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Elko Edition Rea Reaching ch Elkhart, Kosciusko, Noble And LaGrange Counties
www.seniorlifenewspapers.com
Vol. 34, No. 7
Judy Lambert’s book skillfully weaves together family stories %\ 7,0 $6+/(< 6WDII :ULWHU
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Don’t Lose Your Home And Life Savings!
For Judy Lambert, passing on a family legacy became much too important not to pass on to her two daughters and grandchildren. Lambert was deeply inspired by what she discovered about her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Enough so to publish a book, “Party Lines, Prayers and Privies,” a historical fiction novel detailing the hardships and obstacles her mother Helen Steffen, grandmother Esther Phillips and great-grandmother Sarah Swihart dealt with. “I weaved the family stories all together and some of it is not true, but it is still true to our family story and how women’s lives were then,” she said. Lambert grew up on a farm along CR 21, north of CR 142 in Jackson Township, west of New Paris in Elkhart County. Her father, Walt Steffen, purchased the 125-acre farm when Lambert was in the third grade. The family had been living just outside of Goshen prior to moving to the farm. How this book came to be goes back several years. When Lambert was in her 40s and still working as a nurse, she took three days to interview grandma Phillips, who was in her 80s at the time. She also interviewed brothers and sisters of her grandma and transcribed all the tapes. Her grandma asked Lambert not to write anything until she died.
As so often happens, the busyness of life and raising a family puts everything else on hold. Several years later, she decided to “really research” and interviewed more than 20 people along with several visits to libraries and museums and reading through old newspapers. She discovered these family stories simply needed to be passed on to future generations. “I wanted my own two daughters to know they can do anything they want,” she said. Great-grandmother Swihart was born in Whitley County and also lived for a while in Noble County before marrying an Elkhart County man. They moved around a lot because they were small contract farmers, Lambert noted, and if a farmer decided he didn’t want them around any longer, he would simply kick them off the property. The three generations of women faced multiple hardships in life including, for just a few examples, Swihart losing her mother at age 8, Phillips being injured by a drunk driver before the birth of Helen Steffen, resulting in her right side being spastic and contractured, or the shortening and hardening of tissues. Lambert also discovered how restrictive society was concerning talking about certain things. Some things just were not spoken about including for a time the use of the word “pregnant.” The book covers nearly 130 years of history from 1875 to 2003, when Continued on page 5
• Nearly half of all seniors will spend time in a nursing home. • Locally, nursing homes cost about $7,500 per month. • Many seniors lose their homes and life savings. • We can help preserve your assets from spend-down. • Even if you do not have long-term care insurance. • We can also help avoid will contests and probate.
Elder Law and Estate Planning
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