(Previous bio)
We have been in Champaign - mostly - since 1967, when we arrived planning to spend "just 2 years". I worked for 25 years at the Champaign Public Library, starting in the Children's Department and then moving on to be a reference librarian in Adult Services. We have three children - Kathy, Elizabeth, and Christopher - none of whom can possibly be as old as they claim to be, and 5 grandchildren: Laura (13), Kate (10), Ava (3), Maggie (3), and ...just when we were about to field our women's basketball team.. Kai (almost 2).
We bought a house in southern Oregon in 1999, so I retired then but Larry kept at it in the Economics Department at the U of I until 2005. He seems not to understand the concept of retirement, so since then he has taught in Paris and at UCLA, but most regularly at the London School of Economics for their winter term. It seems a lot of people are interested in Financial History and Crises nowadays! So we spend January - March in London each year, summers in Oregon, and the in-between time mostly in Champaign. I was surprised to see the picture of 4 of us (Sue, Heather, Mary Ruth, and me) on our Oregon deck leading off the photo pages, but that leads me to issue an open (and serious!) invitation to anyone in the Oregon neighborhood to come by and see us. It is fun to have visitors and show off beautiful Oregon!
The next generation.
Ava and Maggie
The five grandkids.
This would be Peg showing off her backyard. (Must be at least three acres.)
Peg Doherty Neal
Personal
1. I yield to Janice (Hawaii) or Caryl(Alaska) on this one. I’m coming 135 miles.
2. We have 5 grandchildren: Laura (13), Kate (10), Ava (4), Maggie (3) and Kai (2).
3. Retired in 1999 after working 25 years at the Champaign Public Library.
4. Travel? You name it: I never thought I’d travel east of Indiana or west of Iowa!
5. Does tap dancing count?!
6. It’s not so exotic, but I love, love, love London and have been very lucky to spend so much time there. I do get a kick when people ask if I’m Canadian and I say “No, I’m American.” Response: “But you’re so nice!”
7. Alison Krauss (now the female vocalist with the most Grammys ever) was in school with our kids, took violin lessons with our daughter, and I was her librarian at the public library. When they both got disgusted with the violin teacher, our Liz just quit. Alison quit too, but went to the library, checked out a book on how to fiddle – and the rest is history.
8. Of course! B. Of course!
10. I volunteer at our Crisis Nursery and am a CASA volunteer for abused and neglected children.
11. See #5!!!!!!
Memories
1. It’s hard to name just one, but our neighborhood was something special. “Come home when the street lights come on.”
2. Broecker’s for my fabulous wardrobe, and the East Side Story for candy.
3. Every time I travel someplace wonderful or learn something mindbending, I think how much Mr. Stevens would love it. And I was a history major, even though I gave him a hard time about how much work he assigned us. He was wonderful when I wrote a term paper on “The History of the Negro.” It was a teachable moment on how to narrow a topic! And I still remember all those kings and dates.
6. Well, my ’41 Ford was pretty darned cool. And Sue Eller had a vintage car too. We should have kept them!
7. When our daughters saw our high school pictures, they commented that they hadn’t realized we had to wear uniforms! Ah, the 50s!
8. Ozzie’s for milkshakes, and Chobar’s because that meant I had a date.
12. Sue Eller reciting all the names – and middle names! Still an impressive feat!
13. If you went to SS Peter and Paul, you knew LOTS of eccentric characters!
14. I was a big Howdy Doody fan, and there was something to be said for the
Mickey Mouse Club too. But the all-time best was the Loretta Young show.
She didn’t get those outfits at Broecker’s!
15. Every single one – just get me started.
19. Remember those dance cards? I saved them all – and the corsages too. On
the back of the cards I wrote who I went with, what I wore, AND my evaluation of the evening! HA! (I also tried to convince my own kids that it would be really fun to have dances in a grocery store parking lot like we did at the A & P. HA again.)
20. Books and plays have been written about pre-Vatican II elementary schools,
but some of the nuns (Sister Spurina, Sister Leonissa) were very kind. And I can still do a wicked sentence diagram – not that anyone ever asks me to.
21. At the beach! And NOT detassling, since my Dad was in insurance and
knew the statistics. So when everyone else – EVERYONE! – went off to Aurora to buy sweaters with their riches, I felt like Cinderella before the ball. (I also had a fine sense of drama?)