A week ago, sister Jane and I took a quick road trip to North Platte, NE for her uncle Lloyd Johnson's funeral. We left my house at 8 am and following a quick lunch break in Shelby, IA we pulled into North Platte about 5:10 pm. After settling into the Hampton Inn, we met with Bill and Bunny Johnson. This was Bill's brother's funeral. There were family stories shared. Jane was most excited to meet Lloyd's 2 daughters, Peggy and Barbara. Peggy and Jane knew of each other as children but hadn't seen one another since some 55 years ago. Barbara is closer to my age. Lloyd's widow, has an amazing memory. While she was excited that Jane had come for the funeral, she looked over her shoulder at me (sitting in a pew back a ways) and said "Is that Stephanie?" "Stephanie E____ (blanked out for security purposes)?" While picking up my jaw, I walked up by Jane and the widow and I gave her my sympathy and then she asked about my sister Susan E____, brother Steven (she couldn't remember his middle name) and Sindi....I am still just flabergasted by her knowledge of our family. I don't know this woman, she only lived in our hometown for a few years, yet she knew all about us! Just amazing...
We left Wednesday directly after the burial at Fort McPherson Nat'l Cemetary. This was very stoic...the Air Force Base Honor Guard did an OUTSTANDING job for this veteran. The wind was blowing 40-50 mph, misting or raining and cold! Yet they maintained their composure, folded the flag like you'd see at the Washington DC Tomb of the Unknown soldier.... and I could really feel for the soldier who played Taps...my lips were cold just thinking of it! We left North Platte in rainy conditions and about 20 minutes later we were driving in SNOW! That lasted about 30 minutes and then we drove in rain all the way back to Des Moines. We got back to my place at 12:15 am Thursday morning. Manned with the Garman GPS system we got there and back thru the big towns of Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Omaha and North Platte! Now Jane just needs to name her!! We had a nice trip even though it was a sad situation. Good time bonding with Jane!
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I think Mom used to have a picture of 2 girls sitting on the couch reading a book to us. Peggy and Barbara sounds familiar. If I recall the girl reading was older and the other one was about your age. You'd have to ask Mom.
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