My father was a complicated man.
A surgeon, pilot, seminary grad,
he used the opportunities he had
to overcome the life where he began.
(Depression-era broken home; my gran
divorced his cheating, alcoholic dad).
Conversion, war, then Harvard, marriage glad,
five children—much he did in short a span.
But middle-age provoked a darker turn.
He left his wife though teaching Sunday school
(his father’s lessons he forgot to learn),
for years wrought pain, lascivious and cruel.
But grace abounded; guilt began to burn,
till Twilight Mercy Found a Grateful Fool.
Category Archives: Family
Great-Grandma and Typhoid
The second summer we were here was full of such sickness as I had never seen or thought of. . . . It was typhoid.
In the process of unpacking from our recent move, I have at my hand once again a letter that my Great-Grandma Nourse wrote from Louisiana in 1938 to a friend in California. It tells the story of her family’s life after their move from California to Louisiana and covers a roughly four year period during the Great Depression from around 1934 to 1938. It was written to an old family friend back in California and was later returned to my grandmother by one of that friend’s descendants.
The purpose of this post is to share that letter.
Continue readingAlways Open a Tickets
Note: The two years we spent in Saudi Arabia were by general consensus the best two years of our family life. The kids were all three still at home but all old enough to have independent experiences and remember stuff. And Saudi itself was fantastic. Still, there were some moments. Boy were there. Dealing with customer service in any form was always liable to be memorable. Putting stories like this on Facebook was a fun way to stay connected with the folks back home. (DL, June 10, 2023).
Saudi customer service strikes again:
Step 1) Send a wire transfer to the US
Step 2) Ten days pass.
Step 3) Wire transfer never arrives
Step 4) Call US bank:
“Wire transfer much?”
“Nope. Sorry.”
Step 5) Take a half day off work to shuttle around town and stand in line at Saudi bank.
Continue readingOne of the Best Nights Ever
Note: I wrote this Facebook post just over a month after Holly and the kids had moved out to join me in Saudi Arabia. Those neighbors (sadly now divorced) and those Thursday nights on the patio are some of our dearest memories from that time. We carry on the tradition still. Just last night we had our own South Carolina Friday night on the patio, complete with shisha, home-made charcuterie, and music. (DL, June 10, 2023).
How do you memorialize one of those nights, one of those special moments that shines as one of the best of your life?
Tonight as I was finishing a late-night call with a vendor in California, Holly stuck her head in and said to come next door. Our neighbors (whom I had not met) wanted to share their secret stash of vodka and wine with us.
What followed was two exquisite hours of drink, and cheese, and forbidden Corsican salami with a generous and delightful Lebanese couple, sitting in the night under the leafy green of their back patio, soaking in Adele and Jaques Brel and talking of life, and parenting, and politics, and life in America, and Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.
It was one of the best nights ever.
Willard E. Lohnes, M. D. (1924 – 2012)
Willard Erwin Lohnes Sr., M.D., 88, husband of Nell Jackson Lohnes, went to be with the Lord on Sunday, October 21, 2012.
Dr. Lohnes was born February 12, 1924 in Waterloo, IA, to the late Herbert Joseph Lohnes and Margaret Anna Heinl Lohnes. After graduating from Waterloo’s West High with the class of ’42, Dr. Lohnes served with the US Army Air Forces in the US and in the Pacific area until 1946. After WWII, he passed up a chance to transition from bomber navigator to jet pilot, choosing instead to pursue his long-held goal of becoming a medical doctor, graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1951. He served as general and thoracic surgeon until retirement in 1989.
Despite never making pilot with the Air Force, Dr. Lohnes did become a pilot, becoming certified as both a private pilot and private pilot instructor. He was also an avid reader and had a deep appreciation for music, theology, and education. After retirement, he served as a Gideon. He was married twice, both times for more than thirty years.
Surviving in addition to his wives Nell Jackson and Martha Miller, are four sons (Paul Lohnes, Willard Lohnes, Jr., Wes Sanders, and David Lohnes); four daughters (Anne Whiteford, Margaret McCoy, Laura Ray, and Rachel Salter); 26 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
He was predeceased by his brother, Dr. John Lohnes, and his grandson, Micah Lohnes.
Memorial services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Monday, Oct. 29 at Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church, officiated by the Rev. Curtis DuBose and the Rev. Willard Lohnes Jr.
Burial and funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 26 in Cherokee, Iowa.
Memorials may be made to Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church Missions, 207 Mitchell Road, Greenville, SC 29615; or to Golden Strip Gideons, P.O. Box 1025, Fountain Inn, SC 29644.