Cabin Words

You all remember how it is............. there will be a rock glued to cardboard and it's passed around the table and everybody tells what they see in the rock. (Yes, we did that, too, this time.)

But we also came up with a 1-word list of "what epitomizes the cabin to you in one word??"

How about: cowabunga,  canteloupe,  lake,  lazy,  memories,  family,  boys,  girls,  reading, firepit,  towels,  logs,  canoe,  hamburgers,  pancakes,  peanuts,  rocks,  dock,  chairs,  splashing, laughter,  squirrels,  Scrabble...... and Doug added hurachies.


Here be we, from left to right:  Grady,  Evan,  John,  Benjamin,  Jane Esther, Jane Wynne, Timothy, Rylee, and Austin, all enjoying Timothy's birthday burger celebration lunch. 

Sunset at the cabin...... sparks memories.

This delightful photo was taken by Rebecca Hope Potter in July 2015.

Did you all know she was named (in part) for her paternal great-grandmother, Efa Hope Carr?

Efa Hope Carr was born in 1889 in Nashville, Illinois. She became a teacher but had to quit that position in 1917 when she married Henry Melville Potter in Nashville. The mores of the day decreed that married women could not be teachers! Both of them were teachers and both agreed to postpone their marriage a few years because their income was needed at home.

Their first child, Charles Hobart Potter, was born in 1918 and died at age 8 of appendicitis. Grandma told me how she and Mel went to the store to buy a burial suit of clothes for their boy and when the clerk innocently asked if they wanted two sets of trousers with the jacket, she dissolved into tears and had to go outside.

Francis Harold Potter was born in 1921, followed by Kenneth Melville and Kathryn Hope in 1922. I think Grandma never got over the death of her first son, and went into what today would be called a major depression that lasted for years. Because of that, and with the demands of twins, Francis got kinda lost in the shuffle, I think.

Mel died of a heart attack in 1952 in Illinois. I remember we were living in Fairfield, California at the time. Dad was out hunting and I remember that Mom had to call the State Patrol to locate him.

Grandma Hope lived on until 1980 and did as much traveling as she could. She visited Germany (to see daughter Kathryn and husband Roger). I remember her coming with us in our 15-foot camping trailer to Fall Creek and Yellowstone. She lived with us at least part of the time when we were at Mountain Home and when Dad was stationed at Fairchild and we were in Airway Heights.

She died in Spokane in 1980 and is buried next to Mel back in Nashville, Illinois.

She was a feisty old lady. I remember this well:  When asked "How are you today, Grandma?" She would reply with a twinkle, "Doing in everybody I can!"