A lovely Weekend

As I told you in my last blog, we had a lovely weekend with Larry, Adriane, and Larry’s parents, in Alabama to celebrate Doug Ludwick’s baptism. We spent a long weekend together. We had cook-outs and played on their play ground, and had lots of good things to eat. Certainly there were many pictures taken of various combinations of people. The four kids had a great time together. They enjoyed each other and we certainly enjoyed them. This occasion was possibly the only opportunity we had to spend time with the older Ludwicks  together with their grand children. I am so happy that I took so many pictures that I am able to remember the time! 

Doug Ludwick, our Godson

Larry and Adriane Ludwick adopted their second son, Doug, and Janice and I were asked to be his Godparents. We were very much honored to accept that position. He was baptized in the spring of 1976. We went to their church in Auburn, Alabama, for the ceremony.  It was a grand get-together. Larry’s parents were there and they were very happy. The pictures below were taken on the Sunday after the ceremony. We had a big celebration that lasted the whole week-end, so the children got a chance to get to know each other. 

Yuan-Ge and Xiao-Jie

Yuan Ge（袁哥） and Xiao Jie（小姐）were the names we called them in Chinese. She was my cousin from my father’s side, the daughter of my father’s brother. She was also one of the young relatives who followed my father to Taiwan. Their families lived in the county of Huang-pei, a very poor and backward place near the city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei. Yuan Ge was also from Hubei and was serving as a police chief. He was doing quite well at the time. When I came to study in the USA, these two were very important in helping me raise the travel expense needed for the air fare($2200). At the time, the sum was so big that I would have had to work as a tutor for a couple of years to get that kind of money. They came to visit us in the early spring of 1976 with their elder son and his wife and with their first grandchild. We were very happy to host that visit and that turned out to be the only time for Yuan Ge to come to Johnson City. We took them to our usual sites nearby and Janice did her best to entertain them.

Alice (Ai) Ma

Alice Ai came to Johnson City in 1974 or 1975. She was introduced to us by our best man, Sherman. She came to work on an MBA at ETSU and quickly became very close to us, especially to our children. They enjoyed her patience and became very fond of her. They loved it when she came to baby-sit and play with them. When we went to Taiwan in the summer of 1975, we met her parents too. Her father even arranged a trip to a northern Taiwan beach for us. Alice spent quite a bit time with us during the Christmas holiday season. The pictures below were taken during that period in 1975:

Christmas 1975

We usually have quite a number of friends or relatives visiting us during Christmas time. As far as I can determine, in 1975 we had several visitors during the Christmas season, but we did not have anyone who stayed with us on Christmas day. That was a very unusual situation. Perhaps it was the only time we did not have someone staying with us. I have only pictures showing our family members opening gifts on the big day as you will see below.

Our Savoir Lutheran Church Choir

Sometime before 1975, I gave up the position as director of the Junior Choir at Our Savoir Lutheran Church and started to direct the Adult Choir which the church was just organizing. We gave our first concert in the church at Christmas time, singing a cantata. The whole group was very happy at their achievement and was delighted by the wide and good reception by our congregation. The regular responsibility of the Adult Choir was to sing an anthem at one of the two services on Sundays, and generally to sing two to three special musical arrangements each year during Christmas and Easter time. Occasionally, we sang at weddings and funerals when requested and when we could do them as a group. We did enjoyed our togetherness, and the challenges of some tough music. In early 1976, Janice and I gave a party for the choir at our home. Most of members were there. The pictures below include Charles and Martha Montgomery, Otto Zinser, Tom Revilla, Helen Mould, Ann Cunningham, Marianne Anderson, Barbara Diehl, and her mother Elnora Knipp.

More Visitors

There were more visitors in the fall of 1975. I do not remember how Janice made the arrangements to host so many people at one time. But somehow we packed everyone into our place. This was before Christmas but during or after Thanksgiving. We had Harris and Priscilla Burns and the Sanzone family (including George, his wife Jeanne, their son Tom, and their two daughters Stephanie and Bunny). As usual, we had dinner together using our big round table. After dinner, we sang mostly Christmas songs together. These visitors gave us a lot of fun. We can still feel the joy of being together and our cheerful singing!

Ginger and Bill Francis

Both Ginger and Bill were regular visitors to our home. I believe that Bill had not yet retired from work in 1975. They came down from Sandusky,OH, to get to know our children better. It was always very nice to see them and certainly our children had a wonderful time with them. When I look back to this kind of visit, I no longer remember what we did together, and where we went to visit. Of course, no one wrote down anything to remind us what kind of activities were conducted. We were just like family members getting together to enjoy each other, nothing more or less. The pictures below helped  jog my memory and I am happy that we took them! We were playing cards in two of them and the other two were taken at Roan Mountain, one of our favorite places just to walk around.

Taiwan Visit 1975

When Janice and I look back, the Taiwan Visit 1975 was one of the better visits we had together with our children. It would be interesting to find out what they remember when we get the opportunity. In 1975, both my parents were healthy and fully aware of their lives, and our children were old enough to enjoy the life there. They learned quite a bit about the culture and customs of Chinese tradition.  They had the opportunity to soak in what the general public got, both air and water. It might be not very different from what they learned in the US. But who can predict from where you learned everything that matters in your life?

The last story about this visit actually happened after we arrived back in the USA. Remember that Joseph Wang went to Taiwan with us. He came back with us too! In addition, Linda and Jackson’s two year old daughter was with us also. Her grandparents told her to stay with me until we met her parents.   She did exactly that and literally followed me everywhere, sometimes holding my leg as we drove from California to Johnson City, Tennessee. For that trip of four days we were lucky to have Holiday Inn specials: “when you stay with us, kids eat for free”. The pictures below were taken at a playground on the way back!