Sheets of rain draped my house as I set about sorting a stack of old books.  The family treasures frequently double as time capsules, their margin scribbles hinting at ancestors’ personalities and thoughts.  Every so often a careful gleaning reveals tucked newspaper clippings, forgotten photographs and hidden notes. A Spanish American Life, my mother’s college reader, rewarded my page flipping with a postcard!

My grandfather, Donald Minor, mailed this note in mid-May, 1951, to arrange for my mother’s return from Houghton College at month’s end.  The family schedule sounds remarkably similar to plans I made with my own college kids.  And his observations of the weather could have been made on just this day:

“My how it rains — We don’t have thing in the garden and no corn ground plowed.”