Last night I went to bed with a sore throat, headache and a slight fever. After medicating myself, the headache still kept me from sleeping until about 2:00 a.m. This morning the sore throat and fever are gone, but my head still feels like it's stuffed with potatoes. I think my Fall sinus problems have started. Blah! 

While drinking my coffee and snuggling my dogs through the thunderstorm this morning (oh! maybe that's why I have had a headache!) I read a very interesting book. "The Wilder Family History: The True Life Journey of Lee Ander Wilder and Elizabeth Fancher Ramsey" is an easy, short read of vignettes written by some of their children. It is a fascinating look at our American West following the Civil War. Lee and Elizabeth were married in 1888 and had 12 children, 3 of whom died in infancy. The stories of their children follow the family from Arkansas to Indian Territory to California. Lee died at age 50 following surgery for mastoiditis (infection of the mastoid bone behind the ear) in a time when we did not have antibiotics for the disease. Elizabeth lived to be 1 month shy of 104. Most of the children have also been long-lived. The book was compiled in 2009 when daughter Jessie, the last surviving child of the Wilder's was 102. 

Jessie included a poem she learned in the first grade while living in what is now Oklahoma:

LEARNING TO WRITE

Learning to read is awful, but

nothing like learning to write.

I would be sorry to have you see it, 

for my copy book is a sight

The ink gets all over my fingers,

and the pen cuts all sorts of shines.

My fingers won't do as I bid them, 

and the letters won't stay on the lines.

They go up and down and all over,

as if they were dancing a jig, 

They are in all shapes and sizes,

medium, little and big.

But my teacher says little by little,

the mountain top we must climb,

It isn't all done in a minute, 

only a step at a time. 

Isn't that last sentence so true of all learning?

I found this gem of a memoir on Barnes and Noble as a free Nook book.