Janice Ferguson:  

Life is good. A week after graduating from Northern Illinois in 1968, I married the man of my dreams, moved to Florida, and got my Masters Degree at Stetson University. For several years, I taught retarded children--that's what they were called then and I'm not concerned enough about political correctness to rename those precious children. After our son was born, I was a stay-at-home mom at our country home. Even after our daughter was born, I continued tending a large garden, milking dairy goats, gathering eggs from our chickens and working hard to keep our yard horse who was hell-bent on being a house horse out of the house (read that slowly. I hope you get it.) When Whistlestar saw me drive out the gate, she used her prehensile nose to open the back porch screen door and stroll into the kitchen where she would knock over canisters of sugar and flour. You haven't seen a real mess until you find that a horse has been in your house for 2-3 hours. My Mother Earth phase lasted until I was too busy raising children to keep up with that life style. I moved on to my real passion, needlework. I've taught sewing, English smocking, quilting and machine embroidery around the country, in Australia, Japan and Puerto Rico. Between teaching trips, I wrote articles and designed projects for needlework magazines (thank you Miss Drummond aka Mrs.Hamsher for all your great writing instruction!). Now, I sew for my four grandchildren, two of whom I homeschooled for three years, develop projects and write tutorials for Brother sewing machine company at blog.brothersews.com, keep up with needlework on my sewing blog at Janice Ferguson Sews.com. (skip spaces) and am very involved with our church. Since leaving West Aurora, life has been good. Because we have lived in the same old 1926 house since 1972, we have wonderful friends and deep roots in the community. Our cabin in the mountains of North Carolina is our favorite getaway and we enjoy spending time there with our children and grandchildren. Bob and I are happy and healthy, our children are fabulous, responsible, happily married, successful and, of course, brilliant and good looking, too. They are terrific parents to our four grandchildren who are delightful and, of course, beautiful, brilliant, talented, well-behaved, etc. just like your grandchildren. Some of my fondest memories are of happy times at West Aurora and I hope all my classmates are happy and well. I look forward to reading your stories. ~~~~~~Updates---I can't believe we are 71!!!! In the past few years I have reconnected with several classmates, but not enough! Susan Kleinschmidt Rydberg and I have been in touch.. She, too, is well and happy, enjoying her first great grandchild. Carole Glasco Christensen and I visited a few times, once at her lovely home in SC where I spent the night on my way to teach in Myrtle Beach and once here at my home when she and her husband stopped on the way further south. Her wonderful husband passed away several months later but Carole is active with choral and dance groups. My dear friend Jim Vaughan, with whom our families vacationed for many summers, has been in touch and even shared his reunion book with me. I've corresponded with Randy Morris and am facebook friends with Carol Harwig, Marjean Anderson Walls, Denise Salle, Darwin Hoeft, Dottie Lavoy, Barbara Jordan and others. I would LOVE to hear from any classmates, here or on facebook. Our time together at West Aurora was so important to all of us, and each of you are an important part of my youth. So let's be in touch! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UPDATE June, 2019 So hard to believe that it's been 54 years since we all graduated. But when I ache and groan after a few days of heavy gardening, it's not so hard to believe. Bob and I have been blessed with good health and a lifetime of happiness, so I can't complain. Most of my time is spent developing projects and writing tutorials for Brother at blog. brothersews. com --skip spaces if you want to take a look. I sew samples for advertising.and new machin...Expand for more