Our mother, Evelyn Roepke Blumer, is the product of a two-story, stucco farmhouse near a wandering creek and nestled between fields of waving wheat and sunflowers in central Kansas. The brick church wasn’t far from the family homestead and wasn’t far from their lives and mom’s upbringing. The word I have for mom is caretaker. […]
My father, Boyd Blumer, started from humble beginnings. The farm where he grew up was modest, farming less than one section of land to feed a family of seven. He began his education in a one-room school house that he walked or rode horse to and from (allegedly in waist deep snow, uphill, in 80 […]
When our son was almost two years old, we were camping and he spent the day picking up rocks. He picked up one near the campfire that actually turned out to be a coal. It was a painful lesson for our son. And for us. There are lessons that only can be learned by going […]
My granddaughter wanted me to pick her up from daycare, so we arranged it with her parents that I would get her the following day. I told her it was all set, I would pick her up tomorrow. “Do you promise, papa?” “Yes, I promise,” I replied. “Do you really, really promise, papa?” Me the […]