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Sentimental Sunday - April

April is a rough month. Most people relate April to spring and rebirth. April around here is a time to remember special people. It is a rough month where we all tend to get a little sentimental. Some are obvious and some not so much.

I lost one of my best friends April 26, 2005. She is my sister in law Wilma Lee Eckman LeMon. I had my own business for a few years and worked out of a small office at her house. There were many afternoons that found me up in the house chatting away with her (if I didn't have appointments that day). She was wise beyond her years and yet stubborn as a toddler when it came to certain things. She coud be sitting at her computer in pain and let the right song come on and she would be up dancing in a heartbeat! She was a great folk art artist. One review compared her to a Grandma Moses of her day. I still have one of her paintings - it is of an Amish girl milking a cow! (I have a thing for cows). Her birthday was also this month -- April 6.

Her brother (my brother in law) Frank passed April 3, 2010. To be honest I had a hard time recalling the actual date. He passed on Holy Saturday which of course is a moveable feast but all the same I recall Holy Saturday more so than the date. He was a Marine and proud of it. His son is one now. I am so grateful for their service. My girls absolutley love him. He spent his final months with my husband (while we were seperated) and I recall dropping off or picking up the girls there and Frank and I would sit on the stoop and talk long after expected.

Their mom's brother was also born in April. The 8th to be specific. He was something! He was born in Philadelphia on April 8, 1923 to Morgan G. and Julia Coursault Deyoe. He was baptized at Christ's Church in Philadelphia. He fought in WW2 - was injured, found a bride, brought her home with him. Oh the stories he could tell! He was incredible at storytelling too. The stories never changed no matter how many times you heard them. He would play his guitar and sing and tell stories for hours.

April also reminds me of their mom - Dorothy Marie Deyoe Eckman. Every time I pass a daffodil I think of her. When we lived in Kirkwood, the daffodils would be in full bloom thruought April, sometimes they would even bloom in March! Today on the way home from church we passed daffodils at numerous houses and it made me thing of her.

April indeed is a sentimental month here. To have known them ... was my priviledge.
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