Candlemas Day

To learn about this special day click the link to Woodlands Junior School to learn the fascinating origins of the America's Groundhog Day.

Candlemas Day

Happy Mother's Day

My mother, Katherine Corinne LaBrue Elgin, and me, 1945.


Word History: It is most appropriate that the word for "mother"in Proto-Indo-European originated in the first recognizable syllable uttered by babies: ma. This syllable was attached to a kinship suffix, -ter, which also turns up in brother, father, and sister. The original form, mater-, later evolved into the current words for "mother" that we now find in all the Indo-European languages: Latin mater, Greek meter (as in metropolis, the mother city), German Mutter, French mère, Serbian majka, Russian mat', materi, Italian and Spanish madre, Portuguese mãe, Danish moder, Dutch and Afrikaans moeder, Norwegian and Swedish mor, Icelandic móðir, Irish máthair, Hindi mataji, Gujarati maataa, Farsi (Persian) madar, and Pashto (Afghanistan) mor. If you are a mother, may this day be as beautiful and exciting as your name in all these languages.

Shrove Tuesday

When I was a little girl and the Episcopal church was still Christian and traditional, we always had a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. This evening Polly and I will go out for pancakes.
Here is a fine website from Woodlands Junior school in Kent, England which tell the history and traditions of the day.