Family & Friends
This first photo is of my early elementary classmates and me at the Mission Children's Home boarding school in Fort Dauphin--now, Tolagnaro--Madagascar. Our teacher was Milla Thompson. When we classmates were 59 years old, one of us suggested we celebrate our 60th birthday in Madagascar. After discussions online of other places less expensive with a similar environment, and after a year-long hiatus, several of us decided to go.
This second photo is of my family. It is our passport photo for our return trip to the USA in July of 1967. Since then, people have asked me where I originated. I have responded: MADAGASCAR. Often, they have followed that first question with this one: Is that your home, then? I never have known how to respond to that question, except to say: YES and NO.
Since my husband, Arland, and I moved to Northfield, MN, in the spring of 2011--when my parents were residents of Northfield Retirement Community--I have answered that question concerning my home this way: My home is where my parents are and where my husband is.
My parents, since then, have moved to Duluth, MN, to live with my brother and his family. One day, they will be buried in Oaklawn Cemetery in Northfield, not far from the bones of my father's parents, Kittel and Anna Braaten; and his uncle and aunt, Thorstein and Clara Braaten. My parents will be buried in the plot next to my father's two cousins and their spouses: Agnes and Leonard Akland, and Carl and LaVonne Braaten. In that same section of the cemetery are the gravestones of other Madagascar missionaries.
