Despite the wind, which made it a might cool, it was a wonderful day. Chelsea woke me up the first time at 4:30AM. I woke up at about four and kind of wondered if I should be worrying but made up my mind that I was not going to go to check until 6AM when I had to get up anyway. I was really rather relieved to hear her tags start rattling just before she came to get me.

Had a rather busy morning getting ready for everything.

I had to be at the Tallgrass Annual meting at 10AM. That went rather smoothly. We got several reports including the report from our Ad Hoc committee. There were a few questions but people seemed receptive to the progress that has been made. The committee is going to meet next Monday at 7PM. I told them that we could meet here. I will set up a table down in the den downstairs. We also elected a whole new slate of officers. Actually one is staying on which will provide some cohesiveness, but the rest all had expired terms or resigned because they were not happy with the outcome of the vote regarding litigation.

I went right from there to pick up Nancy, then onto St. Patrick's in Adell for the first leg of our cemetery tour. We had a wonderful turnout. There were 18 of us at various times of the tour. St. Patrick's is such a beautiful old stone church. It is only a chapel now, (Beth commented that both St. Patrick's and St. Michael's are now called chapels. In Ireland the Catholic churches were called chapels as the protestant churches were the churches.) There is a preservation committee as part of Our Lady of the Lakes Parish trying to keep St. Pats from being destroyed. As long as they can raise $3500 per year for maintenance it is OK. They are trying to figure out how to get an endowment fund established but that his hard. Sometime, if you want to go out there we can arrange it. Just let me know.

We went from there to Cascade for lunch at the Madison Avenue Inn. Brenda, the owner, is so accommodating. We all had such good lunches and it is so charming. I had their flavor of the day coffee and as cup of Wisconsin Cheesy Bratwurst soup with a half a Veggie panini. Really good. We can go there too!!!

We stopped for a while, as long as we could stand the cold wind in the graveyard next to the now closed St. Mary's in Cascade. Beth told a couple of stories of some of the Cascade Irish,notably the Keyes. I will have to tell Tom about that on Monday at Bible study. One of his ancestors, a young woman, came into the country sick. She managed to get past the inspectors and off the boat and to her relatives. However, they were afraid of her illness. It was winter and they made her stay in a shed out back with no insulation and no help. The poor woman survived but lost all of her toes during that cold winter. When she was well, she walked away to some other relatives and never turned back. She had a very rough life besides that. She married and had 10 children but only one grew to adulthood, this was Tom's relative.

Our last stop was St. Michaels out near Parnel. There Beth told stories of the church and the residents. We finished there and headed home. I was in Plymouth just in time to go to Mass at 4PM. That means that tomorrow I will be much freer.

I am now totally exhausted and will fold up for the night.

Tomorrow will be busy too as I am supposed to go out to Rhine to help out there.

So I will have more then.

Love

Mary

Richard and Brenda arrived this afternoon. Dick said that all of the animals, including Oscar, were very glad to see them. Richard is installing a new computer for Dick. He has been without his all week and is SO grateful. I called and had Brenda put the casserole in the oven when I got back into town so we were able to eat shortly after I got home from church. The spinach casserole was great. We had fruit salads to go with it and topped it off with Strange Chocolate Pie with whipped cream.

I am so very happy with the turnout and enthusiasm of the attendees at the cemetery tour. We even had Mary Malloy, a member of the CWI International board who lives in Chicago come up with her daughter. She told us about some special masses that will be said all around the world commemorating the Famine. We are thinking that this might be something to bring up to our pastors next year as it is always celebrated on May 17.