July 11, 2016 Chicago
We arrived home on Wednesday July
6th. It has taken a few days
to wring out the jet lag. We woke up at
3:30 AM Thursday “morning.” Friday we
went back to Kewanee for memorial and burial services for two of Sue’s
relatives: Luba Rapczak and Dorothy Goodwin.
Luba was Sue’s next door neighbor
growing up in Kewanee. Luba’s husband,
Lefty had been raised with Sue’s mom Stacey.
There were four Rapczak kids whose parents died within months of one
another when the oldest kid, Leo may have been 10 or 11. Sue’s grandmother and the deceased Rapczak
mom were sisters. So Sue’s grandparents
added the four Rapczak kids to their seven kids, two of whom died very
young. Luba was quite a character.
Dorothy Goodwin was the daughter
of Nellie, another Rapczak raised by Sue’s grandmother. Dorothy’s father Michael Grygiel was killed
in Belgium during WW II in 1944. We
attended a Memorial Day Ceremony, May 25th, 2013 at the Henry
Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium where Michael is buried. We visited Dorothy last September in
Indianapolis at the Alzheimer’s facility where she was living.
Luba’s service was on Friday and
Dorothy’s was on Saturday. Both were
very well attended and very nice. While
we were at the cemetery I was able to visit my parent’s graves. We also visited Sue’s parents grave, I mayl
get a photo on Saturday. We were also
able to see two old friends, Lowell and Karen (Rapczak) St. Clair who we hadn’t
seen in years. We will be going back to
Kewanee Saturday for the Memorial Service for Sue’s sister Rose.
Guess where the first place we
visited now that we are back home? Of
course, The Art Institute of Chicago on Monday to see paintings we could
substitute for the 1001 paintings that are in private collections. Being obsessed takes a lot of effort. The Art Institute right now has 12 paintings
on display that might count as substitutes.
Sue has the final say on substitutes and she approved seven of the 12. You can see the approved substitutes in the
album. We’ve added the seven substitutes
to our total number of paintings that is now 602/1001.
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