Donna

In the 1980s Donna Michels recorded a series of conversations with her father, Fred Michels. Donna provides details of these conversations in her preface. Preface by Donna Michels:     MP3       WAV Conversations Fred Michels 001:     MP3       WAV Fred Michels 002:     MP3       WAV Fred Michels 003:     MP3       WAV Fred Michels 004:     MP3       WAV Bea Michels Fred Michels 005:     MP3       WAV Bea Michels Fred Michels 006:     MP3       WAV Theresa's (Theresa Andreini Stone) Fred Michels 007:     MP3       WAV Mafalda's Family (Mafalda  Andreini Michels)

I read news that WFMT, Chicago's classical music radio station, was going to discontinue its Do-It-Yourself Messiah, an event they had been presenting since 1976. During one holiday season many years ago Donna and her friend Nancy Sivak were members of the amateur chorus. I asked Nancy to share her memories of that special time: "40- ish years ago…memories of…The Do It Yourself Messiah …with this qualifier: i do not bet my life on all of these details from decades ago… that said, here goes.  Orchestra Hall is what being in a church should feel like…for the diym (do-it-yourself Messiah), only the soloists are paid …  orchestra members are volunteers who have played together- never before…… the orchestra rehearses only three times, prior to the night of performance …. > 2,500 singers, of widely ranging talent, training, experience…. The common / golden thread through all of the event is love of Handel’s Messiah…this chicago diym was directed by the goddess, Margaret ...

This is a group email I sent out the day after Donna had her mitral valve repair surgery, performed by Delos Cosgrove, MD at Cleveland Clinic. It's a fond memory now. At the time, I was sitting on pins and needles, hoping everything went alright. This was sent from Donna's Governor's State University email address because we didn't yet have a home email address. I made a modem connection with govst.edu and logged into Donna's Pine account (that was their email client) to send this message to the group. MH From: d-michels1@govst.edu (Donna Michels) Subject: The Day After Hello again everybody.  Donna has moved up in the world - five floors up, to be exact. And she would have a room with a view if her bed were located next to the window. She's now located on the tenth floor, which has a name something like "cardiac rehabilitation facility." There's a phone by her bed. She has asked that no one call her for a while longer. I'll send you an e-mail ...

 Sue Blomgren, Donna's lifelong friend, shared this scrap of conversation with me. Donna said she had great reverence for food. Anyone fortunate enough to have shared a meal prepared by Donna will recognize the validity of this statement. During our years together she used her expertise and enthusiasm to bring the very best recipes to our table. Sometimes I would assist her in the procurement and preparation of the ingredients. On other occasions, Donna worked as the sole chef in the kitchen. In either case, one would find Donna's reverence in each dish. In celebration of her reverence for food, I am sharing Donna's recipe books: -- The Orange Binder . --  The Spiral Notebook . --  The Blank Book . -- The Black Binder . -- The Zipper Document Folder . -- The Green Metal Index Card Box . Here are some recipes that were missed during the original blog post: -- Don Curto's Tomato Basil Cream Soup . Thanks to Sue Blomgren for sharing this recipe. Also, we often turned to...

I first saw Donna when she entered a building in the middle of a Chicago winter. Her coat was unzipped, flapping in the breeze. She wasn't wearing a hat or gloves. This sight is etched in my memory. I grew up in Chicago and knew the ferocity of its winter weather. Yet Donna came in from the cold as if the cold was not there. Who was this person?  As time went by I learned more about her. She was from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Ishpeming specifically, where they had real winter weather; real biting winds, real drifts of snow, ice that lasts till June. Compared to that, winter in Chicago is not winter. Pictured here, Donna Michels standing on an Upper Peninsula cliff overlooking the Lake Superior shoreline -- appropriately attired.

“One of the mythic hero’s most important tasks is to travel to a strange new land and come back  enlightened or bewildered.” * Honestly, with a lede like that, who isn’t going to continue reading. Today, my lunch was a  sandwich and The New York Review of Books. If Donna were still alive, she might be reading the story to me. She had been reading the New  York Review for many decades, many more decades than the three we shared. She would read  it cover to cover; she gave it her complete attention. High praise. Concerned that a lapse in Donna’s subscription might nudge the universe off axis, I renewed it  in her name. I quietly sit and read. The New York Review has my complete attention. *  Quote from an article by Yuri Slezkine in the October 22, 2020 issue.