From: Neil A. Hofland December 8, 2015 Son of Joyce Danielson Hofland Daughter of Hiram Danielson Son of Elizabeth Anderson

Transcription

1 From: Neil A. Hofland December 8, 2015 Son of Joyce Danielson Hofland Daughter of Hiram Danielson Son of Elizabeth Anderson Dear Cousins, The Andersonia arrived to find Lorraine and I recovering from the first colds we have had in about 15 years. Lorraine got hers first and it was a bad chest cold that really had her weak and down for a couple of weeks of almost constant coughing. She is just getting back her sense of taste. Mine was just a head cold and wasn't as bad but it lasted a couple of weeks also. Other than that I am in pretty good health except my balance is bad and I have to be very careful. I have had a few falls and a couple were like the TV commercial. I couldn't get up and a couple of our children had to come over and help me get to my feet. I just didn't have the leg strength to stand up. Lorraine's knees are bad and she had them X-rayed and she had no cartilage left in either knee. Once in a while they get so bad she has to use a walker. I am now 81 (I am gaining on you John. :-)) and Lorraine will be 81 on December 11. Sigh! Getting old isn't for sissies. Our eldest, Karin, is still selling rocks, fossils, and puzzle boxes over the Internet. Her websites are: Mother Lode Rock Shop - Carousel Puzzle Boxes - We live in a house that is down from the street level and the driveway we share with a neighbor is really steep. It is a real task to push our garbage cans up the hill. Karin brings us fast food for lunch and pushes the can(s) up every Monday. Our neighbor brings the can(s) down on Tuesday when he brings his down. Karin also brings fast food on Thursday just for the fun of it and to see if there is something else to be done. Our son, Chris, and his wife Jean got some bad news last year. They found out that Jean has breast cancer. She has been undergoing treatment and seems to be doing fairly well. Their oldest daughter, Jenna, is a junior at NYU. She is an English major and won an award as English student of the month and had an interview with her published in the school paper. NYU has a campus in London and she will be going there for the next semester. Following that there is another program in Spain she is trying to get into. If she does she will be able to graduate in 3 ½ years which is quite an achievement. Their son, Kyle, is a senior in high school and is a bass guitarist in a couple of rock groups. Their youngest, Raini, is a freshman and still active in Irish dancing. Chris continues his daily drive of over an hour to work in Sacramento as a database guru for the state's largest credit union. Keri, our second daughter, is still living in Los Angeles. She completed her masters degree in Special Education and is now student teaching. Her oldest daughter, and our oldest grandchild at 29, is still a perpetual student at Cal State Dominguez Hills. She should graduate with a degree in Anthropology next spring and is planning to go to graduate school. She presented a paper at the national convention of anthropologists that was well received. Keri's son, Alexander, graduated from Rice University last spring as a music composition major. His instrument is violin and he plays my grandfather's (his great great grandfather) violin made before He plays piano as well. This past summer he was an intern at Lions Gate, the movie company, and the summer before he was an intern at the Academy of Motion Pictures. He is interning at some movie and TV music company now. I have forgotten the name. He hopes this will lead to a permanent position at some point. His sister, Gabrielle, is a senior at Santa Monica High School (SAMOHI). She is still a soccer star and playing on both the high school team and a club team. She has been taking trips all over the country looking at colleges to attend and hasn't selected one yet. She still plays flute in the SAMOHI band. Her younger

2 brother, Gunther, is a junior at SAMOHI and also plays flute in the band. The youngest in Keri's family is Chloe who is now in the fourth grade in Santa Monica. She is developing into a soccer star like her sister Gabrielle and also plays flute. I guess I should point out that Keri went to the Manhattan School of Music and is a flutist. Our youngest daughter, Kirsti, and her husband, Bill, live about 3 blocks from us. Bill continues to manage the Las Vegas office of BDO which is a world wide accounting firm. On a normal week he flies over on Tuesday morning and back on Friday evening. He also flies all over the country to deal with other clients. When he is home he continues to work by using the telephone and Internet. Their daughter, Amanda, is a senior at San Francisco State. They have some kind of arrangements with colleges in Japan and she is in Japan attending her last semester of school there and will graduate next spring. Their son, Liam, is a junior at the University of California at Davis, a couple of hours drive from Grass Valley. He has played French horn in both the band and orchestra, I think this semester he is only playing in the band. When he is home from school he plays trumpet in a mariachi band with some of his high school classmates. We are enjoying living in Grass Valley and seeing our kids and grandchildren, as well as Lorraine's only sibling, her sister Marilyn. We have pretty much finished our Sunday at 4 PM family archiving project followed by dinner together. We still get together for dinner. Not everyone is always here, but if they are free they come and we enjoy it. Grass Valley has a population of about 14,000 and Nevada City (which abuts Grass Valley to the north) has about 3,000. These are 2 old gold rush towns that have historic districts in the downtown areas. We are in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains so the whole area is forested and hilly. People living on acreage live all over the area around the 2 towns. I don't believe there is a square block in either town. Curvy roads wander up and down hills and there are lots of trees. There are very few flat places including business parking lots. There are a lot of retirees living here. We both have handicapped cards so we can park in the handicapped spaces. We seldom do because so many others have them that the spaces are filled. There are also an astonishing amount of cultural activities. There are weekends when 2 or more locally produced theater groups are putting on Broadway musicals. There are several music and art groups. The quality of performance is high. All of our family members perform in some group or another. There are also volunteer support groups for people and animals. There is even a support group for injured bats, and I am not kidding. Well, this isn't much of a letter, but nothing exciting has happened. In the really old days it used to be a thrill to receive snail mail. My father and a cousin would exchange penny post cards that would say, How are you? I am fine. News is as scarce as hen's teeth. That's about it. Neil

3 Illustration 1: Alex and Gabrielle Clouse at Alex's graduation from Rice University Illustration 2: Amanda Powell, in Japan for her last college term. Illustration 3: Cousins in Grass Valley, Summer Clockwise in circle starting at left: Gunther Schwartz, Alex Clouse, Liam Powell, Gabrielle Clouse, Amanda Powell, Kyle Hofland, Raini Remley, Jenna Remley.

4 Illustration 4: Grass Valley CA, Summer Clockwise circle starting at left: Lorraine Hofland, Neil Hofland, Chris Hofland, Karin Hofland, Bill Powell, Marilyn Blom (Lorraine's sister). Illustration 5: Cousins at the Yuba River near Grass Valley, CA, Summer Alex Clouse, Kyle Hofland, Jenna Remley, Gabrielle Clouse, Gunther Schwartz, Amanda Powell.

5 Illustration 6: Neil Hofland's 80th Birthday Illustration 7: Lorraine Hofland's 80th Birthday

6 Illustration 8: Amanda Powell, Kirsti Powell, Liam Powell, William Powell at Hofland family homestead in Norway.