Mothers’ Day brings with it memories of home. Home is more than a physical location. Special guest, Bob Ingram, and I reveal the emotional resonance we’ve created in our respective places. You’re in for a treat. And please remember:

Home as Haven

A space of emotional resonance where a sense of comfort, safety, pleasure and conviviality radiate

by Susan Schaefer

Come along as I bring you on an intimate journey from my childhood home up to the present.

We appointed this home knowing that it would be haven and hospice

Gezelligheid

Guests often note that my home feels like a retreat – not merely defined by a physical location or an architectural structure, but the feelings and connections cultivated within. In each place I’ve called home, and there have been many, I’ve created a space of emotional resonance where a sense of comfort, safety, pleasure and conviviality radiate.

My knack for crafting such spaces comes from my childhood. My parents’ home was not elegant but always well-organized and welcoming. While only a modest Philadelphia row home, without features that many covet today, it was my family’s hospitality that was the draw. Later in life, my homes offered many other amenities, but a home, like a recipe, is the sum of its parts. It takes an openhearted nature, the desire to share, and a bit of magic to blend all the elements together. The essence of home is an environment where relationships flourish and memories are made.

My guiding principle is best described by the Dutch concept of gezellig – derived from the noun gezelligheid. During the Covid epidemic, which enforced at home time, the Danish term hygge was popularized. But home is more than a cozy setting. Gezellig connotes a positive atmosphere, flow or vibe that favorably colors the personal experience of inhabiting and visiting the space.

A natural nester

In 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien published a fantasy novel that most of us know as The Hobbit – one of the best-selling books of all time with a wildly successful movie franchise. Our beloved hero, Bilbo Baggins, the home-loving main character, is wooed away from his comfortable hobbit hole in the rolling green landscape of The Shire on a long adventure by the wizard Gandalf and his 13 dwarf companions. Yet, Bilbo always yearned to be home again.

I grew up in Northwest Philadelphia, the green heart of the city surrounded by Wissahickon Valley Park, a national natural landmark. Best known as Wissahickon Woods, this highly regarded urban forest features an astounding 2,000-acre gorge and 57 miles of trails and abundant mature hardwood trees.

I’ve always fancied the historic Germantown neighborhood, nestled right in the Wissahickon Woods, as my Shire. It’s green hills and valleys offer a constant source of natural replenishment smack dab in Philly’s urban sprawl. Despite my outgoing nature, I am a homebody who needs to be nourished by my surroundings and in my youth, I was content to plant my stake in this green corner of the metropolis. But like Tolkien’s hobbit hero, the call of an adventure swept me to the far corners of the globe. No matter where I rested my head, be it a tent or log cabin, a cottage or converted warehouse, I always made a home, yet, longed for my Shire.

Homes away from home

At the tender age of 22, my Gandalf appeared in the form of a Hindi spiritual master – Guru Maharaj Ji, one of the many eastern sages who rose to fame and fortune during the flower-powered 70s. Guru Ji’s dwarves were a company of mahatmas – his devotees. Bilbo was led to The Lonely Mountain in Middle Earth; I was whisked to a tent encampment outside the guru’s stately Divine Light Mission, situated under the shadow of the vast Himalayas in Old Delhi, India.

After earning a reputation as a responsible member of his inner circle, Guru Ji sent me on a mission to South America to buy a building with provided funds, establish an outpost ashram with a welcoming vibe, and recruit followers known as premies. Amazingly, as an inexperienced youth entrusted with this huge responsibility, I successfully completed my undertaking, purchasing an adobe building in the village of Usaquén, about 10 miles from Bogotá, creating a ready-made household for the mahatma designated to assume leadership.

During this period, I had grown very close with Dario and Angela Lozano, the young couple living next door. Together, we became increasingly dissatisfied with the ashram. Around the same time, they completed their new house. When they asked me to move in with them, I eagerly accepted.

Dario, a professional engineer, had been busy building a rustic, thatched-roof log cabin high above Bogotá, in La Calera, a vicinity in the foothills of Andes Mountains. Sans heat, indoor plumbing or electricity, I accepted a small nook built into the wall as my sleeping place. My rent was instructing the family in English and helping out with chores and the children.

Each morning began with a bracing outdoor shower in an enclosure Dario had constructed, water slightly heated by a sun-warmed plastic sack with an attached hose. Three days a week, Dario and I navigated the harrowing, hairpin-turn road down the sheer mountain slopes to the city center, where he worked for a government agency, and I taught English at the respected Centro Colombo Americano where I had landed a part-time position.

On my free days, I assisted Angela at her loom as she wove native ruanas, the Colombian version of a serape, that she sold from the house. I had donated funds to purchase a large milk cow that they affectionately named Susana, after me, and learned to milk, churn butter, and strain curds for yogurt and cheese. After a time, I began a bedtime ritual, inventing little stories in Spanish for the children, Ariana and Mauricio, by the glow of candlelight. Life in the Lozano family’s enchanted mountainside cabin defined home as a haven.

Upon my return from South America, I reestablished my graduate studies at Temple University, working towards a doctorate. Now highly proficient in Spanish, I was recruited as a Director of the Bilingual English Program at Camdem County College, a full-time appointment that provided the means to buy my first home – a three-bedroom, semi-detached brick house on Haines Street in my favored Germantown neighborhood, where I lived for over ten years. Our block enjoyed tight community spirit and perpetual camaraderie, and my home was a hub, constantly abuzz with visitors and activities.

Eventually, I invited my boyfriend Bob to live with me, then marrying him there, surrounded by family, friends, colleagues and neighbors, consecrating the space.

As my income increased, so did my expectations. I undertook a total restoration of the house, transforming the interior into a sparkling jewel box with an open floor plan, renovated hardwood tiger oak floors, and stained-glass windows from a demolished church that opened like French doors over the sink, revealing our new deck and refurbished garden. Again, our home abounded with guests and geniality.

Later, after establishing yet another home in Philadelphia’s suburbs, personal and professional winds blew me across the country where I purchased a rustic cottage on the shores of Lake Minnetonka, historically a sacred hunting and fishing ground for the Mdewakanton Dakota and Ojibwe nations in Minnesota, far outside Minneapolis.

I eventually transformed the neglected cottage into a sparkling chalet that became a desired weekend destination for many city friends. Sommerville Road in Cottagewood was on a cul-de-sac, situated in a wooded setting, one block from the lake. The vaulted ceiling soared, creating a sense of spaciousness despite the house’s modest footprint. I added a sunken den with tiled fireplace, a large, screened wrap-around sleeping porch, a roomy skylit master bath with two-person whirlpool, and a four-person sauna in our basement gym area. With the large wood-burning living room fireplace, this home was a Bona fide four-season refuge.

During ten years of lakeside living, I met and married my beloved late husband, Martijn, who immigrated from his native Netherlands and took to this wild environment like a fish to water. Life with our three cats, Yin, Yang and Snoepje, in this bucolic home was blissful.

I came to realize that Martijn was my home. We didn’t know where one of us began and the other ended. Our relationship and life in Cottagewood comprise the most harmonious time of my life. Unfortunately, our 30-mile commute became a burden, necessitating a move to the city.

In Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood, we found a stately brick three-story, 5,000 square-foot, duplex complete with tenants renting the lower unit, allowing us to live practically mortgage-free! Our 27^th Avenue arts and craft-designed home was elegant, with solid oak flooring and built-ins throughout, stylish balconies and a vaulted third floor, three-bedroom one-bath complex with a private back entrance where we housed Martijn’s shiatsu practice.

The expansive main floor had a music nook, huge living and dining area with and a massive chef’s kitchen with pantry and cooking island. We hired a young landscaper to design a Japanese-inspired backyard complete with a waterfall koi pond. The Seward home became our expansive urban retreat – scene of legendary weekly and holiday gatherings of dozens of friends from the Twin Cities’ celebrated “creative class” – artists, musicians, actors, and writers. With ample space we hosted countless guests from Europe and across the country. Ultimately, we took over the lower floor apartment to house my growing public relations practice. For a while, Martijn and I discovered the joys of working from a spacious, nurturing home.

After five grand years in Seward, I was itching for a career change. Running a small, woman-owned public relations firm, paying the salaries, retirement funds, and educational and parental leave of my employees was stressful. The public relations field itself was not heading in direction I had been lobbying for – to make it a licensed profession. Being married to a European had also opened my eyes to the excitement of the founding of a new form of democracy – the birth of the European Union.

Maastricht University, located in Martijn’s hometown, offered a post-graduate degree in European Public Affairs. Martijn and I shared many conversations about leaving the United States, a country he’d come to love and respect. There was also the heartbreak of parting with this beloved home and our cat family, but in the end, we found homes for our four-footed friends and sold our colossal duplex, moving across the “big pond” into his family home. His mother Gerri had always rented an entire floor of her large three-story home to students, so we inherited that space with its private kitchen, living room, bedroom and newly constructed bathroom.

The Family. Gerri’s house exuded gezelligheid. I learned much about entertaining from my gregarious, big-hearted mother-in-law. Photo| 2004

After graduating with my “drs.” and greatly enjoying European ambiance, I relished the chance to teach at Maastricht University and consult for the city and a few NGOs. Martijn was also regrowing his affection for his home country. Still intending to move back to the U.S. in a few years, we rented a small apartment in Wyck, Maastricht’s ancient walled city. But when Martijn’s name was selected from a lottery for an exclusive, modern, light-filled, architect-designed two-story townhouse built inside Céramique, the historic former ceramics factory, one block from the banks of the Meuse River, we made the leap. We also began contemplating my becoming a Dutch citizen, as we believed we had found our forever home. But destiny dealt us a fatal blow.

Almost immediately upon moving into Céramique, Martijn discovered the tumor that eventually ended his life. We appointed this home knowing that it would be haven and hospice, sparing no expense with the furnishings and fittings.

We spent the next 18 months surrounded with all the trappings needed to assure Martijn’s comfortable and safe final journey. Its dramatic floor-to-fifteen-foot ceiling windowed doors and balconies flooded the space with natural light. The open floor plan with three-bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths offered ample space for overseas guests … and home nursing care. It was our bittersweet home, where we hosted countless gatherings of comfort … and farewells. Then, this noble residence that had supported the end of Martijn’s life in grace and ease, and had witnessed extraordinary loss and sadness, served as a genuine sanctuary, enveloping me in my grief for another six years.

Slowly, as I shed my widow’s weeds, I sought regeneration and light. Still adrift in traumatic grief, I searched far and wide for succor, finally choosing the familiarity of a marina community on Florida’s fabled Intercoastal Waterway where Martijn and I had spent two glorious weeks every year of our marriage.

Sun Harbor dock

Wooed by charming backyard palm trees that danced a rhumba in the tropical breeze, a heated community swimming pool, and the beach a mere ten-minute walk from my front door, I purchased the Sun Harbor townhouse at a great bargain due to the recent economic crash. Under cerulean skies and a blazing sun, I began walking along the ocean for miles every day, trying to shake the shadows that plagued me.

Renovating my Sun Harbor home was a form of grief therapy. Gutting it to the studs, I subconsciously tried to demolish my walls of despair. The result was a gem with every comfort and amenity. With great intent, I selected environmentally sound infrastructure: I installed a state-of-the-art, on-demand hot water system, energy efficient air conditioning, ceiling fans, kitchen appliances, sun-reducing shutters and a retractable back yard awning that kept the house cooler in the tropical heat. Natural stone and teak floor materials were water and heat resistant. This was to be my healing haven.

But my spiritual and psychological renewal required more than sunshine and physical comforts. In hindsight, I realize that I was trying to recreate the exuberance and elation Martijn and I had felt during our perfect, brief, fortnight stays in this spot in the sun. Within 18 months, the same time it had taken from Martijn’s diagnosis to death, I placed my seaside house on the market. There would never be a haven in this harbor.

I returned to Minnesota where Martijn and I had created a home within the boundaries of our own relationship and where we had been embedded in deep community and fellowship. Providence, and a wonderful young realtor, led me to an eagle’s aerie, twenty-four stories above the riparian wetlands of the Mighty Mississippi. It was in this literal roost, with an expansive east and south facing vista, that I returned to self.

Everything about my Riverview Tower nest clicked. Longtime friends wholeheartedly celebrated the memory of Martijn, allowing me to bask in happy remembrance of the life we’d lived. Such acceptance was both balm and tonic; I bathed and drank in a reservoir of reminiscence. My home once again was a gathering place of bliss and creativity. For ten glorious years, circles of healing surrounded me, until finally, I was fully sated. By the time the Covid pandemic enforced its lonely isolation, I had experienced a spiritual awakening. As the quarantine lifted, my woodland roots beckoned.

Home again

I am basking in the life affirming green outside my window. Though devoid of the dramatic view from my eagle’s perch overlooking the Mississippi, I’m grounded here at twenty feet above the little Wissahickon Creek, nestled in scruffy urban woods. At eye-level, I daily behold a riot of birds, a herd of deer, a scurry of squirrels, a lone fox.

One-story above ground, my two-bedroom home in Valley Greene Co-op is complete. The woodland southwest view glows in golden sunlight in the winter with appreciated deep-leafed shade throughout spring, summer and autumn. Original in-ceiling radiant heating keeps me toasty. My snug kitchen has the indulgence of a compact washer/dryer which I complemented with a modern, European fridge, stovetop, and oven/microwave/air fryer combo. The previous owner left me a mini-spa – an extra-large bathroom with a two-person whirlpool that provides a little luxury.

As an authentic cooperative, Valley Greene offers a built-in community of camaraderie, cooperation and activities. With nearby public transportation and shopping, my new location sits at the nexus of the East Falls, Germantown, Mt. Airy, Chestnut Hill, Manayunk and Roxborough neighborhoods, and at the mouth of my beloved Wissahickon Woods.

Upon his triumphant return home, Bilbo pens his own version of his adventures called, There and Back Again, which decodes to “home-away-home,” the structure typical of a Bildungsroman, a class of novel that depicts and explores the psychological and spiritual development of a protagonist, typically on a journey.

A wry smile cracks my face as I sit back in The Shire of my youth, now “penning” the stories of my own journeys. Yes, the analogy holds. I’ve been there and back again.

Be It Ever So Humble

by Bob Ingram

My grandfather served before the mast in the British navy. He later built a cottage in Seaside Heights, NJ, so he could again be by the sea.

The old cop had emphysema so severe he could barely put the key in the trailer door. He showed me around inside and I gave him a check for $1,500. I had always wanted to live by the sea. Now I would be seven minutes from the ocean across the wetlands in North Wildwood, NJ. I have lived in this 1956 Marlette for the past 24 years, 20 of them with my late calico cat, Ingrid.

Bob outside his 1956 Marlette| Photo: Susan Schaefer

It has been my true home; I have never lived anywhere longer. Sometimes I stand in my bedroom at night and look through the length of my trailer, softly beautiful to me in the lamp glow. I tell people every day has been like a vacation.

My trailer is number 29 of the 35 that line the oval road in Cedar Springs, the name of the park, a grassy infield in the middle. Mexican families are at either end, hard-working people with beautiful raven-haired little kids. Everyone waves to everyone here. The sense of community pervades, private yet shared. Thankfully, there have been no ICE invasions.

I moved here shortly after 9/11. My job as senior editor at a trade magazine for the supermarket industry had been eliminated, so I sold my house in Narberth, PA, that sweet town of rosebushes and mortgages, and began this last stage of my life. It has been rewarding. I have become a part of the larger community here, yet both in and out of the game, as Thoreau put it. I made two documentaries about the Wildwood Boardwalk, one shown on the PBS station in Philadelphia, and published a book of short stories set in Wildwood that first appeared in the Wildwood Sun magazine. I have contributed yet maintained my natural distance from the hurly-burly of everyday life. It has been a good fit.

My ex-wife Suze once said that I live one click from camping out. Fine by me. A bonus here is my enclosed porch with 14 windows. I’m no Thomas Merton, but I’m reminded of his cinder block cell, separate from the Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky. In his journals, Merton constantly comments on the vivid weather changes and the natural environment about him. I start each day with coffee on my light and airy porch, no matter what the season. I see the seasons come and go up close. Deep woods and the wetlands abound much of the park. A coyote once padded past my porch and a gray fox quick-trotted across the infield one morning. I have taken to writing haiku verse about what I see, some of them actually decent. Still, I’m no Merton.

My sense of home extends to the paths of my inveterate walks each day. The seawall in North Wildwood provides one of the most breath-taking waterscapes I’ve ever seen. My walk there ends in the English garden at the Hereford Lighthouse. I linger there in what I call the Chapel of the Quiet Benches, in season a flowery refuge overhung by pine branches, a large bird bath in the center ringed by concentric circles of riotous blooms. Four benches are spaced on the perimeter. It is a grotto of peace and reflection for me.

Less peaceful, of course, is the Boardwalk, where I stroll sometimes, too. Over the years, I’ve become friends with many of the Boardwalk merchants. To me, they are day-to-day celebrities, pulling a year-long living from the few short months of “the season.” I feel privileged to have earned their recognition and friendship and greet them by name as I walk. In deep winter, the Boardwalk is like a boarded-up movie set, cheerfully desolate.

It hasn’t been all sunshine and moonbeams at my trailer. One winter’s eve, late, I was quietly reading while Ingrid snoozed on the couch. Suddenly, without warning, the entire side of the trailer where we were sitting exploded in on us with a deafening crash. There had been a heavy snowfall and now a long rain had soaked the porch roof next door to the point where the posts collapsed, spilling the roof onto my trailer. Luckily, the heater was undamaged, and we were able to have a troubled sleep amidst the carnage.

My friend Mike Mackey from when I hung out at the Wildwood Boxing Club has a construction company and he repaired my damaged trailer and as a result I now have cathedral windows in my living room. Mike later added a new bathroom among the changes and repairs I’ve made over the years and I’m now maybe two clicks from camping out.

My feeling of home has been enhanced by the fact that two of my three sisters live or lived within minutes of me. My sister Ellen, who died two years ago, was the first of our family to live at the shore. I was next, and then my sister Jean. Our grandfather’s heirs to the pull of the sea, we formed our own family community within the larger communities about us. These have been good years – good years at home.

Dear Suselah,

Here is Yiddish Civilization: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation, by Paul Kriwaczek, a belated birthday – anniversary? – present for you. Another part of your growing Judaica library in your own home. In appreciation and admiration for your cultural background,

Your Martijn

Jewish leaning

My late husband Martijn, of beloved memory, was captivated, even enthralled by my Jewish background. So much so that while we were early in our marriage, living in Minneapolis, he expressed his desire to convert. Possessing entirely secular leanings, and no religious training, I assured him that he needn’t do this on my account. “Oh, Suselah,” he assured me back, “one should never undertake such an important decision for anyone other than themselves. I do this for myself.”

Once Martijn was determined, he always followed through, so I agreed to take Hebrew lessons with him at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul under the leadership of Rabbi Adam Spilker, where we attended high holiday services and other festive events. Fluent in six languages, Martijn quickly put me to shame, adeptly learning, pronouncing and reading Hebrew as I embarrassingly stumbled over the religious text of “my” people.

Holy Aleph: Panel from Recollection: My Lost Yiddish Civilization| Susan Schaefer

Uprooting and a collection of Jewish literature

Had we remained in Minnesota, I assume Martijn would have succeeded in becoming a ger tzedek – a “righteous convert”. Perhaps his achievement would have stirred me to become a practicing Jew.

However, my decision to spend a year studying for a post graduate degree in European Public Affairs at Maastricht University in his birthplace, Maastricht, the Netherlands, upended Martijn’s righteous pursuit to become a convert. Doubtless, as a compensation, he began fervently building our Judaica library.

On any occasion that called for gift, Martijn presented me with yet another volume for our impressive, developing collection. And so it was, on June 7, 2006 (months before we knew about the growing, pernicious cancerous tumor that would kill him by mid-2008) Martijn presented me with, Yiddish Civilization: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation, by Paul Kriwaczek, with the inscription noted above and a neatly clipped New York Times review of the book by Katrina Goldstone tucked inside its cover.

That was my Martijn to a tee. Thoughtful and entirely sincere in his interest to learn everything he could about Jewish history, culture and religion. A philosopher by nature and education, who otherwise questioned piety in general, Martijn nevertheless believed that of all world religions, Judaism came closest to “the truth” with its historically unbroken acceptance of discussing and even debating the scriptures, a hallmark of Jewish study.

The Healing Arts

For years after Martijn’s untimely death I struggled to rebuild my own identity that had been woven together as one soul sharing two bodies under the shelter of our all-encompassing love. Like metal shavings to a magnet, the volumes of our Judaic library beckoned.

The books were a lifeline linking me to Martijn’s intellectual curiosity and my own ancestral origins. Each new book brought Martijn into the present. I sensed his spirit guiding me through unfamiliar passages and histories. In those moments, I found comfort and a renewed sense of belonging, discovering facets of my identity that had long been dormant.

After remaining a number of years in Maastricht – close to Martijn’s final resting place and my tightly-knit circle of actual and chosen family – I returned to Minneapolis.

During our previous years in the Twin Cities, I had been a successful communications consultant and university professor – my identity had been greatly invested in my career and professional pedigree. This time around, shattered by grief, my artistic side commandeered my soul. For the next 10 years, I ardently flexed my creative muscles.

Fortunately, Minnesota boasted wonderful state-subsidized programs in arts and education, including one that allowed residents aged 65 and over to enroll as non-matriculating students in baccalaureate degree courses in certain state supported colleges and universities. By happy coincidence, I had moved into a modern high-rise condominium that touched the University of Minnesota’s West Bank Campus, home to its Fine Arts Department. I applied and was accepted in the continuing education program, spending four years taking one or two courses a semester surrounded by the blissful energy of 18-year-olds. The fates were generous. This opportunity dissipated my grief – catapulting me into years of highly generative personal growth.

Gathering the Sparks: Recollection: My Lost Yiddish Civilization

After completing years of photography, dark room, and traditional and laser print making courses, I had honed my craft and immersed myself in the many art venues that the Twin Cities offered, producing two photography books and having my work displayed in multiple galleries. Motivated, I applied to an art program at St. Catherine’s University in St. Paul and was accepted.

St. Kate’s Women’s Art Institute Summer Studio Intensive twined my evolving art competence with my budding Yiddish explorations – fostering a seminal art project: Recollection: My Lost Yiddish Civilization, a collage series – a constructed remembrance of Yiddish culture and my personal lost ancestry.

Recollection is remembering. To recollect means to gather. And gather I did. A central Kabbalistic concept called Gathering the Sparks implies that human beings aspire to fix a broken world – Tikkun Olam – restoring harmony, meaning, and light. Through heightened creativity, I began restoring my shattered soul.

As a writer, poet, and photographer, it felt natural to use pen, paper, and printed images as my media. The formal art focus of the summer intensive instructed me about the rules of line, form, color, repetition, and value. During the summer-long residency, I assembled archival family photographs, ink drawings on paper, fine art papers, found papers, and newsprint. In a hat tip to Martijn’s unfulfilled mission to become a Jew, I taught myself Hebrew script and researched the lost history of the Yiddish civilization in the books he’d gifted me and on ancestry websites. In the text of the Kabbalah, I found a mysticism that complemented my spiritual center. By the end of the summer, I had brought my fractured story into an aesthetic whole.

Scenes from my St. Catherine’s Women’s Art Institute Summer Studio Intensive| Credit: Rebecca Slatter

I created a master image, Sura’s Storied Embodiment by having an art colleague trace my body on paper which I tore apart – reassembling it, populating the legs, arms, torso and head with my poetry and archival family photos and documents. My disembodied self was an apt metaphor of my Yiddish self-identity journey.

Next, I created 10 narrative tableaus, designed to be displayed like the Ten Commandments. Each 5 x 7-inch panel features a photo scan of one of my father’s ancestors from a 19^th century family portrait. These are surrounded by facsimiles of maps and ephemera depicting the Pale of Settlement from where they emigrated. Each rectangle beckons the viewer to glimpse the spirit of the Yiddish civilization, which like the images I used, had been torn apart by millennia-long dispersal, persecution, and diaspora.

Sura’s Storied Embodiment and Recollection: My Lost Yiddish Civilization

In a stroke of providence, the collective work from our 2016 Women’s Art Institute Summer Studio Intensive was selected for exhibit in the Quarter Gallery of the University of Minnesota’s prestigious Katherne Nash Gallery – right on the West Bank where I had begun my formal art training four years before. My healing journey of creativity and self-identity had come full circle.

More dislocation and the return of the native

The advent of the Covid pandemic – with its imposed isolation – provided uninvited time for more ancestral searching. Covid’s dual legacy of loneliness and longing provoked an intensified pursuit.

During the pandemic, I had produced a kind of podcast – a weekly Zoom public affairs program with special guests from my professional days who spoke on topics of their choosing with a Q&A following. My presenters didn’t receive a fee, but participants were encouraged to donate to a charity of the speaker’s choice. The audience members were lifelong friends from Philadelphia High School for Girls, my alma mater. Over the two-year course of running this program, many of my former classmates urged me to “come home.” As quarantining lifted, my thoughts turned homeward.

Having left Philadelphia exactly 35 years before, while in my 30s, I returned in the spring of 2023, now in my 70s. As I reconnected with family and friends, my search for my personal Yiddish ancestry truly hit home.

Finding Sarah and Ida

As a child, my mother’s youngest sister, Aunt Ada, who was an important mother figure for me, continually reminded me that my mother had looked after her and their middle sister, Aunt Lilly.

Aunt Ada also spun stories of their impoverished Philadelphia childhood: living in tenement conditions with their mother, Sarah Siskin, and grandmother, Ida Nott, pointing out that their father, Morris, had abandoned them all.

Sole portrait of grandmother, Sarah Siskin, Atlantic City, NJ, in better days

“We were so poor, mummelah,” Aunt Ada would recount. “We never had enough to eat, so mommy and bubbe sent us to the nearby Rebecca Home for Girls, near the Edgar Allen Poe house.”

As a youth, I overlooked our family history, which I now regret, but Aunt Ada’s stories have always stayed with me.

Upon returning to Philadelphia, the city where my maternal family originated, I commenced research into my mother’s lineage. Possessing my mother’s official birth record, I subsequently obtained the death certificate of my great-grandmother, Ida. Both documents supplied addresses that corroborated accounts shared by Aunt Ada. The Siskin sisters resided at 139 W. Laurel Street in what is now Northern Liberties, situated less than half a mile from the historic Edgar Allen Poe house in Philadelphia.

Further research revealed that in 1904, a group of Philadelphia Jewish women founded a boarding house for immigrant Jewish girls working in their own in the city. Besides housing, the organization provided “naturalization” services like English lessons to help the tenants adjust to America. In 1912, The Single Jewish Woman’s Boarding House, located at 719 North 6th Street, just blocks from my family’s W. Laurel Street address, possibly was the original Rebecca Gratz Club, “which in the 1920s moved to 532 Spruce Street and began to accept single Jewish women born in America who were in the labor force or going to school in Philadelphia.”1

Learning more history, I regretted even more not asking my beloved aunt—who lived to 91 in 2006—more questions when I was younger. Learning about these historical connections added layers of significance to my journey. It was not just a matter of tracing names and dates, but of walking the same streets, imagining the daily lives, struggles, and hopes of Sarah, Ida, and their contemporaries. The resonance of their experiences, echoed in neighborhood landmarks and enduring institutions, deepened my appreciation for the resilience and resourcefulness that shaped my family’s story.

A final step remained. Aunt Ada had reminded me that Sarah and Ida were buried in Philadelphia.

Tangible confirmation

Finding Montefiore Jewish Cemetery in Elkins Park, just outside the city, proved easier and more rewarding than searching through all those online sources. Driving to the well-marked entrance on the former country road, I felt elated. Would I find the resting place of Sarah and Ida?

I’d done my homework before embarking. Montefiore provides seekers an excellent website to search precise locations of loved ones’ resting places. Despite my confidence and enthusiasm, I was anxious that the cemetery would be full of disordered headstones—some upright, some fallen—and that after nearly a century, my ancestors’ markers would be too faded to read, making my search unsuccessful.

The first stop after parking was Montefiore’s office, bustling with activity. Yet, family service counselor, Jeff Forman, quickly and respectfully noted the names and sections I had jotted down from the website and provided me with detailed maps for Sarah and Ida’s resting places.

An indescribable emotion suffused me. Here I was in a place of the departed, yet, as I followed the map to the section where Sarah was buried, I felt as though I were about to meet a living, breathing relative. Throughout the decades of ancestry surfing, arriving at this sanctified place transformed my search from ethereal to tangible.

Solemnly, I followed Mr. Forman’s directions, proceeding along Chapel Avenue, making a quick jog at Goldstein, on to Pannonia, then another jog onto Montefiore Avenue to Section Five.

“Count five to seven rows and then look for an end marker with the name Gershon,” he had instructed.

Montefiore was established as Mt. Lebanon in 1910, just over 20 years before Sarah was interred. It was later renamed in honor of Sir Moses Montefiore, a famous British Zionist and philanthropist of the 19^th century. Now, 116 years later, row upon row of headstones and flush markers crisscrossed the grass like a cockeyed pegboard.

I counted, paced the spaces, and read every marker. The numerous Jewish inscriptions overwhelmed me, leaving me slightly dizzy. After 25 minutes of careful examining, I was ready to give up, determined to return another day when one of the office staff could personally guide me to find the marker.

Surprisingly, a juniper bush caught my eye in the neighboring row. I felt an inexplicable sensation within me. Shifting over, I discovered Sarah Siskin’s headstone, now beautifully renewed. I expected an old, faded marker, but the granite shone under the spring sun. It turns out that various Jewish groups sponsor parts of Montefiore and cover maintenance or restoration costs for headstones.

Seeing the grave of my namesake grandmother was overwhelming. I knelt for some time in silent reflection, leaving marks in the dry grass, moved by both joy and sorrow. After placing a stone Mr. Forman gave me, I offered a prayer, grateful to be my grandmother’s legacy.

Despite using the second map, I couldn’t locate great grandmother Ida’s marker in the oldest section. Feeling drained, I vowed to return and find her.

Postscript

What is the point of connecting with ancestors we never knew? For me, as a storyteller, it is their stories. Aunt Ada had given me crumbs. Had I known better, I could have had a loaf. But having searched the records, connected the dots and finally found a place where Sarah and Ida’s story ended, I feel I now own part of the bakery. My pursuit of general ancestry has become an authentic part of my personal narrative, fostering a deeper sense of belonging within my own family. It’s been a long journey home.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima (who turned to smile at me) with Pennsylvania Governor Josh and First Lady Lori Shapiro| Photo: S. Schaefer

What drew me to this event?

Part One: Philly links

Back in heady 1980s, I co-published and co-edited Philly’s hip biweekly, The South Street Star. Independence Hall and all that glorious Philly history was our beat. Plus, I owned the Club Bay-root, a night club right around the corner at 2nd & Chestnut, over the former Middle East Restaurant. Having been away from Philly for 35 years, there was a muscle memory being back in the ‘hood.

Getting to Old City from my Northwest Philly home, however, was another story. For the first time in a dozen years of wearing it, this morning my iWatch decided I’d fallen in the shower - setting off its emergency fall alert to the authorities. My soapy wet fingers slid right off the watch face. I was unable to turn the damn thing off.

So, at six am, there I am taking two 911 response calls trying to talk over the shower patter insisting I did not need an ambulance. Drying off, I took a call from each of my emergency peeps, reassuring them, too.

Despite my best laid plans, I was sure I’d be late for the super early media and Secret Service checks!

Thankfully, my Lyft guy maneuvered like an Indy driver superstar through Philadelphia’s nightmare construction, dropping me off with time to spare.

Part Two: The Dutch connection

Dressed smartly, with my telltale orange scarf, I was mistaken as a member of the Dutch press corps already setting up for live feeds back the land of windmills and clogs; happily, I was swept along with them, gaining great vantage points for the photo ops.

I had personal reasons for wanting to bask in all the pomp and “Dutchness” of the day. I lived, loved and worked in the Netherlands for almost 10 years. In 2004, my husband, philosopher Martijn Hermse and I moved to his home city of Maastricht where I entered Maastricht University’s Masters of European Affairs Program with 26 other internationals, almost all at least twenty years younger. Initially we believed that we would only stay a year but after I graduated with honors I was hired by the university and a number of government and NGOs to consult. Martijn liked being back home and I loved going native!

View of Maastricht| Photo: S. Schaefer 2015

By 2006, I had been pursuing and preparing for my Dutch citizenship, and was months away from gaining it, when Martijn discovered a cancerous tumor. Upon its discovery, pursuing citizenship came to a screeching halt. Martijn’s heroic battle against anal cancer consumed us both.

Although I did continue working during the following two years, for the most part I was “going through the motions.” Somehow I tackled my professional load outside our cancer battle. I was lecturing in Maastricht University’s Marketing Department and teaching English in the Language Centre, consulting for the city of Maastricht, and serving as Consulting Director of Communications for Maastricht-based European Centre for Development and Policy Management.

After Martijn’s death I published my bilingual Dutch|English illustrated book, The Adventures of Yin & Yang: Snoepje & the Pizza Box, to much fanfare. Having worked for the City of Maastricht, its former mayor, Gerd Leers, who by then had been appointed as the Dutch Immigration Minister, gleefully helped to launch my book at a well-attended reading. It seemed I had found a second home.

I returned stateside, still grieving the loss of my loved one and my second country.

My in-laws, friends and colleagues all encouraged me to complete my quest for citizenship. At the time it was an uphill fight against the bureaucracy. Years later, disheartened, I returned stateside, still grieving the loss of my loved one and my second country.

When I learned that Governor Shapiro was hosting the royals, I wondered if I might approach the benevolent Dutch monarchs to take up my Dutch citizenship cause?

Why the Orange invasion?

The Dutch royals, whose lineage flows from the House of Orange,1 were in town to strengthen already economic robust ties with our state.

In 2025, Pennsylvania and the Netherlands enjoyed a hefty $3.7 billion in trade. In fact, the Netherlands is a top five trading partner for our state, driven by pharmaceuticals, mineral fuels, and specialized machinery, with Dutch firms, such as Phillips North America and Randstad NA, among others, employing over 26,000 people.

In 2025, Pennsylvania and the Netherlands enjoyed a hefty $3.7 billion in trade.

After the pleasantries and speeches at Independence Hall, and a tour of the Liberty Bell, the entourage was joined by Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Tom Berendsen, Minister of Foreign Trade Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, and Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Rick Siger. Together they headed over to the Cira Centre for a business leaders roundtable to discuss how to continue the hearty working relationship. The discussion was followed by a reception.

Business roundtable reception at Cira Centre| Photo: S. Schaefer

Winning the hearts and minds

Hanging out with the Dutch press corps and contingent, I had made a few friends and touched a few hearts with my story. Though most told me I would never be able to approach the King and Queen, one kind aide ushered me toward the front of the reception line.

If I could have, I would have literally bowed and petitioned King Willem-Alexander to confer my Dutch citizenship then and there.

If I could have, I would have literally bowed and petitioned King Willem-Alexander to confer my Dutch citizenship then and there. While the occasion didn’t quite present itself, in a moment of Dutch courage (without the requisite booze), I was able reach the head of the reception line to shake His Majesty’s hand and directly present him my bilingual book with a handwritten note inside requesting exactly that!

Although a Dutch official hovering nearby quickly snatched the book, the radiant Queen Máxima turned to me and I was able to explain the nature of the book and that I hoped she would read it. She nodded. Now it’s up to fate and Dutch luck. Or a trip to the Embassy in D.C.

Perhaps the charm of Yin, Yang and Snoepje will move the monarchs hearts, just as they did ours in real life. And maybe a hearty counter chant from No Kings to Yo Kings will add that magic Philly sauce to my plea!

Jim Fetig with this trusty Stihl MS261| Photo credit: Jim Fetig

This story originally appeared in PBS’ Next Avenue online magazine in May 2022. As in every subsequent year, this Spring Fetig happily continues his trail work.

Military merit

Colonel Jim Fetig approached retirement like he did his life – testing his mettle at every turn. As a child of a U.S. Army soldier, Fetig is an “Army brat.” When combined with his own Army career, that touring life warrants a “global citizen” badge. Fetig has lived in 19 states and three foreign countries, had 64 permanent mailing addresses, and traveled to all 50 states and 44 foreign countries.

In 1969, shortly after dropping out of college and receiving his draft notice, Fetig enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army, rising through the ranks, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant from the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and ultimately retiring as a colonel.

Corporate and civic leadership

Fetig’s extra-military portfolio showcases high-profile stints in executive communications positions at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Raytheon Company, and Lockheed Martin Corporation.

He earned a prestigious assignment as Visiting Fellow at the RAND Corporation in Washington, studying the military’s relationship with the news media during the Persian Gulf War, and he served in two U.S. President’s administrations – first, as assistant White House Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs as a National Security Council spokesman during the Clinton administration, and second, his service as chief of external relations for the Corporation for National and Community Service in the Obama administration.

Call of the wild

Despite years of desk jobs, Fetig is an avid outdoor enthusiast, graduating from the Army’s Winter Warfare School in Alaska, certified by the Minnesota National Guard as a winter operations instructor, has lived on a glacier in Alaska, skied northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area in mid-winter (where overnight temps averaged -35 F), and has climbed and hiked in the Colorado Rockies during all four seasons.

His happy place is outdoors, so his choice to kickstart retirement with a “through hike” of the Appalachian Trail’s (AT) 2190 miles perfectly tested his will, skill, and temperament, offering him an “epic quest,” with characteristics that had to include, “physical and mental challenges, use of wits, sustainable over enough time to test my commitment and bring out both my best and worst,” he proclaimed as he readied himself in spring of 2013.

Man with a mission

Like most mere mortals who are considering retirement, Fetig also wanted “joyous and meaningful activity that benefited others as well as himself” in his retirement service.

Fetig found that and more. Typical of his goal-oriented character and natural leadership, he has become an essential contributor of AT’s volunteer base. Fetig began volunteering with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) in 2012, in part to prepare for that through hike, which he accomplished in 2014. His colleague, former ATC Information Services Manager Laurie Potteiger, rightfully dubbed Fetig “as a man with a mission to do everything he can to protect and preserve the Appalachian Trail.”

While everyone else was “working,” volunteer Caroline Egli and Fetig are “eating blowdowns” for lunch with his Stihl MS 261 with a 20″ bar – a military equivalent of an 8-inch howitzer on the AT.

Of the multiple hats he wears, most of them are hard! Potteiger rightfully called Fetig a powerhouse. “Few volunteers are involved with the AT from such a variety of perspectives,” she said. “You might find him using a chainsaw to clear blowdowns on his trail section, swinging a pick on a trail crew, greeting visitors at ATC HQ, supervising ridgerunners anywhere along PATC’s 240 miles of the AT or writing blog posts that promote new initiatives that benefit the Trail.”

Overseeing a trail section in Shenandoah National Park, Fetig works with PATC’s fun-loving, hard-working Hoodlums trail crew. He coordinates the club’s “ridgerunner” program, served as public affairs chair, helps with fundraising, and occasionally volunteers at the ATC visitor center in Harpers Ferry, doing presentations and workshops on various aspects of hiking. He helped pioneer the Trail Ambassador program, working as a volunteer ridgerunner with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club “to get hikers off on the right foot and to minimize their environmental impact,” he explains.

Working on the trail provides Fetig with an appreciative perspective about the complexities of managing it, describing it as “a system with many parts that all need to work together.” Volunteers are one of those parts, and he says there is a role for everyone. “If this experience as taught me anything,” he states, “it’s the importance of finding a direction and focus in retirement about which you are passionate. If you can do that, you’ll never be bored.”

Jessica Say learns trail maintenance at Hoodlum’s Annal Workshop

Fetig’s “retirement” qualifies more as “repurposing.” He’s busier and more fulfilled now than he’s ever been. And, oh yeah, if you come across him on the trail, ask him about his “cookies” – they’re notorious! Did we forget to mention baker as one of the hats he wears?

Appalachian Trail Background

Internationally renowned by hikers for its magnificence and test of endurance, the AT is an American treasure. 2021 marked the centennial of AT’s founding, when visionary, Benton MacKaye’s article, “An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning,” in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects introduced this wilderness walking wonder. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Trails System Act, making the AT a national scenic trail under federal protection. Author Bill Bryson literally triggered an explosion of AT interest with his 1998 book, “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.”

Find out more about the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and ways to get involved.

Here is a midweek treat, our IN TANDEM feature with special guest writer, Bob Ingram. This is his response to my March 15, 2026 column on loss of a loved one.

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But Not Forgotten

by Bob Ingram

I was eating dinner with my girlfriend and her mother when Jack called from London to say a final good-bye. He died later that week of AIDS. We were both fifty-two.

The previous year, something prompted me after more than thirty years to contact him. I was able to find an address and write to him. The letter he wrote back explained his life in the interim. A particulary significant phrase was “there are people I love, yourself included.”

Now, reading it again after all this time, it has dawned on me at last that I did indeed love Jack Babuscio. And love him still. You don’t stop loving someone because they die. For whatever blinkered reasons, it had never occurred to me that ours was in fact a loving relationship through all the crazed drunken nights and days of our adventures at Rutgers. And adventures they were, awash in beery romanticism to the point of petty criminality and actual life-threatening dangers; we were young and drunk and twenty and as heedless as alcoholics can be, no matter what age.

We met as sophomores in an Eighteenth Century British Literature course taught by Paul Fussell, who would go on to write “The Great War and Modern Memory,” one of the Twentieth Century’s most significant books. Jack was to me then a Byronic figure, tall, with a slightly aquiline nose, dark-haired, quietly handsome, who spoke in a clear voice that seemed to be British accented, but was actually English spoken correctly. He dressed in what was the “tweedy” fashion of the day: Brooks Brothers jackets and and Bass Weejuns loafers.

And he was from New York, that spired and canyoned citadel of sophistication. That he took up with a South Jersey yokel like me was an amazement. He suggested after class one day that we go for a beer at Sally’s, the nearby off-campus bar. Of course we got drunk. There was no such thing as “a beer” to us. Over time, we gave ourselves openly and honestly to each other, albeit often drunkenly. Drunk or sober, though, we respected this unspoken condition, this ongoing feeling. It was a bond, and in this bond was love, I see now.

We both yearned to be Great Writers, although we did vastly more drinking and literary talking than writing. Nonetheless, the common draw of the written word was another aspect of our friendship. Alas, we saw a magical, romantic connection between writing and drinking, never considering that the connection is ultimately a dismal one.

We drank steadily, endless beers our wild tonic, and had endless close calls on the adventures our drunken minds dictated. If someone hadn’t grabbed me, I would have absently stepped off the roof of Jack’s parents’ New York apartment house. Jack’s room-mate battered me down two flights of stairs after I drunkenly drew a musache on his girlfriend’s photo. An enraged driver who’d picked us up in his truck as we were hitch-hiking to Princeton to steal clothers there tried to run us over after we’d lied to him about the parties we’d take him to once there. Instead, when we hit town, we bailed out at the first light. He followed us into a parking lot and barely missed us several times with his pickup before we escaped. We once hitched to Barnegat Light and, out of money, entered the unlocked house of an ex-girlfriend’s parents and broke open the giant glass bank there and took all the quarters and fifty-cent pieces. We were drunken fools, young alcoholics, blind to our recklessness.

There was nothing sexual between us, even given Jack’s later “Great Awakening” that he was gay, as he called it in the letter. If it was there, it hummed beneath the surface like a small current, undetectable, at least to me.

In Jack’s letter was also this telling admission: “Several months ago, after spending the 80s in the strictest sexual monogamy, I was diagnosed, much to my surprise, with Kaposi’s Sarcoma.” In those early days of the AIDS epidemic, it was a death sentence. Had I somehow sensed it in my desire to connect with him again?

Jack Babuscio made a last visit to New York and I met him there. We had both stopped drinking years before. At one point, I asked him how he felt about his impending death, although I phrased it less bluntly. He replied that he was well-loved, enjoyed his work, and had lived a full and rewarding life.

He set off then on a last grand tour, and I received postcards from Rome, Venice, several smaller Italian cities and, of course, Paris. In the brief messages, as in the letter, I could almost hear his voice, calm and steady. There was a quiet courage in his words.

After graduating from Rutgers, Jack had moved to London, where he lived out his life. There, he earned a master’s in English and a Ph.D. in history. He lectured at Essex University, Kingsway College, and the British Film Institute, published a European history text for MacMillan, wrote “scores” of articles and film reviews, as he put it in his letter, and two volumes of gay counselling experiences. His most influential work was “Camp and the Gay Sensibility,” the definitive text on the subject.

He was married to a ballerina and divorced. He then met Richard Dunn, “with whom I’ve been living, lovingly, for nearly 19 years,” he wrote in the letter.

Jack signed that letter and the postcards, “Love, Jack.”

It echoes down through all the long years.

During the 1950s and 1960s, one Sunday a month my father would pile mom and me into his Chevy Impala to visit with his sister, my Aunt Rose, whom I fondly thought of as “The Baroness of Brooklyn.”

We would leave at the crack of dawn, taking the back roads and byways from our row home in Philadelphia’s Mt. Airy neighborhood to Aunt Rose’s luxury high rise condominium overlooking Coney Island and the majestic Atlantic Ocean.

My father’s long-distance car driving philosophy was twofold: the purpose of traveling was to see how other people live; and one should never pay a toll when there are free scenic routes. If family or friends jibed him about his aversion to turnpikes, he’d counter: “What the hell can you see from a turnpike?”

I knew that the truth rested somewhere at the intersection of saving a nickel and honestly enjoying the landscapes of American life we experienced along the road. Invariably, we’d stop at diverse farm stands dotting the back roads, chatting up the locals, procuring fresh fruit, flowers and produce as our guest offering.

Ah, but scenic roads were only part of the adventure.

My father made the crossing from New Jersey to New York equally magical. Every other month we would alternate between burrowing under the Hudson River via the Holland Tunnel or “voyaging” on the Staten Island Ferry. For a family without the means to travel by airplane or take costly vacations, both of these choices transformed our one-day outing into a genuine holiday excursion.

Arriving in Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel held its own fascination. I would prop myself by the back seat window feeling that woosh of hurtling through a dim lit, underwater cavern as I gestured like a British princess to each of the sentries stationed in their tiny glass booths along the way. Most would salute in return!

But the experience of boarding the ferry was in a class of its own. The cars lined up like metal cattle being herded, entering single file from the Staten Island landing.

Once onboard, my mother would remain buddha-like in her seat, happily chain-smoking Kool cigarettes, while my father and I would scurry to the bow staking out the best view. Standing like the fictional Jack and Rose of the film Titanic, my father would enfold my small frame in front of him hugging me tightly. As we passed Lady Liberty’s copper-clad patina green, he would recount the story of how our immigrant family had first beheld her as they approached Ellis Island. “Having fled the pogroms of Eastern Europe,” he said each time, “she was a colossal beacon of freedom.” To this day, that is how I regard her. Then, as the iconic skyline grew from a smudge on the horizon to a panorama of vertical steel and glass leviathans piercing the skies, we’d jaunt back to my mother in the car, turning over the engine, exiting as though we had landed in a new country, making our way along the fabled Belt Parkway, past Sheepshead Bay and on to Brooklyn and the ocean.

By the time we would arrive at 35 Seacoast Terrace three hours of driving later, we would be famished.

Aunt Rose was a self-styled grand dame. Her tiny abode was crammed with museum quality oil paintings, including a portrait she had commissioned of my late Uncle Joe, whose beneficence and estate had bankrolled the opulence.

Entering her front door meant off with our shoes and on with a pair of embroidered oriental slippers that greeted her guests, ensuring not one iota of dirt would mar her mile deep cream-colored oriental rugs. The petite condominium was steeped in French Traditional style; ornate couches and curtains crafted from elaborate silk brocades she’d ordered from France somehow did not overwhelm. Dominating the living room/dining room was an oversized authentic crystal chandelier, purported to have come from a Versailles auction. “That Rosie certainly has some style,” my father would boast.

Our meal was equally elaborate, consisting of numerous courses. It always began with a half pink grapefruit – a requisite maraschino cherry delicately cupped in its navel. Next came fresh pickled herring atop a leaf of lettuce with a delicate side of pickled onions. After that, a dollop of homemade chicken liver would appear, which I typically forked over to my father’s plate. The main attraction would be New York bagels, still steaming, with schmears of cream cheese so fresh they could have walked to the table from Brooklyn’s nearby dairy farm. Since my father’s second job was slicing lox at Philly’s legendary Ben & Irv’s delicatessen, we provided slices of nova lox thin enough to see through. Black olives, paper-thin sliced tomatoes, and more piles of onions and lettuce completed the main course.

But my favorite part of the feast was dessert. First, I’d have to suffer the rum drenched fresh fruit compote in order to qualify for the authentic New York specialty – fresh baked Entenmann’s New York Style Crumb Cake with dark brewed coffee served in china cups from a silver urn - mine dutifully diluted with half milk, nevertheless creating a lifelong highly developed palate for fine coffee.

Entenmann’s was an authentic Brooklyn institution. Founded in 1898 by William Entenmann, who delivered his baked goods fresh, door-to-door, from a horse drawn cart. Of course, by the 1950s we enjoyed these delicacies from their iconic blue and white boxes – but still baked same day!

After the feast we would walk the boardwalk, and seasonally, I’d get to ride the Coney Island amusements. But first, my father was assigned dish duty, while mom, Aunt Rose and I would prepare ourselves for the outing.

There was a strict routine to the washing up. Aunt Rose would organize the china, crystal and silver in precise piles by the sink in the teeny kitchen. Often, she would remove her full dentures to rinse them in the kitchen sink before arranging the towers of plates and glasses for washing.

One Sunday, a knock at the door disturbed Aunt Rose’s routine. It was her next-door-neighbors, Mary and Edna, inquiring as to whether they could join us for our boardwalk excursion. A lively discussion ensued in the living room. My father in the meanwhile, eager to dispatch his soapy chore, had taken care of the remaining organization and was well into drying the entire heap by the time Aunt Rose returned from making plans for “the girls” to join us. In fact, by the time Rose came scurrying back into the kitchen my father already had taken the trash – boxes, wrapping papers, etc. – down the hallway to toss them into the incinerator chute.

“Jack!” she spoke in a panicked tone surveying the sink. “Where is the Entenmann’s box that was here on the counter?”

“Down the chute, sis,” my father responded, drying the last plate.

“What do mean down the chute?” Rose’s voice rose an uncustomary octave.

“What’s wrong? You can see that I finished up while you were planning with the girls, so I took out the trash, and now I’m ready to go,” my father answered, a bit surprised at her attitude.

“Oh my god!” Rose gasped. “My teeth were in that box!”

Now a real panic arose as my father grabbed me to ride down the elevator with him to the superintendent’s flat so he could open the garbage room. Luckily, the garbage wouldn’t be loaded for incineration until Monday morning.

To our total astonishment, upon entering the sour-smelling room the superintendent, my father and I beheld dozens and dozens of Entenmann’s boxes tumbling from the accumulated heap! Everyone in Seacoast Terrace served Entenmann’s for Sunday brunch!

The better part of the next hour was spent opening Entenmann’s box after Entenmann’s box until we found those choppers. When we finally did, they seemed to be smirking at us in a macabre grin.

By chance I glanced at my reflection

and saw there – you.

I’ve not noted you in my face before

but I’ve felt you inhabit

my thighs and belly

so round like yours

and at times

my woman smell

recalls images

of you and me together

in our claw-footed tub

me so small

next to your Botticellian swells

ripe in womanhood.

And in my bathroom now

with its claw-footed tub

hangs our Atlantic City portrait –

you, Romanian, really gypsy looking

and me in the 50s sailor suit

posed in an honest-to-god paper moon.

Mommy

you were mommy

never mother

sometimes, ma

and so sadly

you were not all there

not quite sane

a little over ripe

but a beauty in an aesthetic long departed.

Mommy, you were mine,

though I couldn’t show the love

always called daddy’s girl

but I loved, I love, you still.

I have written previously here in Substack about the endurance of the love my late husband Martijn Hermse and I shared. Cancer kills more than an individual – it rips close knit communities of love and comradeship asunder. I write from my heart today about the cancer that took Martijn from all of us – family and friends – because anal cancer can be prevented.

Martijn Hermse and Susan post surgery. October 2007

Anal Cancer Awareness Day

March 21st is Anal Cancer Awareness Day, chosen to correspond with Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Recently, anal and colon cancer advocates joined forces to bring more attention to this rare malignancy. By increasing awareness, we can increase early anal cancer detection, and the earlier it is caught, the more treatable it is.

Anal cancer warrants its own crusade since it is an entirely separate disease with symptoms that are often missed, as was the case with my husband who diligently had his colonoscopies and digital rectal exams. Yet, these regular checkups missed his tumor entirely. Our experience serves as a cautionary tale.

HPV virus is preventable with a jab of vaccine

One of the most significant reasons for raising awareness of anal cancer is due to its direct link to the human papillomavirus (HPV). It’s estimated that over 93% of anal cancer cases are caused by HPV, which is the most common sexually transmitted infection. Nearly all adults will have HPV at some point in their lifetime.

In the US, 79 million people, or 1 in 4 Americans, are currently living with HPV which is entirely preventable with a jab of vaccine! During these trying times in the U.S., when ill-informed, loud-mouthed vaccine deniers seize the headlines with misinformation, it is important to pass on this vital, life-saving fact.

The HPV vaccine helps protect against the human papillomavirus, a virus responsible for several types of cancer. HPV is linked to 5% of cancers worldwide. In the 1990s, scientists started developing a vaccine to prevent infections that lead to hundreds of thousands of cancer cases each year, including anal cancer. The vaccine has been available since 2006. In the United States, it is recommended that both boys and girls ages 11–12 receive the HPV vaccine.

There are over 100 strains of the HPV virus. For the majority of the population, the immune system will rid the body of the virus and HPV will not progress to cancer. For other individuals, HPV can lie dormant in their bodies and resurface as an HPV-related cancer decades later, which may have been the case for my late husband, Martijn.

One last birthday

On July 25, 2008, Martijn fluttered his eyelids seeming to glance directly in my eyes. A small smile curved his lips. Holding my hand, he gave a final exhale. Martijn died peacefully in our own bedroom with an intimate circle of family and friends surrounding us, and a larger group downstairs holding vigil. As is sometimes said – it was a good death.

Martijn and Susan. June 2008. Photo by: Sebastian Holzhuber

Martijn had been determined not to die until he turned 56. His love of celebrating his own birthday was legendary, as was the fact that he celebrated two birthdays, back-to-back. Having been born on a Sunday meant that his father didn’t qualify for a “birth” day off – at the time, a Dutch custom. So, Mathieu Hermse logged his son’s official birth date as the day after his actual one, guaranteeing him a Monday off of work and Martijn a lifetime of double celebrations. Which he milked to the hilt.

So, in July 2008, the literal village of family and friends who had encircled us all during his ordeal – since his initial diagnosis two years before – gathered in our home for one last time, “celebrating” the final birthday of our brave, dying man. We had cake. We had candles. We even had champagne. We sang. We laughed. We cried. And three days later, with a smile and an exhale, Martijn died.

Discovery: That small bump is not a hemorrhoid

As with his death, Martijn had lived his entire life on his own terms. His excellent robustness was a point of pride. A philosopher by education, he followed a doctrine of moderation. However, he was adamant about maintaining good health through a rigorous balance of diet and exercise. His structured physical routine included regular running and weightlifting, and swimming whenever possible. We ate impeccably – fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, low fat meats, organic dairy, minimal alcohol.

Magnificent Marty at Meadowlawn, Minnesota. Summer 2004

Therefore, the sudden discovery of Martijn’s cancer absolutely stunned us. Up until that morning, he had been the poster boy of radiant health. So, on the morning he confided to me that he felt a pea sized bump on his anus, I thought nothing of it. Like many who discover anal cancer, we both assumed it was a hemorrhoid.

However, that assumption did not synch with his anxiety, and Martijn by nature was not an anxious individual. So, I probed. That’s when he further confessed that for months his “ribs” had been aching. Ribs? I thought. Spoiler alert: it turns out the cancer was already so advanced, that his body had been devouring itself, eating the little fat he carried on his lean frame. His ribs literally had lost any buffer and had been rubbing against the rapidly depleting muscle mass of his chest cavity!

Amazingly, Martijn secured an appointment with his doctor that very day, which was highly unusual in the Netherlands. We were living in Maastricht, the fairy-tale medieval city of his birth. Typically, all things medical there required much advance scheduling. Even more astonishing, his doctor, who had never seen or treated anal cancer, did not mistake the small bump on the rim of his anus for a hemorrhoid. He immediately sent Martijn to Maastricht’s renowned azM medical center.

Misdiagnosis, Treatment, Diagnosis, Despair, Denial
Anal Cancer awareness is geared to avoid what we initially experienced. At first, our oncologist believed Martijn’s tumor was very small. A tricky aspect of anal cancer is that the buttocks are so dense and viscous that accurate detection, even with MRIs, CAT scans, Pet scans and x-rays is imprecise. Martijn’s initial diagnosis missed the looming reality.

Assuming his tumor was small, Martijn was put on a regime of intense chemotherapy and radiology. Ironically, he weathered this protocol extremely well. After weeks of treatment, the follow up MRIs and CAT scans showed a mass the size of a large fist protruding into his rectum. Clearly, the diagnosticians misjudged the tumor’s size from the beginning.

The new diagnosis came with a bleak prognosis: Martijn’s anal cancer was Stage Four – terminal. With that shock, we believed that the previous precious months had been “wasted” on treatment that never would have worked on such a large tumor.

Anyone who has experienced the proclamation of a death sentence, particularly for someone who is in their prime and otherwise entirely fit, understands the various stages of anguish: disbelief, dismay, despair, despondence, anger. Or denial, of course, which tops the list.

Our medical team were totally forthright in explaining that Martijn’s anal cancer was fatal. What they couldn’t say was precisely how long that would take.

A drastic alternative

However, our oncologic team did offer another option. Since azM is an academic research center, they proposed an extreme alternative that at best, might only prolong Martijn’s life, and at worst, would kill him on the operating table.

That choice was to undergo radical rectal amputation. While most of our experts explained that this choice had very little likelihood for saving his life, they all agreed if anyone might be able to survive the procedure, it would be Martijn. And, of course, they held out the holy grail – the improbable outcome that he might not simply survive but thrive.

Facing inevitable death by disease, Martijn favored these odds. If nothing else, he firmly believed that by undergoing this brutal surgery he would contribute to medical science.

The medical term for radical rectal amputation is abdominoperineal resection (APR) – a very extensive operation that involves removing the anus and rectum and sometimes some of the nearby groin lymph nodes as well. Without an anus or rectum to remove stool from the body, the patient also receives an ostomy – where the end of the colon is attached to a new opening in the abdomen then fitted with a small bag for collecting stool.

The surgery

When he was on the operating table, the surgical team discovered that Martijn’s cancer had metastasized, requiring removal part of his coccyx, or tail bone, as well as many lymph glands. Martijn also had opted for creative plastic surgery to rebuild his pillaged buttocks. To achieve this, the surgical team excised the gracillis muscle from his inner thigh. The plastic surgeon on the team was Hollywood caliber. In the end, (a joke Martijn liked making) Martijn’s new bum was a masterpiece. At a distance, it was impossible to ascertain that his crack was illusory.

Happily, I didn’t receive “real time” updates, since during the nine-hour surgery, Martijn’s heart stopped twice on the operating table. Later, his surgeon told me, “Essentially, he died two times, but we revived him.”

Martijn had been carved like Thanksgiving turkey. Yet, upon awaking in recovery he broke into an illuminating smile, asking, of all things: “How is Bill Clinton doing?” (It was a critical election year and Barak Obama had bested Hillary Clinton in the primaries to run as the Democratic candidate, eventually beating John McCain to win.) We laughed with relief. Ever the joker, Martijn had topped himself.

Recovery

Martijn spent one full month, essentially immobile, atop a highly specialized plastic-covered sand bed dotted with holes like a salt shaker, through which air was constantly circulated to keep his severely butchered body from developing sores or infections. At the outset, he had at least eight tubes keeping him alive. As the weeks passed, tube by tube was removed, until in the final week, he was eating mushy but solid food. A major victory after such surgery was when he passed healthy stools into his compact stoma bag. We actually applauded.

Physical therapists came daily to massage his extremities. Lymph drainage experts visited to make sure those tubes flowed. We even had Reiki healers through a specialized nursing service. Many loved ones visited to read or talk or simply keep company.

Sjoerd & Merle visit. October 2007

The day finally came when nurses told him they wanted to raise him from his “sand box,” warning he would be dizzy, wobbly and probably not be able to stand. In Dutch, they gently requested that he take it slow.

Of course, Martijn again surpassed expectations. As two nurses gingerly raised him, to their absolute astonishment, the minute his legs dangled over the edge of that bed, Martijn fully stood up, grabbed the aluminum walker and was off to the races! The nurse holding the belt around his waist to keep him from falling was almost dragged down the hall as he motored like a man in a marathon. The next day, he discarded that walker entirely, insisting on holding my arm as he increased his steps exponentially.

For the most part, that heroic surgery bought Martijn nine more months. Of course, there were multiple complications from the surgery which he valiantly confronted, savoring every day he was still alive. The disease itself came roaring back with a monstrous vengeance, tumors reaching from his excavated, eviscerated bowels to the outside of his emaciated stomach. Yet, Martijn faced his demise with a courage and a grace that most could not summon.

Anal cancer didn’t get the last laugh

Martijn lived his life just as he died – with a sense of serenity. During the time we were married, almost 14 years, he had found a center and balance, a rhythm and perspective in his life that many of us strive towards or pray for. Martijn had discovered a way to be comfortable in his own skin. Said another way, he worked at being an individual who stayed true to his values. And as it became inevitable that his time on earth was ending, he strove also towards acceptance of that and in so doing, he found peace.

Martijn, Fiesole, Italy. June 2005

Martijn was constant in a world of ever-changing attitudes. He held his beliefs as tightly and mightily as he held those lucky enough to find themselves in his vast, loving nature. He would entirely approve telling his story to help create awareness about anal cancer, the disease that robbed him of the life he so loved.

Please consider donating to anal cancer research. And please pass this awareness along.

“Sooze.” It sounded like snooze without the “n” when Sally called my name with her Bloomsburg-Berwick micropolitan twang. Suh-ooze. Sally stretched out that one syllable like Turkish taffy to two, sing song style. I still bear that sweet love note in each fiber of my being.

Sally and Sooze, October 2008, the farm

The mystery of connection

My gal Sal was a born on a working farm in Berwick, a small borough in Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Columbia County. Like other Pennsylvania coal and steel counties, this area near Millville and Bloomsburg had an industrial past, producing railroad equipment and tanks for WWII.

So, how did this diminutive, apple-cheeked beauty become my Anam Ćara1?

Magical Mole Street

Our connection began the evening Sally descended a staircase into my life during the heady height of the hippie era. I was just 18, living in a college housing “commune” on the northern edge of center city Philadelphia, a stone’s throw from Philly’s equivalent to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées – our parkway with its renowned temples of culture – the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum, Central Free Library, Franklin Institute and Museum of Natural History. Yet our enclave might as well have been a world apart - as was my upbringing from Sally’s.

It was 1968. I was one of seven squeezed into a three-and-a-half bedroom, one-bath colonial rowhome on the historic 200 block of N. Mole Street, tucked behind the former Hahnemann Hospital. Most of the houses on Mole and neighboring Hicks, Spring and Summer streets were populated with students who attended nearby Temple University, Moore College of Art and Hahnemann Hospital Medical School.

Our house was adjacent to the hospital’s morgue where, hauntingly, on summer evenings we heard the clatter of the carts on the ancient cobblestones, transporting the newly departed to their temporary stainless-steel lodgings.

Members of the commune, N. Mole Street, 1968. Note the morgue beyond the Volkswagen.

Directly across from our house lived Bruce, a Hahnemann med student and Lolly, his kindergarten teacher wife – one of the only married couples in our cul de sac. The Bollies, as we fondly called them, rented their spare room to another med student whose social circle were members of a “Marijuana Mob” known as “the Dragons.”

These guys operated a storefront on South Street that peddled poorly manufactured garments from Afghanistan and India that was an actual front for their pot and hashish business. The godfather of this ring was a mountain of a man nicknamed “Coop,” who loomed at about six-foot four with a girth to match. Though Coop was formidable enough to be intimidating, the Bollies thought I would really click with his wife, so they arranged a dinner to meet.

From behind a mountain a fairy descends

That night, as I entered the Bollies’ open front door, Coop came rolling down the narrow spiral staircase like a cannon ball down a chute. From behind this mountain appeared a petite five-foot-two elf with a Tinker Bell smile lighting her face as she crooned, “You must be Sooze!” The enchantment was cast. It never ended.

Sally was a petite version of the original Barbie doll – a veritable knockout with natural blond highlights streaking wispy sand-colored hair, cornflower blue eyes, a wasp waist, and what was then called “quite a rack!” I later learned that Sally had been crowned “Miss Bloomsburg” at the County Fair - an authentic rural beauty queen!

Belying her homespun good looks and tender personality, Sally was also whip smart, earning a doctorate in clinical psychology from Bryn Mawr College later in life.

Coming from such diametrically opposite realms, amazingly Sally and I instantly got each other. From that evening on our lives intertwined like a morning glory on a trellis.

Ultimately, Sally grew weary of the testosterone-packed life of the Dragon gang where the guys lavished more attention on their dogs than their gals. Not to mention the illegal nature of the enterprise! She divorced Coop in a tense lawsuit where I provided eyewitness testimony, my loyalty strengthening our connection. In the intervening years, Sally and I often reminisced about our shared trait of falling for the “bad boys,” hopelessly, and wrongly hoping to cure them. Eventually, we wised up.

Unrobing body and mind

The summer of her breakup, one of my professors had asked me to house sit, so I invited Sally to share his lovely historic Victorian mansion in Germantown. One sultry weekend, my legendary New York Aunt Rose, in town for a family wedding, stayed as our guest in the commodious mansion.

“Rosie – the Toast of Brooklyn” was a self-styled Contessa who had made a small fortune from developing a line of cosmetics for Revlon. More notably, she also had gained fame as a makeup artist for the Radio City Rockettes.

Aunt Rose possessed an elevated sense of feminine beauty and no sense of propriety about the female human body! Upon meeting Sally, Aunt Rose all but commanded her to disrobe on the spot! To my shock, Sally complied immediately. She seemed transfixed by my cosmopolitan aunt. Giggling, Sally disrobed with a mix of embarrassment and curiosity about the attention. After years of spousal neglect, Aunt Rose’s enthusiasm over her dewy skin and perfect proportions appeared to bolster Sally’s self-image. Sally and I milked this story for years, rolling in laughter as we retold the episode endlessly to an always rapt audience.

That fall we moved in a garden apartment in the city’s West Oak Lane section as roommates. Both of us were now taking English graduate courses at Temple University while juggling part-time jobs to pay our rent and expenses. One night Sally saw an ad in the local weekly for a memory training course. The three-hour workshop guaranteed we would become experts at memorization, so we jumped in my Volkswagen Beetle driving to a hotel on the city’s Main Line, naïvely believing such a skill would lead to more lucrative employment and an end to our poverty.

The class was a numeric-phonic gimmicky deal, quite popular at the time but hardly worth what was then an exorbitant $25 fee. On the way home, Sally turned to me, innocently asking: “Sooze, what was our instructor’s name?”

Momentarily, we locked eyes and began snorting in hilarity. I had to pull to the side of the road to avoid an accident. Neither of us remembered his name! This escapade was another punchline in the many tales of our forever friendship.

Horrific tragedy strikes

Sometime later, I had married my second husband, Bob, and amusingly, with my full approval, Sally had married John, my Mole Street college boyfriend. True to the strength of our friendship, we connected our husbands as friends, occasionally hanging out as couples. When Bob and I announced our move to a house in the Philly suburb of Narberth, Sally and John offered to help cohost our housewarming party.

Inexplicably, the morning of the event, Sally and John didn’t show. As both were entirely dependable friends, we worried, but busy with a house full of guests, we had to wait until that evening, frantically calling mutual friends, hospitals and the state police.

After two worrisome days, we learned the shocking news: The night before our event, Sally had received a call from the local Millville authorities – her father had killed her mother and himself in a “mercy” murder/suicide. Mrs. Eves had suffered debilitating pain for years from the effects of Multiple Sclerosis. As a Christian Scientist, she had refused all medical intervention. Sally’s father had reluctantly complied with his wife’s wish to end her agony and saw no other way than to end his own life to escape the inevitable fate – a trial and prison – that would await him.

Even this explanation could not ease the trauma Sally experienced. She was devastated.

The regional and national news coverage of the event caused more misery. Intensifying the trauma, during the probate proceedings, Sally learned for the first time that her father had married her unwed mother and adopted Sally from birth, raising her flawlessly as his own.

Then another shock: she further discovered that her biological father had resided a few houses from the family. She had passed his front door every day on her way to school and had never known or met him. The final blow for Sally was finding out that he had died only a year before this tragedy. This event, compounded by its public nature, shredded Sally’s resilient spirit.

True blue through the years

As the years passed, we remained fiercely loyal to each other, phoning regularly, beginning any conversation where we had left off, as though no time had passed, commiserating life’s challenges and celebrating its triumphs. But even at a great distance, I detected the shift in Sally’s emotional presence.

My path had taken me from Philadelphia to Minneapolis, and then to the Netherlands where I married my soulmate, Martijn, eventually moving to his home city of Maastricht. Sally and John had moved to Haddonfield, NJ, where after completing her doctorate, she ran a successful therapy practice. But fate was determined to throw Sally a bum hand. Both she and John had endured episodes of cancer. They survived the disease but their relationship collapsed. In another bitter proceeding, Sally divorced John, eventually retreating to the family farm in Millville she’d inherited.

Despite her own travails, Sally remained a rock and an anchor in my hour of need when Martijn and I discovered his cancer. Distance proved no obstacle for Sally’s succor. Adopting the guise of her beloved cat, Sam, she wrote us long letters, filled with feline musings and her incredible illustrations. During marathon international phone calls, she regaled Martijn with Sam stories, buoying his and my spirit until his death.

Shortly after Martijn’s death, I returned to Philadelphia to hold a memorial service. Bob and I had remained dear friends and he offered to take me to see Sally at the farm where she was involved in a heated battle with neighbors who were being pressured to sell their properties to a highly controversial fracking enterprise. Sally staunchly refused and deeded her farm to The Nature Conservancy.

Sally Eve’s farm, Millville, PA

This conflict pitted neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. Sally’s final refuge had become a battleground, tearing her and her community apart. It was the fabled final straw for her resilience.

I, too, was devastated. I had always depended on Sally’s wisdom, advice and comfort. Now, during our long-distance conversations, she was drifting further from reality, insisting her cats, dogs and sheep were whispering secrets to her. Distraught, I contacted her cousin who confirmed that Sally had developed a “soft” dementia.

Soon after, Sally was removed from her beloved farm and animals and relocated to a “home.” I had moved back to Minneapolis but was still too far simply to drop by to check on my soul friend. Beset by my own unresolved grief, I was obsessed by my inability to help.

Full circle friendship

As the years passed I’d check in with her cousin who occasionally held the phone to Sally’s ear. I’d say, “Hi Sal, it’s Sooze,” and sometimes she’d repeat, “Suh-ooze,” and I’d hear that unchanged giggle.

In 2023, I moved back to Philadelphia exactly one block from that Victorian mansion where Aunt Rose had asked Sally to reveal her alabaster body. As soon as I settled in, I planned to visit Sally but her cousin’s number was disconnected. I frantically searched the internet hoping to locate nursing homes in her area. Instead, I found her obituary.

Sally had died almost to the day I moved back to Philadelphia. Thankfully, soul friendship doesn’t die with the body. Sally’s spirit lives on every star that twinkles and especially in the light of every luminous full moon.

Dear Reader: I have completed a draft of The Girl Who Flew: Book One: Early Years and am working on Book Two: Communes, Ashrams and Prison. It is my intention to build my Substack audience by releasing select excepts from my memoir only to paid subscribers. Eventually, I plan to host invitation only zoom talks with these patrons.

Since it’s still early days in my Substack experiment, I’ve previously shared a few chapters.

If you like what you read, please share my link and invite and encourage others to support my creative writing by becoming paid subscribers.

This except is a small memorial to my former lover, boyfriend and lifelong friend, John Bockius Whitney, who left his beautiful corporeal body at age 80 in October last year. We had remained in touch since our explosive first meeting in 1968 in a Temple University Spanish Lit class. This chapter tells that story.

¿Puede ayudarme?

I was just seventeen when the long, tall drink of water with flowing locks strode into my Temple University Spanish Lit class. At first sight, this long-legged, blue-eyed guy wearing regulation U.S. Navy bellbottom jeans, towering at well over six feet tall with a sculpted build propelled my heart up into my neck.

John Whitney, c. 1969, Mole Street Commune, Philadelphia. Photo: Susan Schaefer

Sauntering in shoulder-to-shoulder with his wavy-haired red-headed pal, both scoped out the classroom, exchanging a “buddy-buddy” knowing look.

Always early, I had selected a seat two rows from the front, dead center.

Although it was mid-January, the beginning of the 1968 Spring semester, I wore a customary micro-mini skirt, up to my pupick as my father would say, exposing the entire length of my well-turned legs. Combined with my tight cashmere sweater, which didn’t sufficiently buffer the drafty classroom, I may have seemed slightly vulnerable.

Susan Schaefer, c. 1969, Mole Street Commune, Philadelphia. Photo: John Whitney

Still scanning the room, Navy glanced my way, elbowing his pal, who nodded. In unison, they crossed the room and planted themselves in the chairs on either side of me. The chill diminished considerably as my new bookend sentinels turned up the heat.

Both guys had to arrange themselves in those old-fashioned classroom chairs with fixed arms meant to hold one notebook. These seats weren’t designed for full-fledged men.

Navy’s entire bearing was foreign to me. He resembled Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, with his Limey looks and piercing neon-blue eyes. He was so remarkably different from the Jewish boys I grew up with in my Mt. Airy, Philadelphia neighborhood. Even Joel, my high school steady, whose blonde-haired, blue-eyed good looks defied the Ashkenazi stereotype, suddenly felt so inadequate in comparison.

Settling into the chair, Navy turned to me, flashing a captivating limestone white-toothed grin of perfectly straight teeth. A musky note of English Leather aftershave wafted my way.

He continued staring, directing a constant and intense Fresnel lens beam over me, from my black boots to my waist-length hennaed hair, undoing me with his mere observation.

Navy exuded a raw vitality I had never experienced. My nerves tingled with the sensation of his gaze. I felt an uncustomary anticipation mixed with uncertainty swirling between us. Though I had never done drugs nor had a drop of alcohol in my life the ambiance was almost narcotic.

Other students filed in and settled down. Finally, the professor spoke in a resonant baritone: “This will be the last time I speak to you in English.” He then issued a firm warning that he intended to weed out anyone not up to this level of Spanish and began passing out an unexpected “pop” vocabulary quiz.

As the professor paced the aisles, handing out the one-page test, Irish, the name I’d silently bestowed upon Navy’s red-haired chum, snorted a laugh. He shot a roughish look past me at Navy, who had slumped in his seat, sweat gathering on his brow, at the professor’s proclamation of the need for Spanish proficiency. Irish took this opportunity to lean in, whispering conspiratorially to me, “He’s in way over his head, here. I warned him.”

Overhearing his comrade’s opening salvo, intended to win my attention, Navy sat back up, ramrod straight, and reached out touching my arm. He was not going to cede any advantage to Irish. With flawless charisma, and a dreadful accent, he seized his own moment and my heart: ¿Puede ayudarme?

There was never a contest. I’d fallen for Navy’s charm offensive at first glance. I became his Spanish tutor, lover and long-term girlfriend. We eventually moved into a commune with five others. Irish was one of them, and the three of us were inseparable for the next four years. And for many stories to come.

One of the nation’s most draconian laws, nestled deep in the heart of Texas, is the 2021 Senate Bill 8, aka the Texas Heartbeat Act - that banned abortions after around six weeks. Known for its aberrant “bounty hunter” provision, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in a fetus, SB8 has continued to drive legal challenges, such as the Sadie Weldon v. The Lilith Fund case. In January, the Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments about this case. Their ultimate decision “would not decide the constitutionality … though challenges to the law still persist. It could, however, impact whether a challenge to the law has a path forward.”

Being raped at 15 was bad enough. Having no legal options in 1965 to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape was an act of aggression over a woman’s right to choose. Compounding these realities, my father’s willingness to offer a ride to his neighbor now could unleash bounty hunters upon him according to the recent Texas law.

Summer 1965

Child rape

One summer evening in 1965, my best friend’s mother corralled my father on our tiny Philadelphia neighborhood front porch. While it wasn’t unusual for neighbors to congregate on each other’s postage stamp-sized spaces, it was odd that “Aunt Lilly” took my father inside the house to talk.

As I learned later that night during a highly uncustomary father – daughter conversation, Lilly’s daughter, my best friend “Marsha,” was pregnant at age 15.

Lilly, like so many parents of pregnant teens, had nowhere to turn for help in those dark ages before the U. S. Supreme Court passed the landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973, ruling that women have an unfettered constitutional right to the procedure during their first trimester, or 12 weeks, of pregnancy.

Marsha had been seduced by a college-aged man. She had no idea she was pregnant until she confided in her mother that her period had stopped … for over two months!

Lilly could not abide allowing her daughter to carry this unwanted child to term; she considered that Marsha had been raped. Marsha was a good student and Lilly didn’t want her curtailing her high school education, nor could she face the derision and shame of sending her daughter to the only alternative of the era – an unwed mother’s home in nearby Atlantic City, New Jersey. Lilly could not allow her baby to have a baby.

A neighbor’s plea

As a successful bookkeeper for a well-connected employer, Lilly had learned there was another option, also in Atlantic City – an illegal, backroom abortion. She turned to my father, who at age 65, was our neighborhood’s “elder statesman” for help.

Almost thirty years senior to most other fathers in our community, my father was a trusted, non-judgmental elder. It was well known that he had lived in Atlantic City where, newly widowed in his thirties, he had raised my half-brother as a single father. Marrying my mother later in life, he was already fifty in 1950, when I was born. Marsha’s parents, by contrast, were still in their late 20s.

It was also well known among our neighbors that my father had lived through unthinkable traumas faced by his Jewish immigrant family, who had fled the murderous pogroms of late 19^th century Europe. He had grown up in extreme poverty, sharing a one-room, five-story walkup, cold water flat in Brooklyn, NY with five siblings and traumatized parents who spoke no English. During the depression he had witnessed the suicide of his employer, a member of the banking Rothschild family, who had written a glowing job endorsement for my young father before jumping from the high-rise office building in Manhattan where he worked. My father’s adversities had made him more understanding of others’ hardships. Our neighbors knew that, and so Lilly sought his help.

A moral dilemma

Nevertheless, her request that he drive her and Marsha to the “office” of a man who would terminate the pregnancy tested every ounce of my father’s own moral fiber. Yet, as a man of honor, he could not refuse.

Later that night, my father made me his ally in this plan. In plain language he explained Lilly and Marsha’s plight, swearing me to secrecy. Under no circumstances was I to ever tell anyone about Marsha’s “mistake,” and the trip we would make that Saturday “down the shore.” Marsha’s father, a WWII Navy veteran, “could never know.”

My father, whom I adored, had initiated me into what it meant to risk everything to help someone else.

That night I became an adult. My father, whom I adored, had initiated me into what it meant to risk everything to help someone else. I learned about the consequences of unprotected sex, of which at the time I knew nothing. My friendship with Marsha deepened to a level not typical of teens just going through the thralls of the British music invasion and Motown dancing. Most importantly, my father grew in my estimation to a hero.

While it may seem unimaginable that today’s Baby Boomers had such inadequate access to sex education, safe sex practices, and safe, legal abortions, for many of my generation, that was the situation. We were at the dawn of the sexual revolution. I think of this time as “The Last Age of Innocence.”

Fortunately, that trip to a backroom office adjacent to Atlantic City’s infamous boardwalk was successful. Marsha suffered pain, but she survived. After finishing her education, with a solid career, she married and went on to have healthy family of her own, by her own choice. However, that has not been the case for countless other women.

Target of bounty hunters

At the time, I didn’t realize how much my father had risked by aiding his neighbor.

The Texas Heartbeat Act, SB8, brings into sharp focus how my father’s act of kindness would have made him a target of citizen bounty hunters. It means other good Samaritans like my father now can face such Big Brother consequences.

Dobbs v Jackson signaled the race to the bottom for women’s rights over their own bodies. We must continue to raise our voices and use all legal and political means against this step back into the backrooms.

Welcome to “Schaefer’s Stoop: Stories that stoke the imagination” IN TAMDEM -where I feature Bob Ingram for an occasional guest spot.

Are you lucky enough to have had someone in your life who fostered professional and personal growth through a trusted, caring relationship? My beloved mentor, the late Temple University professor and head of Honors English, Peter A Tasch, went beyond helping me navigate challenges and building confidence - he showed me how to be human and became a lifelong friend.

My guest writer today, former husband of 10 years and co-editor of Philadelphia’s biweekly newspaper, The South Street Star, Bob Ingram, has a decidedly different type of mentoring experience. Enjoy his journey through Philly’s under and above ground newspaper scene with two of his mentors – one of whom “kicked off the training” wheels of his life.

Becoming human: An homage to my most influential mentor, Peter A. Tasch

by Susan Schaefer

I had always been industrious, working hard throughout junior and senior high school. My high school work experience included a stint as a costume jewelry counter girl at the local E. J. Korvette’s Department Store. I was a good worker and was promoted to a spot as assistant manager, pretty heady for 16-year-old.

Thanks to my wonderful junior high school homeroom teacher, Señor George Diggs, by the time I entered Temple University on a full scholarship as a 17-year-old in 1967, I was fluent in Spanish, landing a plum work-study position as Spanish-speaking patient relations employee at Temple University Hospital. There, in addition to occasionally translating in the delivery room, most of my duties entailed the solemn act of handing the belongings of recently deceased Hispanic patients to their loved ones.

But, by my sophomore year, I had fallen in love with English Literature and Temple University’s English department. I felt I needed a work study job in my field that matched my burgeoning passion.

So, in 1968 I applied for a position as the ‘office manager’ at The Scriblerian – a literary journal that consisted of a quarterly compendium of highly curated scholarship about the writings of the 18^th century literary luminaries.

The Scriblerian office at Temple University was a third-floor walkup located atop one of the row houses that then housed the University’s English Department. Though a bit cramped and musk-laden, high windows and a rear exit leading to an iron fire escape provided ample natural light and effective cross-ventilation, a bonus feature prior to the advent of air conditioning.

Peter A. Tasch, up at his Wolcott, NY farm, July 1983

Ascending the steep stairs to the office stirred something inside me. I was familiar with the building as many of my professors had offices there. And if I got the job, the location in the heart of campus meant that I would no longer lose time commuting to the hospital.

At the top of the stairs, I was met by a low-key, charming professor who introduced himself as the editor and made me feel instantly welcome. We struck up an easy conversation and to my joy and amazement, Professor Peter A. Tasch hired me on the spot!

I can still see Peter sort of bumbling about the cramped space, black horn-rimmed eyeglasses propped atop his head, turning to ask me if I’d seen them anywhere. I had found my own absent-minded professor, and I loved his gentle, quirky genius.

That Peter hired me to work at his most scholarly journal still mystifies me. Joining him and his distinguished circle of intellectuals was a leap, straining the limits of my education. Even though I had graduated magna cum laude from Philadelphia High School for Girls, our quasi-prep public school, I had entered university life with boundless academic appetite sans scholarly discipline.

As office manager of The Scriblerian, I had multiple responsibilities. The one that delighted me was ongoing telephone contact with the scholarly contributors from around the world. Always an able verbal communicator, I relished these long-distance conversations. Best of all, Peter acknowledged and praised my skill - it was, after all, what landed me the job.

However, the main component of my work was to prepare accurate mailing labels for libraries worldwide. This included collecting foreign addresses in scripts like Japanese Kanji and Russian Cyrillic, which the University of Pennsylvania prepared for us through an arrangement. I thoroughly enjoyed hopping the Broad Street subway to fetch these labels at Penn - a fun aspect of my job.

The glitch was that I repeatedly made errors when producing the English address labels on our office Olivetti. I suffered great humiliation and frustration because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t consistently correctly type or proof my own work. As my assigned supervisor, Peter was always kind and understanding when pointing out my errors.

This is where he stepped well beyond his supervisory role, making it his business to help. Sensing something terribly amiss, Peter began to query my other English professors. He learned that although I often earned A’s for my ideas, frequent misspellings and carelessness regularly lowered my grades.

One day he presented me with an unusual offer. “Did you know that Temple has a free psychological testing office for students?”

Worried that I was about to lose this job, my face blushed as crimson as my waist-length hennaed mane as I broke down in tears. “I really don’t know why I make all those mistakes,” I sobbed. “I try so hard to be careful.”

“Well, I think that the folks from psychological testing may be able to pinpoint a reason for your spelling errors,” he assured me.

Since elementary school, I had misspelled words and transposed letters, trying vainly to cover it up with sloppy handwriting. No one had ever suggested to me that there might be a “reason” for my inability to spell. Throughout my education, my report cards were populated with such comments as: “Susan has a fine ability to grasp and analyze complexities and to write creatively,” followed with “but she must slow down and concentrate to avoid careless errors.”

The visit to Temple’s clinical services revealed that I suffered from an undiagnosed condition called dyslexia and another disorder called attention deficit, traits now well-known and classified as part of a neurodiverse spectrum.

Armed with a new understanding, my academic life, grades, and office work improved. In The Scriblerian office, Peter rewarded me with increasing responsibilities, always there to explain in calm and clear terms how to rectify any mistakes I may have made. Such patience and professionalism influenced me for life.

As our relationship grew, I adopted and became adopted by Peter’s family, years later even hiring his youngest daughter, Alex, as an intern in my public relations firm. His wife, Alison, two other children, Jeremy and Kate, became dear friends – precious relationships I’ve maintained over the years.

Tasch family Thanksgiving 2008

Peter passed on July 24th, 2010. My relationship with his wife, Alison, continued until her death in 2024. The Tasch family has been a constant and a great blessing in my life for over 40 years.

Peter Tasch was the first adult in my professional life who “saw” and “got” me. From our initial interview, I’d felt “witnessed.” He saw something in my creativity that outweighed my imprecision. Not only did he give me a chance, but he also helped clear the way for all my future successes.

Mentor On A Motorcycle

by Bob Ingram

I’ve encountered two mentors: the first more or less official and the second decidedly not.

As a dewy-eyed seventeen-year-old freshman at Rutgers, I pledged Lambda Chi Alpha social fraternity, mostly because the president was from my home town of Collingswood, New Jersey, and several of my pledge brothers were from Collingswood, too.

Pledges were given so-called “Big Bothers” with the same major they had, whose job was to school them on fraternity life, college life, and life in general. Maury Cagle, a senior journalism major, was my Big Brother. Maury had a radio show on the college station, was an intern at The New Brunswick Daily Home News and was a dean’s list student. He didn’t have a lot of time for mentoring; in fact, the most interest he took in me was when he went all gaga over a sexy senior from Collingswood High School that I brought up to Rutgers for a prom. He couldn’t stop marveling at her. So much for Maury’s mentoring.

Flash forward to me at 31. I was managing editor of a trade magazine for the pleasure marine industry at Chilton Company in West Philadelphia. Among my contemporaries were Bill Marimow, who won two Pulitzers at the Philadelphia Inquirer and was editor of both that paper and The Baltimore Sun, and Stu Bykofsky, for years a columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News. I had stopped drinking, a major problem in my life, lost weight, and married my first wife, Amelia, all of 18 years old, who worked at the magazine.

Also working at Chilton was the late Mitch Gilbert, who had a radio program on WDAS, then the hippie station in Philly, cornily called “A Rap From the Head of Mitch Gilbert.” Mitch also wrote for The Philadelphia Free Press, the city’s first underground rag.

He would leave the paper on my desk and badger me to go to a Free Press meeting with him. He sensed something astir in me. I finally gave in. The door to the meeting opened and – my God! – there was Frank Zappa himself! Not really, although Rick Rubin did bear a striking resemblance to the seminal rocker at first take.

Rick became my counter-culture mentor. He and his wife, Andrea, seemed to know everybody and everything about Philadelphia’s underground culture. They made it their mission to get me into that life. And there I was, still at Chilton, a bastion of Catholic conservatism.

That changed when my first story for the FREEP, as we called it, was read on the radio by the late, legendary disc jockey Ed Sciaky. The story had me in a bar in Florida near Cape Canaveral where a drunk NASA engineer was telling me about how the moon landing was actually a Disney fabrication -- until two FBI agents took him away. The story was even referenced in Time magazine. Jeez, my first story on the damn radio. Good-bye, Chilton.

Rick Rubin was actually a few years younger than me, but he had bigtime credentials as this kind of a mentor: he’d been on the cover of the Woodstock edition of Rolling Stone, naked in a stream holding his young son, Brandon. Andrea was in a spread in that issue too, naked in the stream. The Rubins were tight with John Sinclair, the Detroit poet, activist, and music producer who was responsible for the MC5, the hot Motor City rockers. After a Philly concert, the Five once took their bus to City Hall courtyard and partied all night there.

Rick had a big black Triumph bike – he scorned Harleys – and he’d put me on the back, and we’d carom along the West River Drive in Philly at ninety miles an hour. The Rubins’ house on Gaskill Street near South Street was a counterculture salon; theater directors, dope dealers, on-the-run Weathermen, poets, disc jockeys, hippie entrepreneurs, freaks of all stripes passed through on a daily basis. It was a very high entry level for me into this throbbing new world.

And I wrote my ass off at the Free Press. I had found my voice with that story on the radio. I was running the streets and getting it all down – the people, the causes, the very temperature of a new and in verdant way of life. I would later win a Philadelphia Bar Association’s Scales of Justice Award for a story I wrote when a judge smuggled me into Juvenile Court, where the press was barred, and a Sigma Delta Chi award for a story on the gothic conditions at Pennhurst, a psychiatric hospital that was later shut down. A psychologist friend who worked there and was quitting smuggled me in as his parting shot.

We put out the Free Press at a gutbucket printer in Southwest Philly. Sometimes we were there twenty-four straight hours. No computers, baby. Straight-ahead old slow-ass paste-up. Rick was the captain there and I learned so well that for a few years I actually made my living pasting up publications.

The FREEP and its successor, The Plain Dealer, eventually faded and folded and I hit the rowdy road, hitch-hiking to California to save my marriage to Amelia; we had amicably separated. When I got to San Francisco, she’d already gone to Laguna Beach. I admitted then it was over and stayed in San Francisco for a year of adventures and discovery.

I came back to Philly and was twice editor of The Drummer, the city’s premiere “alternative” paper where I had the time of my life. Since then, I’ve been in the journalism trade right along as both editor and writer. I figure it’s been a pretty good way to spend my life.

Thanks, Rick. You kicked the training wheels off.

Martijn Hermse and I were wed on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1996. Valentine’s Day 2026 marks our 30th anniversary. My most beloved mate yielded to cancer in July 2008 while still in his prime. His physical passing cut our earthly t…

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Though it was -4° outside, Suelika Jaouad’s Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026 Substack newsletter Dream Sorting enveloped my consciousness in a warm bath of potential. Not the potential of doing but of being - a state I have sought since living in an ashram in the Himalayan mountains in 1973, and then in the foothills of Bogotá’s Andes mountains the following year. Jaouad’s sagaciousness renders the dream of “simply being” delicious, like a steaming lentil stew on a cold winter day.

During my youthful spiritual quest in the mid-70s, I sought and found a true state of being. I’d stepped off the merry-go-round of graduate school’s seemingly pointless quest for the knowledge of minutia (tracing modernism in the writings of Djuna Barnes), instead to seek essential self-knowledge. “Know thyself,” says the Oracle of Delphi. In those heady hippie days when spiritual seeking was very much in vogue, I found a guru and an ashram to fill my spiritual cup. I learned to meditate properly: to be perfectly still, in the present, quieting the clamoring inner voices, channeling my voracious vitality into a state of being, not doing. It was bliss.

Of course, I came down from those spiritual mountaintops. I was 24. The real world beckoned.

Over the course of my subsequent years as a busy college administrator, professor, communications executive and journalist, living and working around the globe, I seemed to have been fully engulfed by the high church of hustle and hurry. However, I had tasted the nectar of stillness, and its honeyed wisdom had brought me insights that couldn’t be detected with a microscope but were well planted – unseen seeds that held the gift of humanness. I sought people, places and undertakings to ground and refill my hungry soul. More recently, such people have been termed, Emotionally Intelligent and one of the most significant of those people has been Krista Tippett.

Five years ago, I had the privilege of conducting an hour-long, exclusive interview with Krista. (Published in PBS’ Next Avenue online magazine in November 2021.) At the time, we were both living and working in my home of 25 years, Minneapolis, Minnesota. In a recent post, Krista reflects on our mutually beloved state and its current woes: My heart is sore. Your heart is sore. What does it mean to be human?

I’m sharing my still relevant interview with Krista here and hope you consider subscribing to my Newsletter and resharing.

Krista Tippett shines a spotlight on human goodness

We’re naturally drawn to individuals with high emotional intelligence – people who make others comfortable and at ease with their easy rapport. They seem to read social cues with superhuman ability. Which describes public radio and podcast host, Krista Tippett, who has transplanted the essence of the so-called EQ movement from books and Harvard Business Review pages to public radio airwaves.

In 1999, her radio program, On Being, originally called “Speaking of Faith,” became a game changer, nudging a civil conversational format into the sphere of tumultuous, loud, and angry talk radio. Initially assigned to the 7 a.m. Sunday “God slot” on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), even Tippett’s earliest champions were skeptical that the series would take off.

On Being [was then] entering its 23^rd year of broadcast, reaching 658,000 listeners, over 400 public radio stations weekly, and the podcast has been downloaded over 350 million times.

The show has earned a Peabody and multiple Webbys, some of broadcasting and digital media’s highest awards. As impressive, in 2014, Tippett found herself standing face-to-face with President Barrack Obama as he circled her neck with the prestigious National Humanities Medal, recognizing her work as “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.”

From the beginning, the show concerned itself with topics beyond faith and religion, asking the big questions: What does it mean to be human, how do we want to live, and who will we be to each other?

From the first question to the last, Tippett shines a spotlight on human goodness, hosting such guests as Pulitzer and Nobel prize winning authors, actors, theologians, and scientists, to less well known social and civil rights activists and poets.

During our recent wide-ranging, one-hour conversation, Tippett shared both personal and professional matters.

The deceptively ageless, 61-year-old, New York Times best-selling author and journalist reveals how deeply the ongoing unsettledness of the past 18 months of pandemic and global social unrest has impacted her – more than her listenership might determine from her legendary even-keeled on-air personality.

Initially expressing relief at simply having made it through with her “health and livelihood,” she quickly pivots, speaking through her more familiar radio host persona: “We’ve been able to be useful to people, right?” she asks. “I mean, we really offer something that helps. We try to hold body, mind, and spirit together. And that does feel like a responsibility to me.”

Swimming in astute observations

In quiet conversation with Tippett, one cannot miss just how accountable she is. Tippett and her life’s work seem inextricable.

Her idea for On Being – this unique experiment in generative public dialogue, underpinned by deep philosophical conversations – assuredly filled a gaping media hole. Where no one else did, Tippett sensed there was an audience hungry for programming that The Washington Post declared, “challenged all forms of dogma, in science, politics, and philosophy, as well as religion….” And she understood that public radio was the perfect platform.

Living in the increasingly fractured and polarized times we do, Tippett has dedicated her life and talents to bridging the schisms. “I’m always trying to attend to this trajectory of where this time in the world is…of what it is,” she says.

Then, exhaling softly, she posits a characteristic, On Being-style reflective question: “I mean, how do we learn to walk alongside each other to do the things that must be done?”

Paradoxically, answering this question is not the point. The alchemy of On Being is asking the questions – engaging graciously in the tough conversations – a formula that on the surface seems to fly in the face of successful programming.

Friend, and fellow public radio show personality, MPR’s Kerri Miller, admires Tippett’s courage of swimming against the currents. “Krista definitely influences way I think,” Miller comments over the phone from her retreat in Arizona. “I have great admiration for her work, covering faith in way that accessible.” She continues, “We share a common way of thinking, a curiosity. Krista doesn’t cover hard news, but the ocean she likes to swim in is one of astute observations.”

Self-reflection fuels societal change

Those not familiar with Tippett’s past, might be surprised at the road that’s taken her here.

Born in small town, Shawnee, Oklahoma, granddaughter of a loving, albeit fiercely conservative Evangelical minister, Tippett felt stifled. Escaping to Rhode Island’s ivy league Brown University after high school, she landed a student stint in the former East Germany – behind the actual Iron Curtain. Later, she returned to the region on a Fulbright, stringing for several prominent news sources including, The Times, Newsweek, the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and Die Zeit.

Her efforts got her noticed. Tippett became a junior diplomat in West Berlin, working on the other side of Checkpoint Charlie, ultimately serving as chief aide to the US ambassador to West Germany – a nuclear arms expert and a Reagan appointee. During this period, Tippett describes herself as, “a thoroughly political person.”

But these heady years of politics and dinner parties in the halls of power left the young Tippett oddly empty. Something was missing. In her book, Speaking of Faith, she reflects about how those living freely in the West often took their freedoms for granted, squandering their social capital, while those suffering under a repressed rule in the East, surfaced a fierce fortitude of hope – akin to spirituality.

Throughout her work on both sides of The Wall, Tippett’s personal goal emerged strong and clear: she sought social change. How and where, she wondered, would such change surface?

Slowly, the answer began to emerge. In fact, it has driven all her subsequent efforts.

“In Berlin, I learned that transcendent goals like peace and justice are always made possible, or rendered impossible, by the patterns of the human heart,” she writes. “The human condition is the reality around which political life revolves – and upon which it falters. Even the highest levels of diplomacy and geopolitical strategy are about treating the symptoms of humanity.”

“What my interest in life is,” she tells me, “Is the human dimension of things, the human condition.”

Certainly, Tippett’s personal life has tested her. Being a wife, and becoming a mother, were her sacred trusts. Divorcing felt like failure, prompting an unexpected darkness of the soul. Therapy sessions helped Tippett regain her sense of self, and that is where she discovered the healing power of guided conversation.

Slowly emerging from her depression and coming to terms with her self-doubts, Tippett turned to theology, earning a Master of Divinity from Yale University. That led to an oral history project for the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.

The interviews she conducted for this project took her around the globe, reinforcing the power of guided conversations to surface self-reflection. Tippett credits the St. John’s Abbey project as a direct source of On Being.

All you need is love

Tippett is greatly inspired by philosopher and poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. Of his many works, she finds this quote one of his most motivating: “Love is perhaps the most difficult task given us, the most extreme.”

At the intersection of personal and professional life motherhood is synonymous with love for Tippett. “When I became a mother, I believed, and still believe, that when all is said and done, none of us will be measured on how much we accomplish but on how well we love,” she writes.

“I had a real evolution in my understanding of love,” she explains. “I realized after my divorce there was a point where I was feeling sorry for myself … that I didn’t have love in my life. I was able to stop and say, well, yeah, that’s not true at all. There’s this one particular way of love that is not present in my life right now, but I have so much love, so many forms of love.”

It is obvious how much she cherishes the love of her grown children, Aly and Sebastian, and how loving them requires learning new ways of expression.

“It’s so interesting to continue to watch your children become who they are, right?” she says. “And you and you have to keep getting to know them over and over again.”

On Being is always evolving

As challenging as it is to learn new ways to love one’s growing children, it is difficult, if not foolhardy, to tinker with a successful business formula. Yet, Tippett’s superpower is the wisdom to know when to evolve.

In 2014, Tippett and three colleagues, Trent Gilliss, Chris Heagle, and Liliana Maria Percy Ruiz, launched On Being as an independent nonprofit enterprise. Tippett described the break from public radio as “going from a radio show embedded in a media organization to a social enterprise with a radio show at its heart.”

The risky move proved successful. On Being relocated to a spacious former retail warehouse building in the Minneapolis Loring Park neighborhood, expanding its offerings, staff, and impact. Through the Civil Conversations Project & the Social Healing team, On Being has operationalized its mission, touching people more directly.

“The project has always been emergent,” Tippett says. “At our core, we’ve always been listening to our listeners, as much as we were listening to our guests – we’ve never been static.”

A brave “Betazoid”

Towards the end of our conversation, I ask what keeps Krista Tippett up at night, and what gives her hope.

“Well, right now there’s so much pain in the world,” she replies, with so much discernable emotion in that legendary velvet voice, that I inadvertently blurt out: “You’re just like Deanna Troi on Star Trek, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she laughs heartily. “I am half-Betazoid, you know? Sometimes I’m better at not letting it in, but right now it’s coming over me in waves.”

The years of quarantine and unrest have taken a slight toll on Tippett’s stamina. “We’re depleted, right? And it’s a tricky thing to be depleted and called at the same time,” she admits.

However, she insists that perhaps the world needed to be shaken up. “I think we almost needed an earthquake to change the way we live,” she says. “It’s existential for our species not just to want to survive, but to flourish, so these past years are an invitation to make the magnitude of our transformation more fluent.”

The movement of the world’s tectonic plates has driven home the positive impact the On Being project has on the lives of her listeners. “The people who come to us, who hear the show, are such a beautiful counter-culturally broad array of people,” she says, I think of them as the ones who are really building the generative story of our time.”

This fact that the power of human goodness typically doesn’t make headlines is never lost on Tippett. Her work isn’t loud, but she sees it as a “goodness that doesn’t yell, and doesn’t have publicists, but it is happening all around us.”

Postscript: We can all tip our hats to the brave, wise, citizens of Minneapolis and Minnesota who are making goodness the headline!

PHILADELPHIA,PA (Jan. 29, 2026) This in-depth profile of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey originally appeared the January 2019 issue of the Southwest Journal as one of my monthly Creative Class columns. Frey’s commitment to public service extends beyond policy and personal advocacy. Frey is known for building coalitions across diverse groups, fostering a collaborative environment where artists, activists, and civic leaders can come together to create meaningful change. By prioritizing community engagement, he ensures that voices from all backgrounds are heard and valued in the decision-making process. Now recognized for his bold advocacy for Minneapolis residents and opposition to government violence, readers will discover the influences behind this dedicated public servant.

The younger Mayor Jacob Frey in his City Hall office. Photo credit: ©Susan Schaefer 2019

I covered Minneapolis’ “Creative Class”- a name originated by author Richard Florida, for many years. Minneapolis and sister city, St. Paul, garnered a lofty place for Minnesota as a national creative mecca. The stats: The creative arts in Minneapolis drive significant economic impact, with creative sales contributing over $5 billion to the local economy as of 2018 and nonprofit arts providing hundreds of millions more, contributing eight times that of Minneapolis’ sports sector according to the 2015 Creative Vitality Index (CVI), an economic measure used by the city. The sector supports roughly 5% of city jobs, fuels tourism, and strengthens community cohesion through initiatives like the “Vibrant Storefronts” program, which repurposes vacant spaces for artists. In part, it helps to understand the inventiveness of the current resistance.

Creatively well-adjusted

As CEO of Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey technically heads up the city’s Creative Class. [Elected in 2017, Frey is the 48th mayor of Minneapolis.] Frey’s youth, vitality, fitness and prowess as a marathoner are legendary and obvious – reflected in his trim, upright bearing. What is not so apparent is his pedigree. Not only is his father a well-respected Washington, D.C. area chiropractor, conceivably contributing to our young mayor’s perfect posture, but Dr. Christopher Frey and his wife, Jamie, were also once world-class dance performers. “My parents were both professional modern ballet dancers,” Frey confides. “In fact, my father had a seven-year career in modern dance with two world-renowned companies: Lar Lubovitch Dance Company of Manhattan, and Nederlands Dans Theatre.”

Mayor Jacob Frey poses with the local art that decorates his office. Photo credit: ©Susan Schaefer 2019

Young Frey did not inherit that gene. Jacob Frey is a runner. Full stop. “I was a weird kid,” he begins, “overly energetic and a bit too intense for my own good. But I found an outlet in running. Through running I could burn off energy in a productive way, allowing me to focus more in class,” he admits.

Frey believes that running provides a direct correlation between hard work and success. “If you train harder than the guy standing next to you on the starting line, you probably are going to beat him,” he continues. “I remember going for runs with my father beginning when I was nine or ten years old. The winner would get to grab the newspaper from the mailbox on the way home and hand it to my mother – the true sign of victory. For a solid two years, my father was always the winner. Until one day, after doing quite a bit of training on my own, I kicked my dad’s butt, grabbed the newspaper, and handed my mother a sweat-soaked Washington Post!”

Frey was elated and hooked. Since then, running has taken him around the world. After college he ran professionally, competing for Team USA in the Pan American Games marathon, finishing in 4^th place. Part of his local legend is that in 2006, running introduced him “to the greatest city in the world – Minneapolis of course, through the Twin Cities Marathon.” It was love at first sight. For the record, Frey ran that race in 2:20. Shortly after the race, he was recruited by then law firm Faegre & Benson, and as quickly as he runs, he became a full-fledged resident and a respected civil rights advocate.

Though Frey might be lacking his parents’ dance DNA, he has inherited a passion for the performing arts. He waxes poetic when discussing a favorite cultural pastime, walking along 13^th Avenue from his home in Northeast Minneapolis with his wife, Sarah Clarke, a respected community organizer and lobbyist, to attend performances at the Ritz Theater. “This is really special to do over the summer,” he explains, “to enjoy a meal at North East Social or Dangerous Man Brewing Company, and then attend a play at the Ritz by Theater Latté Da.”

Frey practically demurs when asked about his own creative propensities, deferring rather to his athleticism. However, with a bit of cajoling, he admits that he has strutted upon a stage or two, occasionally performing at Black Box theaters during his undergrad days at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia. However, his thespian inclinations did not continue during his stint at Philadelphia’s Villanova University where he earned his law degree. “No,” he admits, “My time in law school featured my nose in the books.” Yet, he’s still able and willing to croon a sappy Neil Diamond parody for a good cause. Online readers can click here for his hilarious “Sweet Caroline” spoof of himself at MinnPost’s charity roast last year.

Keeping Minneapolis’ innovation meme front and center

Lightheartedly, I assure the Mayor that although this column normally profiles the art makers, his stewardship of the Minneapolis Creative Class is the fundamental motive for this 2019 inaugural column.

In fact, upon pointing out that our column’s Creative Class moniker is attributed to Professor Richard Florida, Frey enthusiastically announces that he was seated right next to Florida during Bloomberg Philanthropies’ annual CityLab conference held in Detroit last October. This by-invitation only conference, a collaboration of The Atlantic magazine, the Aspen Institute, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, tracks urban innovation and creativity worldwide. Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg himself hosted October’s gathering.

Along with his good pal and (then) mayoral colleague, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, Frey joined about 25 mayors from around the globe, and a roster of urban experts, academics, artists and activists. Detroit’s recent experiences were the focus of a series of site visits, discussions and networking events. The overarching theme of the conference was “opportunity” – creating jobs, workforce development, artistic endeavors, business growth, and entrepreneurialism. Certainly, Minneapolis’ soaring Creativity Vitality Index (CVI) performance makes a strong case history about leveraging artistic endeavors for job creation, business growth and entrepreneurialism.

Steering the helm

Which brings up a good question: What is a mayor’s role in creative/innovation stewardship? “Of course,” declares Frey, “with our high-profile bully pulpit, we can be a prominent supporter of the arts. But what’s even more exciting about local government is that we’re able to serve as a laboratory for testing new ideas. Because we’re in direct contact with the people we serve our feedback loops are shorter, so cities can experiment, test new policies, and really work in ways that are not traditionally right or left on the political spectrum in order to get things done.” And beyond the realm of purely cultural activities, Frey asserts this includes shepherding things like growing our tech workforce, or exerting leadership on curbing climate change. “Minneapolis is simply at the forefront of innovation,” he remarks.

A recent article in The Economist supports the Mayor’s claim that Americans in general have long trusted local over state and national government, emphasizing that most local governments are largely non-partisan. Therefore, Minneapolis can operate with enlightened self-interest to create a politically neutral innovation laboratory. The Economist article actually highlights our metro region: “Today the Twin Cities area is one of America’s most successful, with a rare mix of well-off residents and affordable homes.”

Affordability and access are key drivers for creatives seeking regions to settle. Obviously, there is much work yet to do to lower the burden of housing costs, so Frey’s notable focus on affordable housing fits perfectly within his overall cultural leadership. He has been indefatigable in his efforts to address economic disparities by providing more affordable housing and his efforts have won praise from across the political spectrum.

Another area of government guidance comes from working diligently with various city departments to alleviate some of the restrictive policies that impinge on artists’ abilities to showcase their creative endeavors. “The city has a tangle of regulations, fees, and/or permits that basically hamstring the livelihood of artists seeking to host parties/openings/galas, etc. I’ll be looking at adjusting policies like noise ordinances,” he assures.

Frey has tackled more nationally prominent issues, too, like the fight for marriage equality that really marked a turning point in his decision to run for office. With parents who were both professional dancers, Frey explains that his father “was one of the only straight males I knew growing up. The thought that people who loved each other wouldn’t be able to experience that love in the same way as others was just wrong, so I organized the Big Gay Race in the lead up to the ballot amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. The second annual Big Gay Race was just before the final vote and drew about 7,000 people and raised a bunch of money. We talk about Minneapolis being inclusive, and – as the engine for the rest of the state in that campaign – I really felt it,” he concludes.

The group of friends who Frey met through the Big Gay Race became part of his campaign team when he ran for city council. Equal rights and social justice are also critical issues within the creative community.

All you need is love

Frey’s own love story with Sarah Clarke reads like a Sesame Street fairytale. Frey and Clarke first met in a high school auditorium during a Minnesota Young DFL (MYDFL) meeting; however, they didn’t get together as a couple until years later. At first, they shared a close friendship.

In time, Frey knew Clarke was the one. “Prior to our engagement,” he confesses, “I bought a ring that was burning a hole in my pocket. I had plans of a romantic backdrop to the proposal – either in the woods or on the Stone Arch Bridge. Finally, I had my opportunity when she had a night off from work and law school, so I asked her to go for a walk.” Underscoring his extreme practicality and dedication to a green environment, Frey figured he might as well drop off the recycling on the way down their fire escape to go on that walk. He sheepishly continues, “As I was walking to the recycling bin with Sarah, as is normal, she said something so incredibly sweet that I simply needed to propose to her right there.” So, their special moment resulted in the Mayor proposing to his future bride in the alley next to the dumpsters.

He adds, “This certainly was not the most romantic setting, but it’s how it went down and she’s the best possible partner I could ask for.”

In spite of (or because of) this Oscar the Grouch moment, our city’s head of creative class is actually a very classy guy. He fuses his diverse passions into extreme forward movement – Frey undeniably is a man of action – and with a family of chiropractors at this back, we are assured he’s bound to stay very aligned with his vision and goals.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (Jan. 26, 2026) January 27, 2026 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated since 2005 by the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides. Never was this message more vital.

Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) State of Antisemitism in America 2024 report reveals that 77% of American Jews feel less safe in the U.S. due to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, with 56% having altered their behavior. Notably, 90% report rising antisemitism, and 33% have personally experienced it. (Please read my Dec. 16, 2025 Bondi Beach Massacre Substack for a chilling history of the roots of the twin hatreds of anti-Judaism and antisemitism.)

Immediate relevance

This article - an excerpt from my memoir-in-progress, The Girl Who Flew was originally published in PBS’ online magazine, Next Avenue, has heightened relevance given the astounding rise of Holocaust denial and American anti-Semitism, coupled with the horrific rise of the Trump Administration’s own form of fascism currently playing out in Minneapolis, Minnesota, my home of 25 years.

There is a bright line to be drawn from remembering and telling the facts of Holocaust, decrying its denial, and witnessing and recording the Trump Administration’s version of Nazi Brownshirts, appropriately named for their ICE-cold blooded murders of innocent Americans like Renee Good and Alex Pretti in the past weeks in Minneapolis, and its whitewashing of history and the facts.

Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Image: internet

A childhood devoid of Holocaust discussions

Why did my Jewish parents withhold facts of the Holocaust to me? I grew up in Mt. Airy, a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood comprised equally of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant neighbors where I was seemingly shielded from that world-shattering genocide.

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One explanation comes from Deborah E. Lipstadt’s 1996 article, “America and the Memory of the Holocaust, 1950-1965,” in the Journal of Modern Judaism that suggests a combination of forces led my parents and other postwar American Jews to dodge the topic entirely. She writes, “that throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s [the Holocaust] was barely on the Jewish communal or theological agenda.”

Lipstadt posits that postwar America, with its new-found prosperity, was simply “not ready to confront the issue.” An economic and baby boom “was in full swing,” and the overall atmosphere was one of optimism. Americans in general, and Jewish Americans in specific, did not dwell on the gruesome past.

Survivors of the horrors were discouraged from discussing their experiences. Soldiers who had liberated camps, bringing home horrific pictures of skeletal survivors, gas chambers and ovens, found that the newly hopeful Americans who were building houses in the suburbs, buying shiny new cars and convenient modern electronics that made life better and easier, were not “interested in those things.”

Whatever my parents’ reasons, my personal discovery of this horrifying historic event as a 12-year-old child, coincided with Hanukkah 1962, which began at sunset on December 21^st.

Well-intentioned expedition

I intended to surprise my parents at sunset on Saturday the 22^nd when we would light the second Hanukkah candle.

About a mile from my home, at Philadelphia’s city line with Montgomery County, across from the busy intersection of Cheltenham Avenue and Upsal street, sat the newly completed Gimbels Department store, a 20^th century modernist building. The store, the distance from my home, and the intersection were entirely off-limits for me.

But that December day wings had sprouted inside the oversized pocket of my fashionable dolman sleeved Buffalo Plaid jacket, where two, ten-dollar-bills seemed to flap, propelling me towards my mission. This Hanukkah I was about to buy my first gift for someone else.

The money, like the jacket, had been a gift from my Brooklyn-born, Tanta Rose, whom we visited monthly at her stately high-rise condo overlooking fabled Coney Island. At the end of our last visit, her husband, Uncle Joe Leitner, who owned Leitner Furs and Uniform Shop in Manhattan, had slipped the twin Hamilton bills in the pocket of this jacket he’d designed for me. In his thick Yiddish accent, he kissed my forehead whispering, “Do something nice with your gelt, Suselah.” And so, I would.

Confronting the horrors

Entering Gimbels lower-level side door, I encountered the book department, boasting spacious wide aisles and broad pedestals always stacked with the most current offerings.

Planning to dart up the escalator to the main level to buy a scarf for my mother and flannel shirt for my father, I was immobilized mid-stride by a display on the center pedestal. There, arranged in soaring pyramids, my eye landed on the two featured books. The cover of one presented ghastly, emaciated creatures wearing stripped clothing festooned with large Jewish stars. The other, a much larger book, was opened to a center spread of grainy black and white photos of skeletal humans, guarded by men with rifles, or stacked in heaps.

Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

I was riveted in place, my eyes glued on these images, with the innocent and morbid fascination of a child.

As I beheld these repulsive confirmations of atrocities, hot fear and anger and surged through me; shock and a sense of betrayal burned from the pit of my stomach up to my heart. Until that moment, I was entirely innocent of the Holocaust. I was held by as if by an evil sorcerer’s spell. Unable to stop myself, I turned pages, transfixed by inhuman images. Hollow-eyed, hairless men, some wearing soiled stripped suits with Jewish stars, others with naked sunken chests, stared from the pages directly through me. Emaciated women and children in various poses were imprinted, page after page. But it was the stacked skeletal remains, on carts, in ravines, or heaped on the ground that most assaulted me.

My bold, disobedient spirit leaked tears that splashed onto the glossy paper, puckering these lurid scenes with salt puddles. My mind raced to understand, to comprehend. The words “exterminated,” “Jews,” “Nazis,” “concentration camps,” and “horrors,” peppered the captions.

Suddenly, a bony hand gripped my upper arm, ripping me away from the horror before me.

“Little girl,” a sharp voice pierced me, “Where is your mother? You shouldn’t be here alone. You don’t belong here. This is not for children.” The book clerk, an older, matronly woman, meaning well, only terrified me more.

Softening slightly as she perceived my shock, she began leading me towards the cashier station, scanning the aisles for any sign of a missing, inattentive mother.

Not for children pinged through my brain as I wiggled to free myself from her grasp. “Now you stay right here,” she admonished. “What’s your name? I’m going to page your mother,” she said, reaching for the black phone at the desk.

Seizing the opportunity, I bolted, racing up the escalator, making a beeline for the large front doors, sprinting like the devil was on my tail, carelessly crossing the wild six lanes of traffic, running the entire mile back to my front door.

Confronting my parents

My heart pounding in my ears, hot tears scalding my eyes, I thrust the front door open so hard that the brass knob dented the facing clothes closet door. That bang that matched my anger; the dent remained forever.

Almost dropping the ubiquitous cigar planted in his mouth, my father jumped from his lazy boy. Enveloped in her easy chair, my mother also bolted. Both were stricken by my wild entrance.

And then I screamed. A bloodcurdling yell from some primal place no child should ever visit.

“Why were those people…? Who were those Jewish people…?” The words wouldn’t match my enflamed thoughts.

My father assumed I had been harmed in some way and raced to gather me up in his arms, asking “Who hurt you, Sue Sue, where have you been?” My mother mustered as much concern as she was able. Postpartum depression sadly had rendered her a taciturn observer to our life together.

I pulled abruptly away from my father, something neither of us was accustomed to. My father was my beloved protector and provider. He was both mother and father, dependable, loving and until that moment, I thought truthful.

“How could there have been an event that warranted two books? A horrific massacre of Jewish people, and I hadn’t been told?”

“What are you talking about?” my father implored. “Where have you been? What did you see?”

As scholar Lipstadt explained, many Jews of the 1950s and 60s didn’t discuss the Holocaust at all. The proximity of the horror was still too fresh and too awful. Many Jews had chosen to distance themselves from the trauma, even changing their names like my father’s friends the Goldsteins who had become the Goldsmiths. European Jews in America wanted nothing more than to assimilate – to NOT stand out.

The irony

For me to explain where I’d seen these horrors, I had to admit that I’d disobeyed my parents and had traveled farther than allowed and had crossed Cheltenham Avenue – alone. But that transgression paled in comparison to the one I believed my father had made – keeping a secret of such gruesomeness and importance from me.

My father and I had never had such a standoff. Despite my willful independence, I was basically a good girl who gave him no cause for concern. But those scenes of massacre and despair had laid waste to my soul. I demanded answers. What had happened? How could I not know this? Did my friends all know?

Though loving, kind and responsible, my father, a first-generation immigrant, had only gone to the third grade to work to help support the family. He felt unequal to the task of discussing such momentous annihilation and was careful in handling my traumatic reaction.

Acknowledging that I had meant well by wanting to spend my own Hanukkah gift money on him and my mother, he gently reprimanded me for crossing that major road and asked if we could wait to talk. We negotiated a deal. I would not be in trouble for disobeying my boundaries, and I would withhold punishing him for not teaching me about the Holocaust.

What I didn’t know is that the next day he rang up my principal, his friend, to seek advice. That Monday, I was called to the principal’s office at Pennypacker Elementary, where to the best of his ability, Mr. Israel Lerner, explained an abridged, child-appropriate version of the Holocaust to me.

The real gift that Hanukkah was that I came to understand the different ways parents try to protect their children. And my father learned that his daughter deserved the truth about many of life’s difficulties.

Today children are more sophisticated and sadly, more aware. The internet, media, and social media bring the daily travails, as well as the triumphs, to everyone.

The UN’s recommendation, and the work of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., to develop education programs to help prevent further genocides have never been more vital. We must never forget.

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Ever been accused of having a thin skin? When it comes to maintaining proper body temperature, this old adage is no joke. As we age, our metabolic rate decreases and our skin literally thins. Often, aging bodies are not capable of generating enough heat to help maintain our normal 98.6-degree body temperature. Certainly, maintaining an active lifestyle, including mild exercise, can offset this heat loss, but not everyone can.

With today’s focus on the environment and decreasing energy consumption, turning up a thermostat is not the best solution. After all, why heat a whole house when all that’s needed is a bit of extra attention in specific areas? Although experts recommend keeping the bedroom cooler, frigid temperatures can be particularly brutal when trying to fall asleep, so why not take a hint from our European friends by creating a warmer welcome just before our bedtime?

The bed warmer

Memories of Mrs. Senior’s copper bed warmer being slipped into my guest bed in Edinburgh, Scotland sent me on a quest. I keep the temps down in my home but slipping into an ice-cold bed on chilly winter nights doesn’t promote falling asleep easily. Not willing or able to heat a copper bed warmer, I set out to find the safest and most efficient way to send myself to the land of nod. My research confirmed that heated mattress pads are the safest and most efficient forms of electric bedding.

According to the Electric Blanket Institute, safety is the number one consideration for any electric bedding. Happily, modern electric bedding products don’t get as hot as older models, a key feature geared to preventing fires. The EBI suggests choosing products that are durable, able to be washed repeatedly, and preferably come with a minimum five-year warranty. Models that offer well-lit controls that are easy to operate are standard for those with poor eyesight or arthritis. And importantly, the EBI recommends only brands with the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) or ETL (Electrical Testing Laboratories) mark – indicating they have passed rigorous safety standards.

In side-by-side comparisons, electric mattress pads top blankets for both safety and efficiency. Because pads lie flat, they tend not to overheat, as is the case with blankets that can easily ball up, making pads safer. On the efficiency side of the ledger, since heat radiates upward, half the heat is lost with a blanket. Additionally, our bodies and bedding act as insulators, holding in the heat. Finally, most pads heat up quicker than blankets – five to 10 minutes versus up to an hour or longer.

My long-time choice has been a machine washable, multi-temperature, dual control Beautyrest 100% Cotton Heated Mattress Pad Bed Warmer with an auto shut off timer. It has turned my queen mattress into a 5-star slumber vessel every winter night! This device works so well, I can crank it up before turning in, then shut it off for a toasty, nightlong snooze.

Take the chill off

While it’s recommended to keep a cooler bedroom, freezing outdoor temps can create sub-par sleeping conditions. As with switching on the mattress pad, you can pre-heat the bedroom with an energy efficient electric oil heater, which is rated as safer than fan-driven models for many reasons: they are low wattage, don’t blow dust around (so they’re great for allergy suffers), and are silent. Dreo’s $99.99 radiator ranks number one in many independent reviews. If you’re a hearty sleeper, you can shut your heater off with only a few hours of preheating, creating a toasty welcome and a great night’s sleep.

Breathe free

Dry winter air cracks skin and dries sinuses. A way to create a perfect night and daytime indoor environment is by investing in a humidifier. Cool and warm mist each have advantages, but why choose one? A number of online sources once again give the nod to Dreo for its Smart Humidifier 713S 6L. After considerable research, I popped for one last year and have been pleased with its versatility.

At $89.99 from Dreo’s own website, this attractive unit is easily three times less expensive than comparable models. It’s compact, a feature I find essential for small spaces, particularly important for condo or apartment dwellers, and super quiet, which is especially helpful for use in bedrooms.

Mostly I use the cool mist feature, but when I came down with the flu this winter, I found the warm mist feature comforting, heating up to 86° in five minutes. The sleek design incorporates a handsome light indicator that clearly displays mist levels, temperature setting and manual or auto modes. And the Dreo app works seamlessly on my iPhone allowing me to adjust all these functions remotely.

One big hassle with humidifiers is cleaning, but Dreo has an intelligent system for practical maintenance including a feature that indicates when to change the filter. The housing if very simple and easy to disassemble for simply cleaning. A little added extra in this model is its aroma technology. I found adding eucalyptus oil to the convenient chamber when I was suffering from the flu a snap.

A mist humidifier provides relief from dry skin and allergy symptoms, plus extra defense against airborne illnesses by keeping germs at bay with an active carbon filter!

Bottoms Up!

My European holidays also introduced to me to the luxury and hygiene of heated-seat bidets. A bidet (pronounced beh-DAY – from the French) is basically a sanitary toilet apparatus with a spray to gently clean private parts. My choice is one with a warm lavatory seat and warm water shower. Europe, Japan and other parts of the world have long utilized this sensible alternative to wiping. Washing with water is gentler than scraping dry paper across your tender parts, which may irritate and damage the sensitive tissue and nerve endings. Some units even feature a handy puff of air for drying. Using a soft stream of water is excellent for individuals who suffer irritable bowel syndrome or have difficulty reaching behind themselves. Plus, the gentle jet cleans more efficiently and provides the added environmental benefits of buying and using less paper.

Another short internet sleuthing session comparing available products sent me to BidetKing where I found the affordable Alpha JX bidet toilet seat that requires minimal installation. This mighty little unit does everything that brands costing 10 times its price! With a three-temperature heated seat and dual washing wands for separate front and back cleaning, this fourth addition transforms a bedroom and in-suite bathroom into a five-star hotel experience!

Four easy pieces

It’s easy and inexpensive to create a smart, simple way to enhance your lifestyle during the dark, cold days of winter. Isn’t it worth it to invest in yourself?

A tale of two cities

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, my DNA craves soft pretzels with spicy mustard and the Mummers Parade. Having spent 25 years of my “mature” mid-life in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I equally crave the fiery cuisine of the illustrious immigrant, Yia Vang, the Hmong Chef, and the pageantry of the fabled annual May Day Parade, staged by the Heart of the Beast Theater located in Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Neighborhood.

Powderhorn is the same neighborhood where Renee Good’s life was purposefully snuffed out by a United States ICE agent as an unidentified agent screamed: “You f*ing bitch,” while millions on numerous social media videos witnessed her softly spoken final words: “I’m not mad at you.”

“I can’t breathe.” Civil Liberties Assaulted – Again

Powderhorn is the same neighborhood where in 2020, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sneered as he bore down on the neck of a Black man, George Floyd, while he cried, “I can’t breathe.” Floyd was killed over a counterfeit $20 bill.

Original art collage: ^©Susan Schaefer (all rights reserved)

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Chauvin’s cavalier murder of a man begging to be able to breathe remains an open wound and rallying cry for Americans who uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights. “The killing of George Floyd held a mirror up to a truth about the American legal system.” said Sherrilyn Ifill, at the time the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

On October 14, 2022, Floyd’s birthday, the National Urban League, on behalf of multiple civil rights organizations, pronounced a call for “the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, first introduced in 2020 – a critical step to holding law enforcement accountable for unconstitutional and unethical conduct.”

Yet, almost five years later, José Santos (Woss) Moreno, Friends Committee on National Legislation’s director for justice reform, once again called for passage of this act. The bill bearing Floyd’s name, H.R.8525, was reintroduced in the House last year, on May 23, 2025 by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX).

The outcry to ensure our civil liberties and civil rights has escalated following the ICE cold-blooded murder of Renee Good, an unarmed United States citizen who was trying to escape a confrontation with heavily armed agents, just blocks from where police murdered George Floyd.

A brief history of civil liberties

Philadelphia is gearing up to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the birth of our nation with a critical focus on the safeguards created by the founding fathers’ Proclamation of Independence from tyranny. One of the most remarkable blueprints of self-government was born right here in 1787 when 13 delegates produced the first draft of the United States Constitution.

Some may be unaware that many of these envoys felt that the draft was deeply flawed by not specifying individual rights. They believed that the document explained what the government could do, but not what it couldn’t. This absence of a delineated “bill of rights” obstructed its ratification for four years. In the end, the framers heeded Thomas Jefferson who had argued:

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Inspired by Jefferson, drafted by James Madison, the American Bill of Rights was adopted and in 1791 as the Constitution’s first ten amendments. They constitute our civil liberties and are the law of the land.

Photo courtesy of the National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, by Jason E. Miczek

Civil Liberties vs Civil Rights

While most Americans use the terms – “civil rights” and “civil liberties” – interchangeably, they are, in fact, distinct terms. Civil liberties are freedoms guaranteed to us by those Constitutional amendments to protect us from tyranny. They include:

· The right to free speech

· The right to privacy

· The right to remain silent in a police interrogation

· The right to be free from unreasonable searches of your home

· The right to a fair court trial

· The right to marry

· The right to vote

Civil rights are where law and legislation come in. Our civil liberties are protected against misuse by civil rights laws established through the federal government via federal legislation or case law. Our civil rights entitle us to the basic right to be free from unequal treatment based on certain protected characteristics, such as race, gender, disability, and more, in settings such as employment, education, housing, and access to public facilities.

For example, the right to marry is a civil liberty, while gay marriage is a civil rights matter. So, if a same-sex or opposite-sex couple is denied a marriage license because the court clerk has decided not to issue any licenses, their civil liberties have been violated. But if the clerk denied marriage licenses only to LGBTQ+ couples, it’s a civil rights violation.

Unlike civil liberties, which guarantee individuals certain broad-based rights, civil rights imply protection based on certain characteristics.

Birth of the American Civil Liberties Union to defend those rights

Another conundrum: In 1791, when civil liberties were enshrined in the Constitution, most citizens had no way to uphold them. Over a hundred years passed when “most common constitutional violations went unchallenged because the people whose rights were most often denied were precisely those members of society who were least aware of their rights and least able to afford a lawyer. They had no access to those impenetrable bulwarks of liberty – the courts. The Bill of Rights was like an engine no one knew how to start.”

Photo credit: ACLU website

In the early twentieth century, all that changed. A small group of visionaries that included the world-renowned author, Helen Keller, “dedicated themselves to holding the government to the Bill of Rights’ promises.” In 1920, they founded the American Civil Liberties Union and joining forces with the already established National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, “began to challenge constitutional violations in court on behalf of those who had been previously shut out. This was the beginning of what has come to be known as public interest law,” providing the missing ingredient that made the constitutional system and Bill of Rights finally work.

Relevance in 2026

Many citizens, on both sides of aisle, are shocked by federal storm troopers currently attacking ordinary citizens in multiple US cities. Even the popular podcaster, Joe Rogan, once an avid Trump supporter who repeatedly questions ICE’s terror tactics, recently asked on his show, “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”.

In this semiquincentennial year, the application and defense of civil liberties continue to evolve through new laws and court interpretations, particularly in the face of political polarization and emerging technologies. And organizations like the ACLU remain active in defending these rights against government actions they deem overreaches, ensuring that the foundational principles of limited government and individual freedoms are upheld in a changing world.

“We are devastated by the news that ICE killed a woman this morning in Minneapolis. This tragedy is further proof that ICE is out of control, endangering our communities, and must end this operation before anyone else is brutally hurt or killed,” said Deepinder Mayell, executive director of ACLU of Minnesota. “Since the launch of ‘Operation Metro Surge’ we have witnessed a remarkable string of unlawful activity targeting Minnesota communities and Minnesota values — this affects us all. We will keep observing, documenting, and fighting for the rights of all Minnesotans.” Of course, the ACLU does so nationally.

In a January 2026 article in The Atlantic, author David Frum called out the “combative stance” of the current administration, reminding ordinary citizens “ICE’s powers against U.S. citizens are limited. Americans can record ICE operations, follow ICE motorcades, and vex and annoy ICE personnel, and there’s not much that ICE or Border Patrol agents can legally do to stop them—hence the turn to unlawful force instead.”

It can’t be stated too strongly that Americans must know their rights and how and when to defend them. Any American can become a potential target when the foundations of civil liberties begin to crumble and democracy veers towards dictatorship. No city or neighborhood is immune. It is an American duty to defend this nation’s hard-won civil liberties and civil rights.

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PHILADELPHIA, PA…Jan. 9, 2026 – At the age of 92, Bill Siemering is the impeccable elder statesman of public radio. Still standing tall albeit with the aid of an equally long walking stick, Siemering recently spoke on the evolution of public radio to an enthusiastic audience organized by Northwest Village Network of Philadelphia. As one of the founders and organizers of National Public Radio (NPR), and later its first program director, his passion for public broadcast remains effusive.

Photo credit: Susan Schaefer

Role in shaping public radio

“Perhaps no one has played a bigger role in shaping public radio in the United States than Bill Siemering,” claims a recent New York Times article. It is an accurate endorsement. Siemering’s impressive credentials include drafting NPR’s mission statement (see sidebar) and co-founding the revolutionary “All Things Considered” program, which influenced the “Fresh Air” program hosted by the legendary Terry Gross, still going strong after 50 years on air.

It was Siemering who hired the young Gross as a researcher despite vigorous protests from colleagues. In fact, among his proudest accomplishments, he emphasizes, was his indefatigable advocating for women’s voices to fill the airwaves. In those days that was unheard of! (pun intended). Turns out, Siemering drew a lot of heat from station executives for his hires. “Those executives were pushing for that ‘CBS network classical male voice.’ I looked for qualities like accuracy,” he mused. Some of his earliest picks – Susan Stamberg, Cokie Roberts and Nina Totenberg – are women who became fabled newscasters.

The sound of storytelling

From the beginning, Siemering envisioned that the purpose and format of public radio was to be different from its commercial cousins. He basically conceptualized long form segments.

“We had 20-minute segments,” he explained. “I wanted our reports to emulate having a conversation around a table. We weren’t going to talk about people, we were going to talk with them,” he stated. Obviously, the brilliance of this not only worked well then but has grown and been incorporated into the contemporary format of streaming podcasts that imitate his signature format.

A main feature of these early segments was the clever incorporation of ambient sound into a story. Most NPR segments still begin with telltale sounds of the location or the action of the story. “Sound is an integral part of great storytelling,” Siemering emphasized.

His influence also extended to the way public radio cultivated a sense of intimacy and trust with its listeners. Siemering believed deeply in the potential of audio to connect communities, foster empathy, and address issues that mattered locally and nationally. This vision not only set NPR apart in its formative years but also laid the groundwork for a legacy of thoughtful, inclusive journalism that informs and inspires audiences across generations.

Delivering democracy through the airwaves

A not-so-well-known fact about Siemering is that he helped introduce community radio to villages in Africa through his NGO, Developing Radio Partners. He spoke about the powerful effect of this medium, sharing a clip in his slide presentation about how Sierra Leone rebels claimed, “We can’t have peace without a radio station.”

Photo website

DRP “believes that robust local media offering reliable and prompt information is vital for improving lives, as it helps bring forward voices that can positively impact communities.” The organization targets “last mile” communities – rural and remote places where access to information is especially important and where local radio can make a significant difference. DRP assists local media in pinpointing challenges, exploring solutions, and motivating both community members and leaders to act. One of DRP’s key initiatives is providing training to enhance journalists’ skills.

Roots of broadcasting

Growing up in Wisconsin, Siemering worked on a farm as a young man. “The roots of public radio literally began as a way to assist the country’s farmers,” he explained. “The very expression, broadcasting, is derived from the term for a farmer sowing seeds.”

Photo credit: Susan Schaefer

Speaking of roots – it’s fitting that I reconnected with Siemering back in July 2024 in his wife Lucretia Robbin’s “Garden of Distinction,” (as designated by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society) at their home in Wynwood. Siemering warmly greeted me, exclaiming that he had been an avid reader of the South Street Star, the biweekly Philadelphia community newspaper I cofounded. It was heartwarming to find this public media giant humbly welcoming guests to Lucretia’s Garden Art Events where a few times a year she features a rotating roster of guest artists in their home’s cozy garage-turned-gallery.

NPR’s Mission Statement

Early in 1970, Bill Siemering put together this “mission statement” for NPR. The statement supported NPR’s request for aid from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and went on to define the network’s first daily program, All Things Considered, which debuted May 3, 1971:

National Public Radio will serve the individual: it will promote personal growth; it will regard the individual differences among men with respect and joy rather than derision and hate; it will celebrate the human experience as infinitely varied rather than vacuous and banal; it will encourage a sense of active constructive participation, rather than apathetic helplessness.

Gardner’s story and life reflect the true meaning of this season of hope and giving.

Mary Grace Gardner illuminates any space with her sheer energy and positive glow. At age 70, she’s a fearsome force to be reckoned with – a single-handed campaigner for cultural exchange, human rights and social justice, conspicuous by the colorful clothing she wears and sells.

Mary Grace Gardner in Philadelphia | Credit: Susan Schaefer

“Amazing Grace”

Setting up her heavy, rough-hewn cart outdoors throughout the four seasons in all elements, Grace and her makeshift wooden vendor stand have been fixtures at the corner of 18^th & Walnut Streets in Philadelphia’s upscale Rittenhouse Square neighborhood for over 43 years.

While both her business longevity and tenacity are noteworthy, it is her role as a modern-day Mother Theresa for a slice of Guatemala’s indigenous population that truly warrants an “Amazing Grace” moniker.

Peddler and Philanthropist

Most Philly customers are aware that Grace’s trader commerce supports local Guatemalan villagers. Her history of commissioning, purchasing, and single-handedly creating a market for their traditional craft work has been widely shared. She’s operated a “fair trade” system long before such a term existed, ploughing generous profits directly back to the Guatemalan villagers. And to her Philly customers, too. Grace sells her wares well below market prices to benefit her loyal stateside clients.

What might be less known is that Grace has gone further, “adopting” individuals and families, caring for their financial and personal needs throughout the years. For over four decades, she has been a direct benefactor to the indigenous people in Santa Cruz, La Laguna, Guatemala, a village just outside the touristy town of Panajachel, on the banks of Lake Atitlán.

Twelve years ago, she formalized this philanthropy by partnering with the non-profit organization, Fair Trade Philadelphia, initiating a fund for the village children.

Lifting people from poverty and providing the means for good education is at the heart of Grace’s mission. Helping young people to get a good education is a multiplier. Since there are no high schools in Santa Cruz, part of the fund underwrites boat and bus fares to get students to and from school. But she always goes farther. During the height of the Covid epidemic, not only did she purchase laptops with her own funds, but she also risked her health by traveling to get these to the village.

Her remarkable efforts have had dramatic results over the years. One previous recipient, a young man named Andreas who speaks the indigenous language Kaqchikel and Spanish, has gone on to a career in social justice law. Another, Maria, has earned a nursing license, opening the first pharmacy in Santa Cruz where she also treats patients. The newly educated students work to improve overall quality of life for everyone.

From Social Worker to Trader

How did this street savvy Philly gal get to the banks of a mystical lake in Central America?

During her early twenties, Grace had been a mental health social service worker for adolescent girls through a Salvation Army program. As meaningful as this work was, Grace explains that a persistent inner voice was calling her to work with Native Americans.

After graduating from Philadelphia Community College, she applied to the VISTA program, hoping to be sent where she could serve first peoples. But when VISTA officials discovered that Grace knew sign language, they posted her to Colombia, South Carolina.

“It just wasn’t what I had in mind,” she admits. “I really wanted a tribal posting.”

Then Grace met a kindred spirit who purchased and sold Native American wares. She soon embarked on her first cross country excursion – one that cemented her resolve to work with indigenous peoples.

Chestnut Hill to the Hills of Sololá

Upon returning to Philadelphia, Grace took some of her wares into a shop in Chestnut Hill, an affluent, historic neighborhood lined with antique shops, art galleries, cafes and farmers’ markets. There she encountered Lisa Strom, a holocaust survivor who ran a shop named El Quetzal. The quetzal is the national emblem of Guatemala, a fabled bird found in Central America, sacred to the ancient Mayas and Aztecs.

Their meeting was kismet. Strom immediately took Grace under her wing, inviting her to work in the shop. During her tenure, Strom repeatedly encouraged her to: “Get a van and drive down to Central America, fill it up, and come back!”

Eventually, Grace did just that, journeying with a friend through the Yucatan peninsula, landing in the Guatemalan village of Chichicastenango, then continuing to Panajachel, located below the hills of Sololá, an area made famous by 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberto Menchú for her efforts to end the oppression of indigenous peoples in Guatemala.

Now a landmark tourist destination affectionally known by locals as “Pana,” it was then a sleepy, dusty, hippie backwater on the shores of the magical Lake Atitlán, one of the earth’s so-called energy or spiritual vortexes, described by Lonely Planet as the closest thing to Eden on Earth.

Destiny provided exactly what Grace had long imagined.

From Retail to Flea Markets to a Street Vending Stand

Tragically, Strom discovered she had a terminal illness and offered Grace the opportunity to take over the shop. However, the confines of brick and mortar and retail hours didn’t suit Grace’s free spirit.

Significantly, Grace was primary caregiver for her aging mother, Ida, who was descending into dementia. Needing a steady income and flexibility, she began waitressing at a neighborhood café in historic Germantown, where she lived with and cared for Ida. Determined to see if she could make a success of her trading enterprise, she used her days off to set up a small folding table at area flea markets.

Soon she staked out a regular spot at the busy Center City intersection of Broad and Market, plopping down a beach chair next to her table so she could keep a watchful eye on Ida.

Grace’s personality captivated her professional clientele of lawyers, bankers, doctors, elected officials and city administrators, who encouraged her to apply for a formal street vendor license.

With a growing roster of regular clients, Grace sensed she needed something sturdier than a card table to display her grown inventory.

“I envisioned exactly what I wanted,” she reminisces, “a substantial stand that I could quickly construct and deconstruct each day.”

Mary Grace Gardner at her vendor stand across from Rittenhouse Square | Credit: Susan Schaefer

A carpenter named Carl came to the rescue, building Grace’s simple design that has withstood the test of time! Constructed of two hollow doors, a frame of wooden two-by-fours, held together with four nails and a few pieces of hardware, Grace’s stand is as much a Philadelphia landmark as any of the city’s historic facades. Impressively, day in and day out she has hauled this contraption in her equally iconic, ancient Ford Econoline van!

Eventually, she established her “headquarters” on the swanky retail corner of 18^th and Walnut Streets. This downtown nexus is where boomers, bankers, lawyers, and politicians are as likely as students from the nearby University of Pennsylvania and Temple University to line up for Grace’s eclectic items, from scarves, hats, mittens and sweaters to her ever-popular beaded key chains.

“You know,” she broadly smiles, “for 43 years, this idea has enabled me to live and travel and care, become a single parent and care for an elderly mother and all these things. And it was just as simple as they say, keep it simple, stupid.”

“Just one more sale!”

Full disclosure, I have known Grace for over 40 years, from working together at that Germantown café, to traveling to her magical Guatemala, to celebrating and commiserating life’s many milestones. This work of hers requires high physical and emotional stamina and strategy. Before she ever pays herself, her beloved Guatemalans receive their fair share.

I wondered what it was that initially drew her to the issues of indigenous peoples?

“I was drawn to the intuitive wisdom of these original peoples,” she says. “I saw that they possessed insight about how humans could have a healthier environment.”

This aligns entirely with Grace’s philosophy and principles. She leaves light footprint on the earth, living an authentically modest lifestyle, earning just enough to keep food on the table and that old van going, to have put her 30-year-old son, Jake, through university, and to have built a stylish but simple casita in Santa Cruz, which like her neighbors, does not have electricity but runs on propane.

People constantly ask Grace, how much longer she’s going to do this?

“Until I don’t want to do it anymore,” she grins. “I could be like 80, with my card table out there again, and people will say, ‘Grace, don’t you think it’s time to go home now?’ and I’ll say, ‘Just one more sale!’”

Susan Schaefer is a widely published independent journalist, creative

writer, and poet. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she was co-publisher

and editor of its edgy downtown biweekly, the South Street Star. She currently writes

for the Chestnut Hill Local, Wissahickon Magazine, East Falls NOW, the Bucks

County Beacon. She was a columnist and features writer for Minneapolis’

Southwest Journal and Minnesota Good Age magazine. Her articles

have appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer,

the Philadelphia Daily News, Mill City Times, the Seward Profile, and

the Netherlands’ Crossroads Magazine.