Beacon July 2022

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Page 8A THE BEACON July 2022 By Mary-Alice Helms Our dad was an outdoor kind of guy. While others opted to become lawyers, teachers, and businessmen after graduation, Dad wanted to “work with his hands” and not be confined by four walls. World War I ended just in time to keep him from going to war, so he kept the job that he had gotten as a young teenager, working for a dairy farmer, Mr. Smiester. He labored at everything from milking cows to making deliveries of milk and cream. It was the kind of life he loved. He had time to go hunting and fishing, made a decent living, and spent most of his time out of doors. He also honed his woodworking skills, making small tables, what-not shelves and plant stands for his mother’s home. In 1934 he and our mother were married and lived in a small rented house across the street from his family home on 11th Street in Brookville. Mother was educated as a secretary and had been working at Wright- Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton until their marriage. She felt that his potential was wasted, but Dad was happy being outdoors. Eventually, he bought his own cream truck and partnered with a friend at a cream station in Brookville. The friend, Cecil Rose, tested the milk and cream for butterfat, while Dad drove to the farms, picked up the filled cream cans, and brought them back into the station, where milk was separated from the cream. A truck from the French Bauer creamery then took the products to Cincinnati. Dad got up early to start his routes and got home in the late afternoon. That schedule allowed him to make and tend a large vegetable garden, build beautiful trellises for Mother’s climbing roses, dig up areas for her flower beds and make numerous tall birdhouses for his beloved purple martins. He still found time for a little hunting, fishing, and “tinkering”. When their first baby arrived (that would be me!) followed three years later by my baby sister, Julie, we outgrew our little house. Mother and Dad bought a larger house on 11th Street, across the street and just a few doors up from where we lived. The house was nice Credibility • Advocacy • Education • Visibility What Can The Chamber Do For You? Just Ask! 812-537-0814 www.dearborncountychamber.org Morning Glory Dad enough, but it was an outdated Victorian with no basement. Dad had his work cut out for him! In just one year, Dad took on the Herculean task of digging out a huge basement under the entire house. Using a pick and shovel, he dug out all of the dirt and hauled it up a handmade wooden ramp in a wheelbarrow. As the hole enlarged, he shored up the house with beautiful rock and cement walls. We have had stonemasons tell us, some 80 years later, that he did a remarkable job. The finished product was a cement-floored basement complete with a shower, a furnace, a laundry area, and a wonderful play space which we enjoyed, as did our friends. Dad never stopped providing play spaces for his children, which eventually included yet another little girl, Ellen. Our backyard became a neighborhood mecca for kids. Dad built a great slide, a teeter-totter as well as a covered sandpile for us. Our parents welcomed neighborhood kids into our yard. They said that they liked having lots of kids around, as then we would be where they could “keep an eye” on us! Part of the dirt from under the house was utilized to build up the uneven backyard and to build a sunken garden space for our mother. The space was complete with flat stepping stones and cement steps. She delighted in her garden, transforming that part of the yard into a fragrant, blooming wonderland of flowers. We kids knew better than to invade that space! As her garden expanded, Dad’s interest in the flowers increased. He began asking about the different varieties and colors. While driving in the country, something caught his eye. In front of an old farmhouse, he saw a fence completely covered by beautiful blue flowers. When he found that those blooms were Morning Glories, he became determined to try growing them on our fence at home. Mother didn’t like that idea so much. “Those Morning Glories will spread everywhere, Walt”, she said. “They’ll end up in my flower bed.” But Dad promised to keep the flowers under control, and that’s when one of his greatest joys began. He carefully watched the “Farmer’s Almanac” to find the best time to plant the seeds each spring. I remember how he would spread the small, hard seeds out on the table on the night before planting day. Using his ever-present pocket knife, he would painstakingly knick a tiny wedge in each seed, then drop it into a jar of warm water to soak overnight. In the morning he would carefully plant each seed in the plot that he had prepared in front of a wire fence. When the first tendrils of the plants appeared, they would be coaxed gently My dad, Walter McCarty, and some of his beloved morning glories. onto the strings attached to the lower part of the fence, where they would begin their climb to the top wires. When those beautiful blue blooms began to appear, Dad would be ecstatic. Every year that fence would become a wall of blue. When the neighbors would comment on its beauty, Dad seemed prouder than he was of any of his other accomplishments. He kept his word about preventing the invading plants from spreading. In the fall, when the flowers were at an end, Dad would cut them by first pulling a burlap bag over each plant and holding it shut while cutting the stems, making sure that every leaf and stick was contained. After the debris was carted off to the dump, the area around where they were grown was carefully raked to catch any stray seeds. Not one sprouted into the neighbor’s yard or our mother’s garden, thanks to our beloved Morning Glory Dad. A HANDS-ON CAREER with ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES –Top-notch, affordable education through the bachelor’s degree in Land Surveying is available at Cincinnati State’s Clifton campus. –Earn your Associate and Bachelor’s degree at Cincinnati State. –Gain experience using state of the art field equipment and computer software in the classroom and during your paid co-op semesters. –Graduates are eligible to take the NCEES FS exam and NSPS CST certification exams. –Starting annual salaries of $35,000 to $55,000 or higher with employers in the tri-state and throughout the United States. –Indiana and Kentucky students may qualify for Ohio in-state tuition. –Scholarships available. Veterans and transfer students welcome. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Carol Morman PS, PE - Land Surveying Program Chair 513-569-1743 carol.morman@cincinnatistate.edu CLIFTON CAMPUS: 3520 Central Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45223 Get it All at www.goBEACONnews.com
July 2022 THE BEACON Page 9A Do You Want a Rock Solid Family? By Merrill Hutchinson Families are the most important building blocks of our society. When families aren’t doing well, so goes society. We believe that families must be intentional about being healthy and functioning well. To achieve this, every family can be more intentional about six essential elements to build a healthier family and society. 1. Parents lead the family. Parents are naturally in a position of authority and leadership in the home. They have something that children do not- WISDOM. Parents must stop second-guessing what they know to be right and draw from their upbringing and past experiences to lead their families. 2. Parents unite and determine the VALUES of the home and define the family’s values. Without family values, children will live for the most important thing in their lives- themselves. Look at the behavior of a two-year-old or a sixteen-year-old. The only difference is about three feet. To help your children through these times of self-seeking, parents must guide them into the values of the family over the values of self. 3. Parents teach the essential SOCIAL SKILLS. Manners and civility are of the utmost importance in society. Children who fail to learn that others have value tend to develop a practice of valuing themselves above all else. The term we use for this is narcissism. Highly functioning narcissists tend to have greater difficulties in relationships, in their personal lives, and their professional lives. They get out of relationships because they are quick to put their needs ahead of others. They leave behind them a wake of broken relationships. Never underestimate the importance of the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would want to be treated. 4. Parents model what they desire in their families. MOD- ELING is best explained by the phrase, “More is caught than taught.” If children are to learn and practice a particular skill or behavior, it must be demonstrated in daily living. Things like manners, work ethic, faith, and emotional control are much better taught through daily modeling than preaching. When we as parents preach a particular behavior but act in a completely different manner, children become confused and experience their first encounter with hypocrisy. 5. Parents discipline their children. DISCIPLINE LEADS TO SELF-DISCI- PLINE. As the pendulum of life tends to swing from one side to the other, so too have we seen the pendulum of parents recognizing and implementing discipline in the home. Many of us grew up with parents we considered to be “strict.” They would discipline us quickly and often. But, that idea fell out of vogue in the 1980s, and we now see the fruit of that experiment. We complain about people being selfish, lazy, and entitled, and wonder why they won’t get off the couch and get a job or work out a marriage when things become difficult. We must realize that a person’s quality of life is largely related to their ability to self-discipline. Disciplining children will teach them to self-discipline as adults. 6. Parents serve and teach the value of SERVING to their children. At about two St. Mary’s School Closes- A Student’s Insight St. Mary’s School in Aurora has drawn its last breath. While the church will continue to serve the community as it has since it was founded in 1857, the school will become a preschool. Audrey Gerke, a seventh-grade student at St. Mary’s School, shared insight and wisdom beyond her years about the end of an era at St. Mary’s School. By Audrey Gerke St. Mary’s means almost the world to me. It has been one of the main parts of my life since I started in Kindergarten. St. Mary’s provides a lot of fundamentals such as academic teams, Math Bowl, Spell Bowl, National Junior Honor Society, and so much more. This school has set up kids for greatness. We are all very sad the school is closing, and for some people, its closing will leave an empty spot in their hearts. During a recent homily at mass, our priest mentioned flowers and how even when they are gone, the seed will create new life. Even with our school closing, the students will still set off as seeds, growing with the faith and bringing new people along. St. Mary’s will never be fully gone because the people will keep the spirit of St. Mary’s alive, and I believe that St. Mary Immaculate Conception, Aurora through and through. The St. Mary’s Send-Off Celebration party was amazing. The event started with a mass packed with alumni and current students who were ringing and singing in the choir, doing the readings, and serving. To see all of the seats filled was heartwarming. After the mass, everyone ventured to the school to share a meal and look at memorabilia from years past. Up in the gymnasium kids were bouncing in the bouncy house and just enjoying themselves. You could see everyone talking, laughing, and smiling too. The experience was truly great for everyone who came. LUTZ BEEF Farm Fresh, Farm Raised PRIME CUTS NOW AVAILABLE Stop by Lutz Auction Center 25980 Auction Lane, Guilford, IN Mon.-Fri. 8:30-4:30 or by appointment 812-637-6666 1 3 9 9 2 5 3 5 4 9 7 6 2 8 4 9 3 2 5 7 4 8 3 7 1 5 8 1 6 4 1 2 4 5 7 6 Sudoku Sudoku is a logical puzzle game that may seem difficult at first glance, but it is not as hard as it looks! Fill a number in to every cell in the grid, using the numbers 1 to 9. You can only use each number once in each row, each column, and in each of the boxes. The solution can be found at www.goBEACONnews.com/print_edition. Click on the link for Sudoku and view the solution for this month and last. Good luck and have fun! years old, children begin to interact and express very intentional desires. This is the point where parenting truly kicks in and parents must teach their children about service to others. Without the understanding of the need to serve others, children will believe they are only there to serve their own needs. This does not work well in the adult world. Teaching service is among the greatest gifts you will ever give your children. Our children are our greatest resource as a nation. They are our future leaders! We must teach them to be great citizens and leaders for the good of mankind. It is time for us to take a serious look in the mirror to see what we can change to benefit our future. Merrill Hutchinson is the president of Rock Solid Families, Inc., a marriage and parenting ministry dedicated to building a stronger community one family at a time. 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