’ve been thinking about connections lately. Every time I get a few quiet minutes I find myself trying to form a picture of Rose in my mind. I remind myself that she was a woman of the late nineteenth century and not the mid twentieth. So I work my way back through the generations: my mother, who can talk to anyone and is loved by everyone; my Grandma Diddy, fashionable and elegant, but who loved to meet us at Union Station in costume; Grandmommy Mary Rose, who followed her Navy husband all…

My grandfather, whom I called Bobo for reasons I don’t quite understand, was a fascinating man. They tell me he trained to fly bombers in World War II, but after he bombed the chicken coop it was decided that he would be more helpful to the war effort working at a desk. Bobo was a teacher, but after the war he went to law school and eventually was elected as a county judge. Never one to get into a rut, he tried out a variety of professions, often spending his summers taking classes at…