Happy Halloween, cousins!

We scoured the scrapbooks and under couch cushions for Halloween photos of the cousins, but couldn't find any. But this delightful one will work -- our talented actress cousin Leah, with husband Duane and kids Leah-Jean and Richard, in theatrical costumes. Happy Halloween! Here's a little poem to set the mood: ALL HALLOWS Even now this landscape is assembling. The hills darken. The oxen sleep in their blue yoke, the fields having been picked clean, the sheaves bound evenly and piled at the roadside among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises: This is the barrenness of harvest or pestilence. And the wife leaning out the window with her hand extended, as in payment, and the seeds distinct, gold, calling Come here Come here, little one And the soul creeps out of the tree. -- Louise Gluck

Anna and two of her brothers

Aunt Anna was proud as punch of two of her brothers, Elmer and LeRoy, in this undated photo. No doubt they were proud of her, too.

Cousin Leah, all in ribbons

Cousin Leah was cute in ribbons as she dined with Aunt Emma in this undated photo.

Good folks I work with

The Star Tribune is a floundering place these days, as are most mainstream newspapers in America, so it helps me to remember sometimes that there are still good things about it, and good people I get to see every day. Here are three, all of whom you cousins may have met at Mom's funeral or on happier occasions. Colleen oversees Page 1A and stays serene and wise no matter what, and has been my friend since the moment I met her in 1989. Holly is a slot editor and makes the paper better every day, and she's a sweet and treasured pal. Duchesne, the laughing fellow at right, is my boss, or at least one of them, and one I trust and respect even if we disagree; he and I worked together for several years on the education desk before I went on to other roles and he became a big cheese.

A bonnie lassie cousin

Cousin Chats presided over her Wichita church's Heritage Day Sunday this past weekend. A full set of photos can be found here. Looks like it was a delightful event featuring handsome men in Scottish kilts. Since the Miller heritage is Scottish-Appalachian, Chatsie fit right in. Let's hope they didn't serve haggis (right) though. We never saw Bill Miller eat haggis, just pinto beans with ham hocks and cornbread.

A gift for Grandma

Cousin Sarah gave Grandma Sprick an Easter gift in 1986. If we're not mistaken, this photo was taken mere days before Grandma passed away at age 99.

A grace-full moment

Uncle Joe's writing on the back of this cute photo of cousins Davy and Cindi says: "I made a picnic table for the kids, so they immediately had an indoor picnic. Davy had just recovered from pneumonia and looks a little thin yet. He has a butch haircut now and is getting nice and husky."

Florence's kids

Cousin Patty-Lou Rafferty read to her button-nosed baby brother, Karl Schmidt, in December 1958, above. Below, Patty and Karl celebrated a couple of years later when sister JoAnne Schmidt was born.

Mopheads

This lovable crew from the 1930s consists of Annette, Emma, Lorraine (not sure who Lorraine is), Anna, Marian and Violet (Hoeft?). We suspect they all had the same beautician.

Siren sisters

Katie and Alverna hung out on Grandma Sprick's stoop in this undated photo. As always, they appeared to be dressed to the nines.

Sticking together on a melancholy day

The Sprick men and assorted outlaws -- LeRoy, Ed, John, Hart, young Joe, Bill and Elmer -- looked pretty solemn on this photo taken in August 1973. They had reason to be grave -- they'd just served as pallbearers at Aunt Adelaide's funeral. She was killed in a car accident in Red Wing, Minn.

Verrrrrrry interesting, Anna

Who, we wonder, is this handsome young sailor Anna was hanging out with during her wartime stint in the WAVES? They make a charming twosome, for sure. Glad to see Anna had some fun during her grueling years in San Diego taking care of wounded U.S. soldiers.

News that could use some context

We found this newspaper clipping in Anna's old scrapblog. Of course we recognize Elmer W., but what is he doing? What is the separation center? Who are the Bluejackets? Who is Loretta Kasprzak of Milwaukee? (Where is the vowel she has apparently lost?) What paper was this in? We're hoping Elmer W. himself can enlighten us. (Click on the item to make it easier to read.) Addendum: We're in luck; E.W., ever happy to save the scrapblog from itself, has provided answers. Here they are: "World War II ended while I was at Great Lakes. Because I could type, I was assigned to supervise a typing pool of 20 civilian women and girls who typed discharge papers for Navy veterans (Bluejackets). Among the more important ones we processed was WAVE Anna Sprick. Most of the typists were from Milwaukee and needed a vowel -- plus close supervision."

Catty comments

Lucille, our senior cat (the skinny one, age 11), has pretty much had it with the scrapblog. Used to be, I'd come home from work and read a book with her on my lap. Now I work on the scrapblog as she stares disapprovingly at me, never blinking. In fact, here is a photo of her right now, sitting her butt in protest on the precious photos of you, dear cousins, that I had all stacked neatly in preparation for publication. Meanwhile, Turtle-icious, our junior cat (the fat one, age 10), has pretty much been taking a long nap on Noah's pillow since he left for college in early September. (Sorry, honey.) She gets up now and then to eat and belch. She has no opinion on the scrapblog.

Two very cool women

Love this photo of our dear pal Sabrina with none other than Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura in the original "Star Trek" series. Brina met her at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. The pioneering Nichols, now 74, is still as lovely as the character she portrayed.

Happy Birthday to a dear old pal!

My dear old friend, Laurie Hertzel, is 51 today. Here we are in July 1985, all dressed up for friend Tom Dennis' wedding in our Aunt Abigail's Attic dresses. I don't look at all like this anymore. Laurie, if anything, looks younger and even more beauteous! (She also writes a marvelous blog.)

Boat people

We believe this undated photo was taken on Eagle Lake in Maple Grove, which was pure country when Annette and Hart lived there in the 1940s and '50s. That's Alverna, Emma and Elmer. The back of the photo refers to Alverna as "Slugger," her nickname.

A photo thick with Spricks

It was May 13, 1945, Mother's Day, and the Sprick kids gathered to honor their mom, Grandma Sprick. From left: Anna, Joe, Florence, Alverna, Katie, Vi, Grandma, Adelaide, LeRoy and little niece Leah. (Click on this photo to make it a lot larger.)

Marion-orama

We love these two undated photos of Aunt Marion. In the top one, she's solemn on her confirmation day. Below, she's a new nurse, tidy in her uniform except that she seems to be standing in a desert in a windstorm. The expression on her face is the same one that is on her grandson N.'s face in the photo a couple posts below this one.

Any day spent in a red dress is a good day

The scrapblog editor took good care of her doll, Elizabeth. All of the scrapblog editor's dolls were named Elizabeth, in hopeful anticipation of a real daughter someday named Elizabeth. (Luckily, she has a beautiful niece of that name.) She ended up with a Noah instead, and he would never sit still for baths, to put it mildly. (Once she was giving little Noah a bath and all the tile on the wall fell down, but we'll save that story for another day.) Friend Sabrina has noted how often the scrapblog editor was dressed in red as a child. Never thought about it, but it appears to be true. It was always Alverna's favorite color.

MEA weekend in the wild

Cousin Dan and his stalwart sons, M. and N., spent this past weekend at Clearwater Lake, about a third of the way up the Gunflint Trail in northeastern Minnesota. Dan reports that it was windy and rainy and water was shooting out of waterfalls and pouring over Hwy. 61. In the top photo, N., splendid in flapping plaid, was buffeted like a bird by howling wind and driven rain on the beach in Grand Marais. In the second photo, Marty, a fine athlete and outdoorsman, stood on a palisade in the BWCA; you can see Canada behind him. At right, the spent hikers soaked in a hot tub heated by a wood fire. They all came home smelling like smoke -- and happy and refreshed, Dan reports.

Florence and the fires

This just in ... Aunt Florence and Harry haven't been forced out of their San Diego home by the fires raging in California, but Harry's daughter has, and is staying with them. Sending our best to them all. (That's young Flo above in an undated photo.)

The joys of farm life

Elmer, Florence, Alverna and Katie on the Sprick farm near Lake City, Minn. The back of the photo says "Toots" was riding Babe the horse. Toots, we take it, was Katie. These four were the youngest kids in their family. Alverna was born in 1924, Florence in 1926, Elmer in 1927 and Katie-Toots in 1930.

Posing can be exhausting

Zachary Miller propped up his two weary sisters, H. and M., during a grueling Christmas 1995 photo shoot.

Anna meets her little niece Leah

In 1940, Anna, an aunt for the very first time, held niece Leah Sprick, the very first Sprick cousin from the middle-aged cousins' generation.

An Anna extravaganza

Not surprisingly, Anna's old scrapbooks contained a treasurehouse of Anna photos. Here are four we especially like. None was dated, but we think they're from her high school graduation, her college graduation and her stint as a Navy WAVE during World War II.

Uncle Joe as St. Francis of Assisi

The scribble on the back of this undated old photo says only, "Elmer." We like very much his tenderness toward the two dogs and the cat on his lap. We assume this was taken on the Sprick family farm. Addendum from Joe: "This is the first time I've seen some of these old photos. The IDs are correct for the persons. As for the dogs, Shep is in the crate and Skippy is by my feet. The cat had no name as we had so many. The fancy crate was made the the J.R. Clark Woodenware Co., where Hart worked. They sent us the pedigreed cocker spaniel in that crate because the dog needed a home. The farm was too great a culture shock for him, and his tour of duty was short. I eventually grew into the shirt and overalls and got a pair of shoes when school started. We didn't have much in those days, but we had each other, and that was all that was important."

Hair today, there yesterday, not gone tomorrow

In the stellar 1992 photo above of a PRICELESS BLUE PLATE, you may also notice the Kirkwood kids. A handsome bunch for sure, and we couldn't help but note that cousin Sandy has more hair than all the rest of those knuckleheads put together. Ever committed to important historical research, we went back, back into the archives to see if that was always so. Darned if we didn't find this 1952 photo... ... in which, sure enough, newborn Sandy had so much dark hair that her proud parents had to style it before taking the photo. Ain't she cute?

A treasured wee one

Tanya, now a beautiful and accomplished young mother of three, was just a wee babe when her mom, Cindi, introduced her to Uncle Wally and other relatives in summer 1976. We think Taney, as her proud grandparents Joe and Mavis call her, looked a lot like her own little daughters did at that age.

An eerie intersection of news and history

The scrapblog editor had an deja-vu moment while editing this story for Wednesday's Star Tribune. It's the sad tale of a Monticello man who died of rabies after being bitten by a bat. It said: He is the fifth person to die of rabies in Minnesota in the past century. Other victims died in 1917, 1964, 1975 and 2000. We remembered that Alverna used to tell the tale of a 10-year-old cousin, Gary Sprick, who died of rabies in the mid-1960s after being attacked by a rabid skunk in a tent he was sleeping in outside the family farm near Rochester, Minn. According to her, Gary was allergic to anti-rabies medication and there was nothing doctors could do. We looked up his death certificate on the Minnesota Historical Society's online death certificates index and found this: SPRICK, GARY L. Date of Birth: 04/18/1954 Place of Birth: MINNESOTA Date of Death: 09/01/1964 County of Death: OLMSTED Death certificate No. 1964-MN-013989 And this sad little story was in the Star Tribune's "morgue," its basement library of old newspaper clips:

Oh, those zany, madcap Spricks

Adelaide, Annette, Ed and Marion, splendid in cool hats, cut up during a dress-up occasion in the 1950s. (Click on the image to make Adelaide's truly magical hat larger and easier to see.)

Anna's close personal friend, Randy Breuer

Speaking of Randy Breuer, as we were in the last post, he sent this to Aunt Anna when she retired from teaching in Red Wing, Minn. (Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to read.)

Extry! Extry! Spricks read all about it!

Lake City, Minn., was abuzz in spring 1978, when the Lincoln High School Tigers, helped along by Randy Breuer (later of the Milwaukee Bucks), won the state high school basketball championship. Here, Grandma, Vi, LeRoy and Ed showed the coverage in four papers -- the Lake City Graphic, the Red Wing Republican Eagle, the Minneapolis Tribune and the Rochester Post-Bulletin. Ah, if only people these days read newspapers as avidly as this crew did.