with our Pennsylvania cousins, Laurel, her brother, Chris, and his wife, Rita, at Das Dutch Haus restaurant where portions were enormous enough to feed us for several days. Kristin and Chris & Rita headed to their homes, but Laurel and I went camping!
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