Two related projects

But first JJ's garden.  In front of her house.  Used to be scraggly lawn but look at it now.  I asked her how she got things to grow so well.  I fertilize them, she told me.  What a concept.  I generally put things in the ground and wonder why they barely make it.  Duly noted.

So I've finished the two projects.  The Amsterdam Stolperstein project and the Priscilla Parkin Memorial Award project.  On reflection, they are very similar.  The first was to place a Stolperstein (stumbling stone) marker in front of my grandfather's first cousin's last address in Amsterdam.  With appropriate ceremony.  This was a big deal for my highly assimilated family as most believed my mother's story that 'Nobody in our family died at the hands of the Nazis'  She probably told me that in high school.  At first I believed her and then I didn't.  C'mon, we have a family that's 100% descended from the Jewish Peoples of Europe.  Though a large part of the ancestors have been here many generations.  Of course, family members died, they HAD to.  We just didn't know about them.  So when I found the family member who, with his own family, died at Sobibor and Auschwitz, it started an earthquake in my family.  At the same time, I learned about the decentralized memorial Stolpersteine.  Since we knew the last address, I told my cousin (who usually is my partner-in-crime,) we have to do this, we must lay this memorial.  There's nobody else.  We must do it in Amsterdam.  It took 9 years in the making but we did it.

The Priscilla Parkin project was a little closer.  She died in 1971 and her parents set up a scholarship fund.  But I hadn't paid much attention and it was time to correct that.  I wondered what to do exactly and, as the plan went on, I got kicked upstairs so we were the program for the main Crown College luncheon.  I was determined to do it.  Got another of Priscilla's friends, Jean, to help.  I wanted to talk about Priscilla first (she has her own story!) and also feature some of the award winners.  It worked really well, they had a beautiful luncheon; about 50 people in attendance and the award-winners for this year were announced and acknowledged.  I hope it brought Priscilla alive because she was a very alive person.

These projects are related.  Through me.