After growing up on Beechwood Blvd. in Pittsburgh 17, PA with Jackson 3959 for our telephone number, and no zip code, I went to Ann Arbor, and then to Pitt to finish my last year and a half of college. I then found the answer to the question, "To be or not to be?" John and I were married in 1959, and lived in the Brighton part of Boston, then Birmingham, Berkeley, the Bannockburn part of Bethesda, and then Belvedere. We raised two sons, David and Doug, now in their forties (how can that be, even though it is)! Doug and his partner, Megan Lyle live in Montrose, CO. David and his wife, Holly live in Sunnyvale, CA and have two sons, Joshua, who is 9, and Derron, who is 6. I'm a poet, with work in both literary journals and publications related to grief. John died of cancer in 1996, and to help deal with the mess I was feeling, I wrote poems. A book, March, before Spring came out of this, and is now in its third printing. If you want a sense of the book, you could go to a website my son David designed. http://www.themendels.org/widows/ I'm also active on the board of the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association, a neurological voice disorder affecting me along with about 50,000 other people in North America, including Robert Kennedy, Jr., an Honorary Board Member. If you want to hear me, you could go to our website, http://www.dysphonia.org. I'm the woman in the blue outfit on the sample of the DVD the NSDA had made. I also want my relatives to know that it's very dear to feel more connected to the Schmidt side of me. I remember a warmth and a feeling of "belonging" among my mother's relatives that I never felt part of, and through "the family tree" contacts I hope that will change. However, you do need to know that I am "turtle slow" in answering emails. I admire people who are swift, and maybe someday I'll also learn to fly.