Sunday, December 14, 2014

Remembering Mary Jane



On December 16th, it will be 10 years since our classmate, Mary Jane Sassone Jarkowski, left this earth for a higher realm.  She was one of a kind.  The mold was discarded after she was wonderfully made.  I think of her often and remember all her antics.  She was  marvelous combination of spirituality and sexuality and sensitivity.  She was probably the most dramatic person I have ever known. The last time we walked together in late November 2004, she leaned over to hold on to a large rock.  I felt she was hanging on tightly to a piece of the earth so as not to leave the people, and the sights and sounds of the earth that she loved so well.   On that last visit with her, she had me dye her roots.   I felt she was too ill that particular evening, but she insisted that the dye job be done.  I imagine she wanted to look "just so" when she was laid out in her coffin.  But we didn't really acknowledge that fact.  Oh, for sure she knew that death was approaching, but she wanted a little more time and she tried her best to keep it going.   Who could blame her?  She was way too young as far as I was concerned.   But sometimes death creeps up on us even though we are not ready to go, and in spite of what we do,  or how we feel about it. 
I often ask, "Mary Jane, are you near?  Do you watch from afar?"  I often say, "thanks for planning that 6 week trip through Europe for Eleanor, Susan & Me."  I also add, "thanks for always listening to my woes, for never being my judge, for sharing your deepest thoughts and dreams with me and for giving me unconditional love. 
 Here is a poem Mary Jane wrote about her feelings surrounding Nursing School.  I am certain many of us can relate!
                                                               "Nursing School"

Saturday stretches out ahead of me
Like a delicious
7 cent caramel sucker
The kind to be savored all day
As I curl up in my dorm bed

Terror strikes suddenly
As I awakedn fuzzy headed
Remembering
A black hole awaits me
Where I labor over the pitiful sick
While the birds of prey
In starched white linen
Peck their blue capped young
And I am 
A particularly appetizing fledging

I bolt upright
Journey 40 years in a flash
Find myself home
In my own bed
It's long over
But
For the nightmares
By Mary Jane Jarkowsky, 2002

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

" Lakeside" near Friendsville

My Mom wrote that this was the home of Christopher Byrne & Mary Anne Welch, parents of Hannah Colemen.

Really Old Family History Darius Coleman, Sr.



This was extracted from a book entitled, "History of Susquehanna County Pennsylvania" by Emily C. Blackman originally published in Philadelphia, 1873.  It was gotten from the Susquehanna County Historical Society and Free Library Association Regional Publishing Company by my mother, Rita O'Donnell Fries who seemed to live and breath and love genealogy.   I plan to bring the book back to Montrose, Pa and donate it to the Historical Society unless a family member claims it quickly!
Darius Coleman, Sr's son, Darius Coleman, Jr married Margaret Curley and they had a son named Frank Coleman who married Hannah Byrne who then had a daughter named Margaret Coleman who had a daughter named Rita O'Donnell who then had a daughter named Mary Beth Fries Buchner, i.e., me.