MSHFO's Traveling Plaque

Growing up, certain things take on a meaning all their own.   Several years ago Mom and Dad sent us a letter asking which of the family "heirlooms" we would like to have.  I chose a grey trunk--a wood working project that Dad had built as a boy for Four-H.  It had a galvanized metal top.  During all the years that Dad corralled us and cut our hair, he arranged a kitchen stool on top of that trunk so our shaggy little heads would be just the right height.  A few weeks later, Dad delivered his trunk in the commodious trunk of his 1957 turquoise Cadillac.  As big as it was. there was room to spare!

The folks had to clean out their bank accounts when Dad entered a rest home--and we got an unexpected check--the first installment on our inheritance.

Then came Gramma Delma's memorial service.

(The back story) Back in 1982 I got to know the graphics instructor at a high school near our apartment in Beltsville, Maryland outside Washington, D.C.  In the evenings for several weeks I built the oval shaped plaque for the Milo S. Howe Family Organization at the right.   I kept one copy and bought a lovely mohogany and gold trim frame for the only other copy.  I put a few pictures of our family on the back and gave it to Mom and Dad.  They hung it in the bedrooms as they moved from Laramie to Cheyenne to Worland.  I smiled everytime I went to visit and peeked into their bedroom.

Tom and Trudy cleaned out the basement in the folks' Cheyenne home and sent us regular subscriptions of BOX-O-JUNK.  Most of the stuff we gave to Deseret Industries.  We kept a few things, but our basement will need the services of a Tom and Trudy one day and we hesitated to add to it!

Fast forward to Mom's memorial service in Worland on April 20, 2010.  At the Barbeque at Roger's House the night before we gathered, Tom continued his service as the distributor of the family "heirlooms"  He walked over to me smiling with what has become the MSHFO's Traveling Plaque you see here.

It was an unexpected joy!  I really couldn't have been more pleased!  Donald had been in the market for a laptop computer and Tom gave him Mom's.  He was so unexpectantly pleased.  I'm not sure what Roger and Tom "inherited".  All I know is that most of Mom and Dad's things were sold in a giant garage sale that Sarah (Roger and Sue's oldest)  and her husband Jeff, organized around the time their little Worland house was sold.

So now, I've got the MSHFO picture organization chart.  It's incomplete by nearly twenty years--and needs some updating.   Rosie has asked me to produce one like this one of her family.  A friend of Roger's asked for a picture of it so he could make one for his family.  If two requests make a trend --then maybe!

In the meantime, it's a handsome reminder of the once and future team of MSHFO.  Three deaths and four of us left.  In some ways the four brothers are the last men standing of a well nurtured regiment, living our lives and watching the days pass.

Carolyn passed in 1997.  Inoperable Lung Cancer.  Seven years later in 2003  Milo left us because of Alzheimers and Dimentia.  Seven years after that Mother departed mortality after a little stomach ache and a change of medication.  In some ways I feel like I have about 7 years left.  Stay tuned!  JRH.