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January 3, 1997 I know in the hustle and bustle of the past few weeks, most of you didn't sit down and say to yourself, 'Gee, I wonder why we haven't received the annual epistle from Dan and Gail?' But in our own need for closure and consistency and the desire to wish everyone a very happy, though belated, New Year, here we are again. Many of you have been in touch by phone or email recently and may already have heard most of this. To everyone, thank you for all your support, prayers and encouragement. It has meant a lot. The year 1996 was a good one for us personally. I survived a very stressful down-sizing situation at the Hewlett Packard plant here in Boise. It affected about 800 people and though my job was not really in danger, it was scary and everyone was on edge for several months. HP as a whole is doing very well, but they made a business decision to exit the disk drive business, which required closing down one of the divisions on the Boise Site. Many people were forced to either move or leave HP. I really enjoy the work I am doing and have a great co-worker to share the days with. Our boss is super, very supportive and I went on three business trips this year, so all in all, things are going well at HP. Dan continues to be very active at the BSU Library. He was up for tenure in November and although it won't be official for another month or two, he received a letter from the tenure committee saying that he has been recommended to receive it. I was more worried than Dan that it wouldn’t happen, but then that is my job in the family...to do all the worrying. Anyway, it is a reassuring feeling to get his tenure approved at this level. .Chris and Laura are doing well at their jobs and our grandkids are growing like weeds. Jayla will be five next month and Tony is 3 1/2. They live in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, about an hour away and we get to see them about once a month. They were over on Christmas Day enjoying all the benefits of being the only grandkids. Just before the holidays last year (1995), Dan's sister Diana was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer and the prognosis was not good. We were debating when to go back to the Chicago area to see her. I had to go to Huntsville, Alabama in March on business and Dan decided to come along. It worked out just great. He poked around antique stores while I was in class. He drove me and my co-worker Phyllis, who was with me for the training, to Nashville for the day when we didn't have class. We really had a good time. At the end of the week, Phyllis flew home to hold down the fort at HP and Dan and I headed north in the rental car to Chicago area to visit Diana. It turned out to be a wonderful visit. She was between crises and feeling fairly ok. She and I went antiquing and I found a wonderful signed Limbert desk that I just had to have. We arranged to have it shipped home and it sits in our front hall as a constant reminder of that fun we had that weekend. We call it my Aunt Diana desk. Sunday night when we were there, just Dan and Diana and I were around at dinner time. It was St. Patrick's Day. She took us to a nearby Polish smorgasbord, which also had corned beef and cabbage that night. We sat around after dinner and Dan and Diana told me stories of stuff they did when they were young. It is a special memory. We left Chicago and drove to Ohio, then headed South. We were caught in a Spring snowstorm and spent two nights in a great motel with indoor pool in London, Ky. We got back to Huntsville in time to spend one whole day at the Space and Rocket center there. It was really amazing. We watched the kids at space camp and saw life-sized mock ups of the space shuttle and many real rockets. We toured the Marshall Space Center where we saw two astronauts in the big tank of water which simulates weightlessness doing practice maneuvers. Very fascinating. In May we went to Moscow for Cinda's graduation from University of Idaho. She received a degree in architecture. She was accepted in the two year graduate program in Urban Policy and Planning at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She went to Chicago in May and worked for the Illinois tollway in the engineering office all Summer. She began her grad studies in September. She was asked to stay on at the tollway, so is going to school and working part time. She and her roommate Henri, who graduated with her and is also an architect, live in Wheaton, Illinois. Andy and his roommate Amy live in Palatine, Illinois. He has become Webmaster for Follett Library Software Company and is enjoying it very much. Amy teaches English and literature at a Carmel High School. Susanna is a senior in High School in Albuquerque this year, so we will be making a trip down there this Spring for her graduation. That should be great. We haven't been there since before we were married. Our Summer and early Fall were fairly quiet. We just did our thing and enjoyed it. I made a three day trip to Philadelphia in late August for business. I had never been there, so flew in on Saturday so I could 'do Philly' in a day on Sunday. It was great. It was in the 80s and I played the ultimate tourist and saw a LOT of stuff in the one day I had. I really enjoyed it. In October, Dan taught a workshop and we both spent nearly a week attending the annual ILA (Idaho Library Assoc.) annual conference that was held nearby in Nampa this year. I am the new division chair for the Academic and Special Library Division so will be even more involved during the coming year. About this time, in early October, Dan's sister Diana began to fail. She had already beat the odds and lasted longer than the doctors had predicted. Dan's mom flew to Chicago to be there with her and the rest of us just kept in touch, day by day and week by week. The first week in November, I attended the annual HP Library Network workshop held this year on a refurbished riverboat on the Sacramento River in Sacramento, Ca. On Friday, I drove the rental car to Livermore to spend the weekend with my sister Karen (it was her birthday), my mom and my niece, my nephew and their families who live in the area. Meanwhile, Dan decided he couldn't wait any longer and he got in the car and drove to Chicago to be with his sister. I changed my return flight and met him there. All together, we were in the Chicago area nearly a month, and finally left on Dec. 5th. We did have time to visit Cinda and Andy and various other family members while we were there. I did some of my Christmas shopping. Dan's sister Gayle from Pennsylvania was there. Dan's sister Sue and her husband drove from Salt Lake City for the Thanksgiving Week. Dan's dear old friend Ellen had us over for dinner and Thanksgiving we spent with Marilyn and her family (Dan's first wife and Cinda and Andy's mom). Diana was very responsive at first and she and Dan spent many hours together. He spent 90% of his time there at her bedside, doing nursing and various other medical procedures. I helped with shopping, laundry and so on. It was truly wonderful, although bittersweet, to be there the time we were. Diana had less and less conscious times, due to the pain drugs she was on. She had amazing will until, gradually, the very end. We finally had to leave on December 5th. It was VERY difficult. We dodged bad weather all the way home. We stopped on the way and spent the night in Salt Lake City. We had never seen his niece Sunny's little girl, Megan. She is 18 months old and, of course, adorable. We all went to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. It was truly a magical evening for all of us. We were very glad we had decided to go through Salt Lake. We arrived home on Dec. 8th. At 7 am the next morning, we got a call that Dan's stepdad Ted had collapsed in California and his mom was making arrangements to fly home later that day. We both went back to work on the 10th. The morning of the 11th, we got word that Diana had passed away, her service to be on Sat. , Dec. 14th. We had decided we could not go back to Chicago. On Friday, Dec. 13th at 5 am, we got a call that Ted had passed away. We were on the road within three hours, arriving at Dan's moms on Friday evening about 9 pm. Since many of Ted's family were there from out of the area, Dan's mom decided to have his service the following day, also Dec. 14th. What a terribly difficult day for her. We were so glad we were able to be there for her, since all the rest of the family was in Chicago for Diana's service. . I flew home on Monday the 16th and worked the rest of the week. I got the Christmas tree up and most of the gifts wrapped, since my mother arrived on Friday, Dec. 20th for the holiday. Dan spent the week helping his mom begin to do the millions of things that have to be done. His brother Irv flew in on Sat. to spend a week and Dan was to drive home through Reno. WRONG!! Donner Pass was closed on Sat. and iffy and chains required on Sun. So Sun. morning, he headed North on I-5 and went up through Northeastern California, through Alturas and into Oregon. He came through Burns and finally arrived home at 8 pm Monday, the 23rd of December. He stayed just West of Alturas in Burney on Sunday night. He said Monday was the single worst day of driving of his entire life....and that from someone who spent years in the mountains of Colorado going up over snowy passes and so on! Anyway, we were really glad to finally both be home by Christmas. I have been off the whole holiday, returning to work on Jan. 2. But Dan had to work right after Christmas and all of New Year's week except for New Year's Day. He is finally feeling better from a bad cold, cough, etc. that he picked up along the way. We are anxious to get back to our 'normal' life, playing bridge, watching BSU basketball games, volunteering in the church bookstore and so on. We could really stand a little 'boring old folks' kind of scenario for a while. So that is why you are getting a New Year's letter instead of at Christmas. We hope the coming year is less hectic and personally painful, especially for Dan. Wishing all of you a very happy, healthy and peaceful 1997. Dan and Gail Lester |
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