About the diary writer
- Barbara McDowell Whitt
- Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
- ~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.
71 Attend the Leet Family Reunion - Sunday, August 6, 1961
We went to the Leet family reunion today at Grandma's.There were 71 people there. It was nice being able to see everyone again, especially the Millers from New Mexico. They haven't been back here since they moved there when Martha and I were in eighth grade. The kids haven't changed and are still so nice and fun. There are so many of those Leets I don't know, although I'm finally beginning to get them all straightened out. They had me write up the article about the reunion for the Journal. It's fun to get back to news writing. All in all it was a very successful day. They toured their (and our) former home and farm.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Which was the former home and farm you referred to?
I still remember the Leet adults and their older children walking across the road from Grandma and Grandpa McDowell's house to the driveway directly across from Grandma and Grandpa's driveway. The six-room house on that farm is where Harold Leet, Richard Leet, Betty Leet Bishop, Dorothy Leet Miller and their other Leet siblings lived with their parents Walter and Libby Leet. My grandmother, Ruth Leet McDowell, was the only child of Willard and Araminta Sowash Leet and she grew up in the same house where she lived in after she married Grandpa McDowell.
After the Leets moved from their house, my parents moved into it when Phyllis and I were small, from a small two-room house that was originally built for chickens but lived in by us instead. It was cozy both heat-wise and space-wise. We lived in the big house until my sisters and I were 4, 5, 7 and 10, at which time we moved to the farm south of West Chester.
Sounds like fun to have all the cousins together. I have great memories from the McDowell reunions over the years!
Hilary, it always was fun. The Parcell, Varner, Lorah, Cuddeback, Estep, Leet and McDowell kids always had good times together and we enjoyed each other's company.
Barb, I didn't realize your family had lived in the the house across from the big four-square house.
I guess Ginn never mentioned that.
Post a Comment