An essay by and for one another about our times together
June 5, 2026
Dear sister Elaine,
I began this project on May 6, 2026 with the idea that it would be a legacy letter to you, remembering our times together, and letting you know, after I die, how much I have loved being your sister. It became apparent, once I started the letter, that I could not do it without you. So, as you now know, rather than a legacy letter it became an essay that we created together so we could have a lasting recollection and appreciation of our past together. And have the fun creating a love story, one that describes our sisterhood over the years.
Now that we are old (me 87, you 84) and still mostly sentient, we decided to write an essay that can help us say to each other how much we have loved being in one another’s lives. This letter can be a way for us to remember and celebrate our years together, in case our memories fade or in case one of us dies. It can also be a way to appreciate each other now, as we live out our final years rather than wait until it is too late. We also offer it as a document on our Felson Family website for others to read to witness our version of our intertwined lives, even after we have both died.
We grew up in Greenfield, Ohio, an industrial-agricultural town of 5,000 an hour-or-so drive to Cincinnati and Columbus. Our father was one of three family physicians in Greenfield. His office was on one side of our house, a dwelling that was located on the corner of Fourth and South Streets—357 South Street was the address. Our house was across the street from a United Methodist Church, two blocks from downtown Greenfield, and a quarter mile from our elementary and high school.
We existed within this one mile, walkable radius for much of our lives—until, as teenagers, we left Greenfield to go to College.
Our earliest memories were made during the years of World War II. Our dad had enlisted. He spent 3 1/2 years “overseas”, in Italy for much of that time. His letters were about his war adventures. Our mother’s, letters, on the other hand, were mostly about us. The two of them wrote to each other every day. Sometimes they addressed their comments to the larger Felson family. A group of those letters now reside on the internet, on our https://felsonfamily.org/letters/. Those were precious years, and difficult ones for our mother. Not so much for us, since we felt secure, loved and well taken care of, thanks to mother.
Our house phone number at first was 435K. Our father’s doctor office number was 28. A telephone operator answered when we wanted to make a call and we told her the number we wanted.
Events during those war years
Our father left for Italy in December 1943 and returned sometime in 1945. During that time, we remember:
- The alabaster busts of us that our dad had commissioned from a carver in Volterra Italy. They were three of them, one of Elaine, one of Judy, and the third of our mother. They were done using a photo taken by a professional photographer (Olan Mills) from Greenfield.
- Our frequent trips to Cincinnati during the war. On one occasion we returned home, with our grandfather Abe Marcus, to find that a pipe in the upstairs bathroom had burst and flooded the downstairs dining room. We spent years dealing with the veneer peeling off the dining room table—damage done by the water from upstairs. (Why didn’t they buy a new table?)
- Us competing over the peg set. We remember this because of mother’s description of how Judy used her wiles to distract Elaine, to keep her from destroying Judy’s peg set creations.
- Making dolls out of hollyhock flowers. Mother taught us how to do this. The upside down flowers were the dresses, the buds were the heads. Toothpicks held them together.
- An alabaster dish sent from Dad that arrived in Greenfield in many pieces. Mother spent hours during the war and afterward gluing that dish together—it was always falling apart. She used Duco Cement.
- A favorite activity of us both was to climb out the upstairs windows onto partially slanted roofs and look over the neighborhood.
- Our backyard had wading pools and a sandbox, and spirea bushes all around that required regular trimming. And ants crawled over the peony buds.
- We also had a victory garden near the garage in the back yard that Judy was put in charge of.
- Judy remembers catching fireflies in the back yard, in jars. They died and smelled bad after a day or so.
- And we both remembered Mrs. Miller, Dad’s patient who called him all the time, day and night. He was kind to her in person. We all made fun of her in private.
- Mother and Dad signaled one other with a two tone whistle—high-low. They used this to find one another in crowds. Where did that come from?
Elementary school
We walked 1/4 mile from our house to our elementary school. Judy was two years ahead of Elaine. Some of our teachers overlapped. We walked home everyday for lunch. We remember some of our elementary school teachers. We no longer remember if they were married, so we have left off their titles (Mrs. or Miss).
Connors (1st grade)
Eliot (1st grade)
Hiser (2nd grade)
McCray (3rd grade)
Williams (4th and 5th grade)
Wagner (6th grade)
Simmons (6th grade)
Memorable things that happened in those pre-teen years.
- Reading from a set of story books in a 12 volume series, “My book house.” The books were green. A favorite story was about a duck called Shingabiss.
- Mother calling us to task for pulling pealing paint off the wall. Judy did it but Elaine took the blame.
- Autumn auto drives with our parents in southern hills of Ohio.
- Taking car rides with our dad as he made “house calls” to see patients. He always carried a black doctor’s bag full of medicines and instruments. Elaine still has the bag.
- Dad handing us infants to take care of in our house while he examined their mothers in his office. There was a single door in between.
- The birth of our brother, Jerry, a post war baby.
- When mother left for Cincinnati to have the baby (Jerry), Judy asked our dad where babies come from. Then, when told, asked him to “Show me on Mrs Greene.”
- Checking out the baby fetuses in jars on the shelf on the way to the basement—specimens were transported to Greenfield from Dad’s medical school years in Cincinnati.
- Dad performing sinus shrinking procedures on mother in his office when she had a sinus headache.
- Us getting weighed and measured on our Dad’s office scale that Judy inherited and that was among her possessions until the end of her life.
Dad getting paid with farm animals, mostly chickens, dead and alive.
High school recollections
McClain High School Teachers
- John Griesheimer: math, algebra, geometry, trigometry
- Mrs Snyder: Jr High English
- Adelaide Shull: Latin, Spanish, Jr Hi home room, toga days, smart and dumb rows, threw an eraser at Donald Lytle her student who became Johnny Paycheck. He showed her! He went on to be famous.
- Grace Blake: Memorizing English Authors and titles
- Dorothy Lynch: English, Speech Arts, play, Judy played lead—(The Perfect Form?) I had to chin myself in a doorway.
- Harry Turner: Science Teacher, Jr High, he had a curved spine
- Bill Davis: History—he was boring
- Barney Beaver: Music teacher, marching band, wrote McClain High School anthem.
Highschool Happenings
- The marble stairs in the school that were off limits to students except for special ceremonies.
- Sleepovers at our house, with friends, and Ritz cracker snacks.
- Penny’s as a high school hangout, Glenn Penn, proprietor. The juke box, the slippery floor, dancing with boyfriends. Booths all around.
- Mother watching the McCarthy hearings on the tv 1954.
- Mother’s unread newspapers stacked sky high in the solarium off the kitchen.
- Rubber ice cream in our freezer in the kitchen.
- Mixing tobaccos in the kitchen for dad’s pipe.
- Helping out in the office by packaging pills in the tiny space where dad kept pills that he dispensed to his patients.
- Jerry’s “borrowing” Judy’s car at Turkey Run, having an accident, and breaking his collarbone.
- Mother, after talking to Jerry on the phone commenting: “I only hope he’s happy.”
- Out grandmother (Esther Marcus), mother’s mother, living with us for several years, until the end of her life. She didn’t approve of our teen-age activities (e.g., making out with boyfriends).
- Elaine’s being accused by our father of ordering the most expensive thing on the menu.
- Elaine’s cheerleading at high school sports events.
Travels
Turkey Run, over the years: hikes, game of aggravation (Elaine wanting Alan to cede the game to Mark), merging with the Travis family at Turkey Run. Sophie’s afghans.
Lake Pike, over the years: Pod Baconhester the lifeguard, swimming in (and across) the lake, smelly and sticky creosote posts, Jerry diving off the diving board at the pier. Climbing up and down the hill to and from the lake to the cabin. Friends and relatives visiting us there.
Daytona Beach vacations, catching the waves (Dad and Elaine) avoiding the waves (mother). The trips were seen by dad as a treatment for mother’s psoriasis. Not so much by mother.
Our summer car trips—to every state in the union. Suitcases riding on top of the car. Water bag on the front, next to the radiator.
Visiting “the boys”—dad’s army buddies. Moe Ridoe, in New Orleans, Dad’s newsletter to his boys—the SNAFU Times.
Trip through Italy so dad could relive his stops during the war.
Things remembered about our home and neighborhood
Dad’s office. Balloons stored in his desk for child treat after a doctor’s visit. The “wad” of extra cash that accumulated from office cash payments and was used surreptitiously on vacations. Patient’s records, in folders surrounding dad at his desk, in his tiny handwriting. The peep hole in the office door that allowed us to see if he was busy. (We didn’t know that his patients could see when we were peeking through!)
Bessie Fields, dad’s nurse, heavy, could hardly fit
into the drug room to count pills and make up his medicines.
His “pink medicine”, a valued product that he prescribed for stomach ailments. And another, less valued white medicine in a blue bottle. We don’t remember what that was for.
Mother’s desk, located at the side door entryway that they bought in Cincinnati when they were married and that Judy now has. It was a collectors item—that is to say, it served to collect all things, including Mr. Turner’s hall pass that Elaine needed to leave his class.
Neighborhood friends and playmates. The Tennenbaum family ( Hyman, Markie, Shirley, Beverlee), the Loughs (Judy and Katie), Shirley Bobo, Dickie Easter and Norman Irwin, Ellen, Ann and Peg Gessner, the Crissmans.
Neighborhood activities. Hide and seek, red rover, sledding, pulling the imaginary rope across the South Street, roller skating. Croquet in our back yard. Hopscotch. Our swing set. Killing chickens by hanging them by their heads over the clothes line in the back yard (Mrs. Greene did this.)
Things remembered around Greenfield
Felson park, now being developed, given to Greenfield by our dad.
Judy breaking her arm on the elementary school playground during a summer play activity.
Gossetts Book Store, downtown with unique smell.
Shirley Shop, Hy Tennenbaum proprietor. Named after his favorite daughter.
United Department Store, run by the same Hy Tennenbaum.
Rexall Corner Pharmacy at Jefferson and Washington intersection. Wib Seilkop, proprietor.
Roller skating rink at a rink in the alley near our house. Fern Hall. Owner, Noble family, a chiropractor. Lois East, Makie, associated with the Noble family.
Going to Frisch’s in Washington Court House for Big Boys, the first fast food offering in the area. Delivery of food directly to cars.
Judy’s dental retainer, one was lost on a tray in Frisch’s restaurant, they found it in the garbage, and another lost in Mexico, stolen by a dog.
Sledding hill in the back yard of Loughs, our neighbors down the street.
The Crissmans, our neighbors, Helen Crissman and Clem Thoroman, Helen’s boyfriend, beautiful flowers in their garden. The alley was next to it. Helen and Clem were very short. She lived with her mother, ‘Mrs. Crissman’. (What was her first name?)
Other doctors in town: Borreson, Byers. Byers stitched up Judy’s leg after a fall in an alley near our house. The scar remained throughout her life.
The train station three or so blocks from our house—greeting visiting relatives (Nancy Felson remembers taking train from Cincinnati to Greenfield by herself to visit us.)
Our shared friends:
- David Sommers
- Carol Sue Pinkerton
- Jackie Uhl
- Paul Wisecup
- Bill Bergen
- Carolyn Tudor (brother John)
- Joey Blackwell, older sister Alea
- Betty Moomaw: died at an early age. Was best student in the class.
- Norma Dillon: came to Greenfield in high school
- Beno (Bernard) Allen
- Carolyn Griesheimer
- Jim Pyle
College Years and Professional Jobs—we went our separate ways but kept in close touch
Judy: Schooling, Ohio State, University of Illinois, Job: Speech therapist in the Wisconsin Public Schools. Jobs in Buffalo, New York: faculty member at Buffalo State College and then the University of Buffalo. Married, Alan Duchan. Most recent residence: Buffalo, New York.
Elaine, University of Michigan. Married Ralph Vanzant. Children: Mark, Eric, Lori, Kirk. Elaine became Co-Owner of Agri Services, with Earnie Roll, of an animal feed business. Elaine divorced Ralph and hooked up with Earnie, until his death in 2021. She lived in Good Hope, Ohio near Greenfield for many years. In 2019 she moved to Chillicothe. She maintained contact with our high school friends and updated Judy on them throughout our post-college life.
Judy retired from work in 2000, Elaine in 2018.
Judy was inducted into the Edward Lee McClain High School Hall of Fame in 2014. Elaine read her acceptance speech to the attending crowd.
Elaine’s family
Elaine and Ralph Vanzant had four children and some of them had children. The Vanzant family is up to four generations. Here is a picture of the Vanzants from 2026.
Our parents died in our childhood home
Mother and dad died at home in Greenfield. Dad in 1980, Mother in 1987. They both had health care support in the end. Dad’s hospital bed was located in the solarium, off the family kitchen, mother’s in the living room (so she could watch tv, which she never did). Elaine arranged for their care, for the hiring and paying health care professionals and for their daily schedules.
Years after dad died, the town of Greenfield received a grant to develop the plot of land that came to be known as Felson park. Elaine has arranged to have an urn, containing her ashes, to be buried in Felson park, after she dies. She hopes that it will have been developed into an active space by then.
