David & Helen Horn

Post date: May 10, 2013 3:34:15 AM

Dear Jeannie,

We are wowed to hear that you are soon to graduate with a B.S.

Ed. from Alabama State. Bravo, dear perseverant friend!

We’d like to share some memories with you. David made Bob’s acquaintance in the early 70’s when Bob was in Columbus as lobbyist for the Ohio Council of Churches and Dave was lobbying for redistricting reform. When Helen was co-directing the Appalachian Peace and Justice Network in the 80’s, you and Bob joined her at an Athens County elementary school to give kids the powerful visceral experience of “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes” racial discrimination. When you and Bob bought The Promised Land in Vinton County just south of us, it was easier for us all to get together.

I remember putting the finishing touches on potluck meals with you in your snug little kitchen there, although I was sobered to hear that you two were carrying water from a spring your first years. We remember your accounts of Carolyn’s long walks to the bus stop, but enthusiasm about her teacher, Bill Hemminger at Vinton Co. High. Bill was a friend of ours. Later, after Carolyn married, you shared about her disabled child and how Carolyn was meeting the challenges.

One time you invited a young couple to join us for lunch who were, like us, living on a farm. They were raising and selling free range chickens and were full of stories. All three of us couples were raising vegetable gardens and contending with hungry critters who kept figuring out how to make off with our produce. Another time you and Bob brought Ed Clark, a local newspaper editor/square dance caller, and his wife, Patti, up to our house for a meal. Graetzes and Horns had square danced to Ed’s calls in a hall in McArthur. Increasingly over the years, you and Bob dressed in color-coordinated clothes, which added to your charm at such events.

Often, however, we just got together as a foursome. I remember singing songs to your dulcimer accompaniment in your cosy living room. I remember communing about Ray’s life and death there, and seeing the display of photos you had put together for his memorial. We heard then, and thereafter, about your joint efforts to change the minds of Lutherans about homosexuals, as you had worked on racism earlier on. The challenges in your children’s lives sure stretched you to work for new causes. It was moving to meet many members of your rainbow family at a wedding anniversary of yours held in the basement of a Columbus Lutheran Church a decade or so ago.

Our most recent get-together was over lunch at our house after a fierce windstorm had downed the electric lines for over a week. We shared how we had managed to cope. I remember you had an amazing album of photos to show us, depicting children and grandchildren and places in Europe and Africa to which you had traveled. Before you left, we decided that we all could use a nap. You and Bob lay down on the double bed in our downstairs guest room. Dave stretched out on the couch and I on a futon I brought down from upstairs. Late in our half-hour siesta, a young friend stopped in with food and batteries, to make sure we were surviving without power. She must have been amazed to come in on two rooms full of flopped out elders, all happily sawing wood together!

We are awed that you have persevered all these years until you can graduate with a BSE. A bachelor you have never been--a devoted wife and mother to the Graetz tribe, that’s clear--but in the formal sense you can soon claim to be a bona fide bachelor in spite of all that! Neat trick.

We love you deep down, and wish you a joyous celebration with your gathered family. David and Helen Horn, Woodcock Nature Preserve, 5975 Marshfield Rd., New Marshfield, OH 45766.