Quote of the day:

I know worrying works, because none of the stuff I worried about ever happened.
—Will Rogers

Yesterday I received this pic from Cindy.

That’s all well and good I told Cindy, but I don’t remember any Stettlers in Richland, and the only Phyllis that I recall was Phyllis Strause.

To which Cindy fired back that yes, that is Phyllis Strause, and that’s Bob Stettler who taught her (Cindy) bookkeeping at Elco.

My reply was:

So I went to the yearbooks.

The Strause family lived across the street from us, right next door to the Weiants. We didn’t have the same frequent get togethers with them that we had with the Weiant clan, but we did see them from time to time.

There was Phyllis, the oldest, she was two years older than I was. Then there was Lee, a year older, so I was in the same classroom as he was during most of my elementary school years, as I explained previously. It was Lee that I got to know the best of the Strauses. Jean was next in line, she was a year younger than I was. I just confirmed that she was in my confirmation class. And finally there was Robert or Bobby, several years younger than I was, whom I really didn’t get to know at all; I just remember him as wearing thick glasses and sometimes one of the lenses might have been covered, so I guess he had vision problems. My sister tells me that he was a year ahead of her in school.

Here is Phyllis’s graduation picture from the 1965 yearbook.

She and Business Education teacher Robert Stettler were married in October of that year.

I never had him for any classes, so the name Stettler didn’t immediately ring any bells for me.

At this point I think I should point out that the Strause family has been especially tragedy prone. I realize that this is supposed to be a good news post, but sometimes the good news sounds best when placed into perspective. Or so I’ve been led to believe.

In 1972 Lee Strause, 23 years old, plunged to his death from a 40 foot scaffolding at Three Mile Island, leaving behind his wife, Susan Meck (a member of our 1967 Elco class) and a young son.

In 1989 Robert Strause, who had obtained a master’s degree in library science from Emporia State University and was a librarian for the Missouri Court of Appeals in Kansas City, died in his Kansas City home at the age of 35, no cause given in the obituary.

And in 2005 Jean Strause Spatz died at the home of her son at age 55, leaving one son behind; she had been predeceased by a son.

So Phyllis is the sole surviving sibling after all these years.

Here is yet one more picture of the Stettler family that was found on Facebook. A sixtieth anniversary is certainly something to celebrate.

And I also found this notice from August of 1967:

That’s on North Race Street. I wonder if that’s where they’re still living?