About Town

By Ida and Doris Lessenden

December 26, 2003

We wish you all happy holidays…and most especially a blessed and prosperous, healthy New Year to you and your loved ones. One of our friends whose husband died this year read us a poem over the telephone that gave her such comfort. The poem talked about how their loved one was in heaven this year with Jesus. That reminded Doris that Pastor Gatchell of Sheridan Lake who assisted with the funeral of Randy Lafferty of Kit Carson told a grieving friend, think of it this way; "This will be Randy’s first Christmas in Heaven with Jesus." She said, "I never thought of it that way", and quickly began telling Randy’s friends from the sheltered homes in Burlington what Pastor Gatchell said.

Tuesday was a special day for Ida when Jim and Louise Anderson who have lived in Narobi, Kenya for many years came to visit her at the Nursing Home. Ida has written to them for many, many years since we met them in Leo and LuEllen’s Lamar home at Christmas time. They are missionaries who work with Wycliffe Translators to translate the Bible into native languages. They visited LuEllen at Rainbow Ranch recently near Yoder.

Several 4-H members from the east end of the county really pleased the Weisbrod residents when they came to play bingo with them on Thursday evening. Ida said, there were so many members that were new to her.

Margie Wiltfang has had a poem published by Noble House in a book called "Theator of the Mind." Margie’s poem is the first one in the book.

Saturday afternoon, a number of folks gathered at the Eads senior citizen center to play cards and have their Christmas gift exchange. At the noon dinner the 17^th, LaVerle Kelley was elected President, Faye Barber, the Vice President, and Esther McCoin will continue as Secretary and Gloria Peck, the Treasurer. The New Year’s Party will be December 31st at 1:00 pm. Bring finger foods and stay just as long as you wish. Lots of card playing and maybe some board games are slated for the afternoon.

Many people have been asking Wanda Lessenden, " When are you going to have cookies and punch?" Well, it is usually on a Saturday, but Wanda has been traveling, taking care of grandchildren and doing other community things. Bless her heart, she hosted that special day this Tuesday at the Post Office. The patrons always look forward to her hospitality open house.

The Musgrave family is eagerly awaiting the return of son, Joe, Lori, and Bradley to be here for a short furlough before he begins his new station in Korea. That is where J. C. Cordova of Haswell is stationed also.

Early last Sunday morning, before Terry Laird had heard the news that Saddam Hussein had been captured, Kevin McNamara, who is stationed in Hawaii, called and shouted, "We caught him, Mr. Laird, we caught him!" Kevin was hoping his classmate Bruce, was home so he could tell him the good news.

Congratulations to Rhonda (McDaniel) Krueger who recently finished her course work at Arapahoe Community College in Denver to be a certified Activities Director, Rhonda works at Weisbrod Nursing Home.

Pastor Gary Goettel led the Weisbrod chapel service, Sunday; Nancy Walker played many Christmas carols for people to sing along. Afterwards, Philomene Liesen accompanied her students to the home where Leisha Peck and Jayce and Jennifer Negley played Christmas songs on the piano. Shalyn Laird sang, "O Holy Night," as Jennifer played the accompaniment. It was nice to see their parents, Gloria Peck and Amy (Holcomb) Gorley who came with the musicians.

Burrell and Ruby Wissel were delighted to have three of their son, Ken’s, four daughters visit them Sunday afternoon. The lovely girls are Rebecca, Erin, and Rachael, and great grandson, Cody.

Services were held for Wayne Glover, of Eads Monday afternoon. We offer our most sincere sympathy to Alice and the children and extended family. Wayne worked with a farm insurance company and government farm offices for many years. Many family and friends came to pay their respects.

June Blooding and Micki’s sister’s families, Arêta and Sylvia, were glad to have their sister, Micki and Les Faulken from California here over the weekend. Micki’s daughters, Marlyn and babies from Denver and Mary from California were also here.

Several local churches had their children’s programs during the last two weeks. Our happiest vivid memories were the candlelight evening services we used to attend and participate in.

Now that school is out for two weeks, drivers need to watch out for young people on the streets and sidewalks. It has been such good warm weather, that we forget this is December and not April. Oh, we did forget about the wind storm that hit us last Monday that left so many cars dirty.

"Thanks to Mike and Cindy McLoud and Kelli Jensen who "saved" Doris last Tuesday when she had became high centered in her power chair. The good Town Manager, Van Brown, helped her out again and reparked her van so the ramp was on the sidewalk. We are really blessed in this town to have this diligent, helpful, wise young man as a Town of Eads employee.

Doris and I have really been enjoying letters from former students, like Kelly Lujan, Sandy (Weber) Childs, Nancy (Anderson) Crow, Craig and Lynae Stavely,

Jody (Schmitt) Ritkowski, Oscar and Brandi (Weirich) Ridgeway. Christmas cards are such a blessing. Mother Ida, enjoys all the cards that come to her and those I take up to her room.

After months of work behind boarded windows, now there are nice new windows in the future Day Care center on Maine Street in the Bransgrove Building that Milton Watts and his workers are restoring and transforming.

Tina Kraft is nearing the end of her coursework at Lamar Community College in Child Care Development. This year she is being mentored by Carole Spady in the Pre-School at Eads elementary school. She loves the work and we know that Carole is a great teacher of little people and of adults. Cathy Watson who has worked with Carole for many years has a primary role in the elementary Library which frees Betsy Barnett up to work more in the High School Library and media Center as well as to supervise the Distance Learning Lab which means she guides the students who take courses over the television by local fiber optics or over the internet. As a result Eads High students, who wish to take more rigorous courses, can do so.

Tuesday afternoon the Weisbrod staff, nurses, secretaries, and housekeeping, hosted a wonderful buffet and party for the Nursing Home Residents. Each resident had a Secret Santa who gave them a gift which brought a lot of pleasure as well as the tasty foods.

Garth and Penny Neischburg visited us Friday evening to bring us their traditional rum cake which we look forward to each year. They were going to attend the Nuggets basketball game in Denver on Saturday night.

What a joy at the end of Monday evening, to get a phone call from Kelly Lujan down in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He wished us "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" and to his friends round about Eads.