I used to be an intelligent energetic biology teacher, but I feel the energy and intelligence trickling away. Who am I, aside from being someone's wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, and aunt? Do I have an identity of my own? This year at Church, after my health improved, I became a Relief Society teacher and a visiting teacher. I would like to do something scientific like volunteering for an environmental or conservation organization.
I am also an avid reader, and I am (or used to be) an artist. I loved my 3rd grade teacher. Besides encouraging reading, she encouraged us to excel in penmanship, math and art. Mrs. Getchell was an artist herself and she recognized the potential I had to be an artist. I took art classes in high school and one in college and explored art on my own. I took an art class in Hawaii, more classes in Oregon including palette knife technique and went faithfully every Saturday in Germany and studied the human figure, pen and ink, watercolor, and the Old Master's technique in oil painting. I did a little painting during vacations when we lived in Las Vegas, and while I am inspired to paint the beautiful scenery here on the Oregon coast, our house is so crowded that the only clear open area to set up an easel and table is in my very large shower. I need to start drawing and painting anywhere!
And finally, I am (or used to be) an educator and scientist. With a B.S. in Zoology from B.Y.U., a M. Ed. in Educational Administration (at age 47) and a M.S. in Biology (at age 56) both from U.N.L.V. you can tell that I believe in lifelong education! I wrote my thesis on the Naatural History of Daphnia in Red Rock Conservation Area, Nevada. I have taught Biology in Crete, Greece at Iraklion American High School. In Las Vegas I taught Physical, Life, and Earth Sciences as well as Biology at the Hebrew Academy. I taught Biology and Microbiology labs at U.N.L.V., and then Biology at Mojave High School. I miss teaching at the college level but have to say that I do not miss teaching high school kids! They can exhaust a teacher, and so much time is spent on classroom discipline that would be better spent on teaching the subject matter.
So you can see some of what I "used to be" (artist, educator and scientist), but not what I am now except "retired," and I am not sure I am happy with that label (I waste time watching TV and playing computer games and napping). What would I like to accomplish? I would like to get my personal history and family histories up-to-date. I would like to get my photo albums finished and print some of the hundreds of photos that are "stuck" in my computer. I would like to continue genealogical research and get names temple-ready and take those names to the temple myself. I have included photos of family history that I enjoy looking at and hope you do too. I would like to exercise (swim?) and lose weight. This last one has been my New Year's Resolution every year for the last fifty years!!
I would like to spend more time with my family members who are not here, so come visit and maybe one of these days we will get a trailer or motorhome and come see you. I have eight children with their partners, 22 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren. Tiffany and her three children live with us and sometimes it feels like they are more like my children than grandchildren. They certainly liven up the place.
I am happy to be back in Oregon an hour west of Clatskanie where I was born and an hour north of Garibaldi where I grew up until I left to attend the University of Oregon after high school graduation. I am fifteen minutes from Astoria, the town at the mouth of the Columbia River where all four of my grandparents settled when they immigrated from Finland, and where my mother was born in 1910. The photos that follow were taken in 1941 in the Marshland area of Clatskanie. The first one is of my mother with Kenny and Rosie with me and the second is of my father Charlie Erickson, uncle Hugo Hanhi, Grandpa Sakari Hanhi and uncle Floyd Van Horn.
Anna Hanhi Erickson holding Kenny Erickson, Rosie Peaney Erickson holding Priscilla Erickson
Charles Erickson, Hugo Hanhi, Sakari Hanhi, Floyd Van Horn
I am happy that I had the opportunity to live in so many different places--Provo UT, Portland OR, Ewa Beach and Aiea Hawaii, Albuquerque NM, the Greek Island of Crete, Kaiserslautern, Germany, and Las Vegas NV, and to visit so many other different places--Canada, Mexico, Turkey, Cyprus, the Isle of Patmos, Egypt, Israel, Italy, the Greek islands of Rhodes and Corfu, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and England. Thanks to the United States Air Force for our world tour!
My three favorite places are the Big Sur in California, the Hawaiian Islands and the Oregon Coast. I love living so close to the ocean that we can hear and smell it and are a few minutes walk over the hill and across the sand dunes to the beach. Our community is less than ten miles north of Seaside, is called "Surf Pines," and is in the south end of the town of Warrenton. This area was reclaimed from the sand dunes in the 1940's when it was planted extensively with rows and rows of shore pines. It is nice to be back "home" in Oregon after spending 45 years following my dentist husband around the world which included being stuck in Las Vegas for 25 years. So tell me what you think of my blog so far!
This photo is of my mother's family taken in 1921 in Rosburg, Washington where they lived in the house grandpa built. The story my mother told me was that grandma Matilta Kouva made grandpa Sakari Hanhi wait seven years to get married. He had to earn the money for land and build a house before they got married. Vieno didn't like his picture so he cut himself off the left side of the picture. In back are Grandpa, Grandma, Helen, Anna and in front are Hugo and Esther.
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