1994: The Pellettiere Part of Ruth Kellogg's Family

There we are in the living room of the house in Palatine:  (couch) Kate (24), Diane, Dan, (front) Lynn (28), Cindy (27).  As you can see from the little Santa in the foreground, this picture was on our
Christmas card, so probably taken within a week of Thanksgiving.

Nov. 24, 1994 - Thanksgiving
"Everything went well today, except that the turkey took an hour longer to cook than the directions indicated!  We ate everything except the turkey - then had it later - and dessert still later.

Thought the meal was good.  Vi brought ravioli from a store near her - and sauce.  She brought some artichokes as well as cheese.  The artichokes were disappointing.  Also had a fruit salad, a broccoli & carrot dish with horseradish sauce, sweet potatoes, oven-roasted potatoes, herb scones, Applejack Pie, French Chocolate Cake - plus the turkey and traditional Bread Stuffing.

The stuffing recipe's origin is lost in antiquity.  It probably was Mrs. Millard's, the woman who raised my grandmother when her own mother, Viola Hawley Weekes, died in 1896.  ..I must check the 1900 census & see if William Weekes is on it & if any of the children are shown with him.  

Vi and Dorothy Heitschmidt both joined us for dinner.  Kate picked them up & Dan & I drove them back to Vi's.  Jim was here too.  He had had a dental patient - emergency - in the morning.  He was working on Lynn's car too.  Was in a very good mood  in the afternoon .  He did a lot of the dishes with Dorothy drying for him!  Jim's back was bothering him."

Vi was Dan's much-older sister and Dorothy was one of her closest friends.  Jim Waldman and Lynn were engaged and would marry on June 3, 1995...The grandmother I referred to is Lottie Meredith, Ruth's mother.  Lottie was 9 years old when her mother died of "chronic gatarrhal gastritis" when she was 38.  Two of the 4 children had died.  Only Lottie (Carlotta Lola Lucretia) and her younger brother, Lewis Henry, were left with William, their father. 

In 1968 Ruth Wrote About a Terrible Shooting That "Shocked the Multitudes."

"We babysat tonite so Diane & Dan could go out for a cocktail and see movie, 'The Graduate' at the Capital in town.

This morning D & D went alone to the beach for a few hours of walking and relaxing after picking up 2 rental strollers at $3 each for a week.

Dr. Martin Luther King was killed by a bullet in the neck in Memphis, Tennessee appearance today.  It shocked the multitudes.  Not good for colored equality.  Afraid of uprisings now everywhere."

That last paragraph was written in red pen.  My mother was probably quoting what she had heard on television about "uprisings."

Dan and I were visiting my parents, John and Ruth Kellogg, in Clearwater FL where they'd moved a year or two earlier.  Lynn was almost two years old and Cindy about 9 months.  You can see all four of us on a couch in the living room of the condo.

I didn't recall that we had seen "The Graduate" that particular night, but vividly recall the cocktail at Schraft's, a restaurant/bar in Clearwater.  We were sitting at the bar when the television on the wall in front of us broadcast the news and film about the death of Martin Luther King.  It was a horrifying moment, not unlike the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963.  You hear the words, see the picture, but it is too awful to believe.