Donna

A photo album from 2004. Click on the image or link to go to the album.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/CuXDsZQkfbNhxgcv5

Over the decades of our marriage Donna and I shared many traditions. Not anything big, just small things we cherished and made a part of our lives. One such thing was a Sunday afternoon celebration of sorts; we would enjoy Italian food and watch a movie. Donna coined the phrase, 'meatball and a movie.' I've continued that tradition, and I keep a list of all the Sunday afternoon plates and films. Meatball And A Movie

 Claw members (left to right) Mollie (Claw Number Two), Karen (Claw Number One), Teresa (Claw Number Four), Sue (Claw Number Six) Photo submitted by Sue Blomgren What is the Claw? No one will say. The Claw has its origins among Ishpeming High School students, including Donna Michels (Claw Number Seven) and Sue Bussiere Blomgren  (Claw Number Six) , in the mid 1950s. I asked Sue and Donna what the Claw is. It's a secret. As the photo above will attest, the secret has been kept among Claw members for several decades. Is the Claw a benevolent organization, or are its members given to nefarious schemes. Mum's the word.  In addition to those pictured above, Claw members included Beth (Claw Number Three), Gerry (Claw Number Five), Margie (Claw Number Eight), Maddy (Claw Number Nine), Brigie (Claw Number Ten), Chetty (Claw Number Eleven), Jerry (Claw Number Twelve), Barbi (Claw Number ?)

  Donna and Sue Stories Donna Michels and Sue Blomgren shared a lifetime. They were friends from their time as little girls through their years as old women and till the end of Donna's life. Here are some shared memories. There may be many more. Feel free to share your favorite Donna and Sue stories. Conversation With A Farmer We used to visit the two horses that belonged to a small farm in Ishpeming.  We'd bring sugar lumps and apples for them to eat. We were in about Fifth Grade. One day on such an occasion we noticed the old man who owned the horses was in the stable, and we had some questions to ask about the horses, so we approached him and chatted briefly. Then he asked us where we went to school. We answered, ' St. John's Convent School.' 'Catholics, then, eh?', he said. We nodded, then after a slight pause he remarked, 'Well, we can't help what we're born, can we?'       Donna and I were shocked and baffled by his remark. I guess it w...

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 ...

  At age seven, while visiting her Aunt Lonnie, Donna wrote three stories. These stories have been scanned and saved as PDFs. Links to the PDFs are given below this message. The PDFs are fairly large, 25 megabytes or more. The best way to enjoy these stories is to download them onto your computer or other device and then open them. -- The Farm -- The Little Fawn -- Miss Kitty: A Cat Story

 

 

While she was growing up, Donna often visited the Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library to check out books and to hang out in the Teen Loft with her friend Sue Blomgren. We asked those interested to make a donation to the Library in memory of Donna Michels. The latest edition of the Friends of the Library Newsletter included this article. Here is a link to the Friends of the Library webpage. https://ishpeminglibrary.info/friends/ Here is the Winter 2021 edition of Friends of the Library Newsletter

 

 

 Donna Michels joins Roberto Andreini's cousin, Silvano, for a trip to the Andreini family burial plot. Afterward Donna and Silvano visit the Andreini Family Home. October 14, 2004. A Day With Silvano Andreini

  Donna Michels meets her Second Cousin Roberto Andreini for dinner and a discussion of Andreini genealogy. At Il Borghetto del Castello Trattoria - Pizzeria, Lucca, Italy. Dinner with Donna Michels and Roberto Andreini: Part One Dinner with Donna Michels and Roberto Andreini: Part Two Dinner with Donna Michels and Roberto Andreini: Part Three Days later the group gathered again for another dinner, this time at Trattoria da checco, Lucca, Italy. Roberto had some history with this restaurant. Many years earlier his band, Piera, played here. Dinner at Trattoria da checco with Lara and Roberto Andreini Dinner at Roberto Andreini's Home

 

 

 

 

 To Mike Shannon, 1953 - 1999, from Donna Michels.

  Download as PDF

Our friendship is seagulls, A dark, moonlit night with crisp, cool breezes, Sun shining on the bark of gnarled, old trees Tanned boys' hands And green apples and stories in a huge maple tree. Our friendship is street corners, Psychology at a basketball game,  Scraps of paper with scribbled notes, Signs and wonders, And dreams told over the telephone. Our friendship is the Barnum Bridge, A treasure-box filled with valuables, Notes of a harmonica piercing the air, Pilate's Knob, The treehouse, the theater, and walking home after a dance. Our friendship is singing, Frozen fingers clutching a whiskey bottle Walking along a dusty road, bicycles, books, And a shining white dam bordering deep, clear waters. Our friendship is campfires, A man and woman dancing to sultry music, A cigarette glowing on North Slope, A slinking wolf, And Rachmaninoff's 3rd movement on a scratchy record. Our friendship is knives, And ocean waves pounding on rocky shores, Standing on a cliff, hair wet wit...

Click on the post title to open the message and download the PDFs. Notes On D. H. Lawrence, Part One Notes On D. H. Lawrence, Part Two Identification With Characters in Novels Notes On St Mawr Wordsworth and Coleridge: The Language of Poetry A Collection of Poems by Charlie Hooks A Story by Charlie Hooks Durufle Requiem Romantic, Barring Romance A Poem titled Rhonda A Poem titled The Difficult Thing A Poem titled Arena Prose titled P. R. From Thayer's Life of Beethoven Stuart Gallahger's Folklore Course Three Provinces of Philosophy A Jelly-fish A Poem by J. Patrick Lewis Planh For The Death Of Ted Hughes WFMT Pledge Drive Notes On Religion One Size Fits All: A Critical Essay After My Suicide, by Henry Allen One Night Between Sunset and River A List Hands Relationships Untitled Poem by Donna Michels Significative. A Poem by Donna Michels Untitled Poem by Donna Michels Untitled Poem by Donna Michels Untitled Poem by Donna Michels Untitled Poem by Donna Michels Strawberries, Suga...

 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...

 Tony was the family dog when Donna was a young girl. Donna shared several Tony stories with me (I'd ask her to tell them to me again and again. She was a great storyteller). Here's one of my favorites. During a visit to her grandfather's home, Tony went into the barn and got into a fight with a rat. Donna ran to her grandfather and urgently told him about this terrible thing. Her grandfather said, "He knows what he's doing." This is Donna's favorite photo of Tony because her grandfather's beautiful gardens are visible in the background. She loved walking around these gardens with her Grandfather Peter Michels. He would tell her about each plant as they strolled along. This is a color tinted black & white photo of Tony. Some of the tinting has faded away. Some of the spots are Tony's. Some of the spots are splashes of spaghetti sauce accidentally placed there by one of Donna's children. For this photo Fred Michels, Donna's father, pl...

What a fascinating, wonderful human. I remember often, and always with a smile, a moment at work. As I walked past Donna, she exploded with [her headphones on and] that beautiful, musical laugh. She explained, loudly [in a voice that indicated she was SO enjoying WFMT at good volume] that the host had just announced the next recording they were playing: a work by Pachelbel.."NO" he had said, "not THAT one."  no more words.

This was our first photo shoot. Click here for the album .

 I was at a convention center, I don't know where. Both Dad and Donna were going to speak at separate conferences. I think Donna was going to talk about flowers. I can't remember Dad's topic. I was going from Donna's preparation room to Dad's. Just making sure they had everything they needed. I remember thinking, "I know such great people." The dream ended as I walked Dad into his venue.

A list composed by Donna.  Click   here  to download the PDF  This list was excerpted from another document written by Donna.

  Reading to each other was one of our favorite pastimes. It was more than the story. It provided the opportunity to discuss the story, or a paragraph, or a sentence. Choosing what we’d read aloud was part of the fun. Martin Amis and Elmore Leonard were perennial favorites. Aside from favorite authors, there were books we wanted to share. A couple were memorable, not just because they were great books, but because Donna gave them such a great reading. One was Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ She knew how to voice it without any of it sounding overdramatic. I often wish I had recorded her reading. But then the act of recording would have detracted from our shared experience. Another of Donna’s great reads was Julia Child’s autobiography ‘My Life in France.’ Julia Child is one of my heroes, so giving voice to her words had special meaning. Donna knew just how to do it. Perfect. Elmore Leonard’s novels were always mine to read aloud. Donna insisted on this, and I didn’t disagree....

I must say that no one warned me (or I didn’t heed) that aging would bring so much sadness. I do remember some great times with my Claw friends. One in particular occurred at a member’s camp where we had gathered one weekend when Donna and Sue introduced us to the songs of Tom Lehrer!  “Be Prepared” “I’ll take Your Hand” etc.  They had memorized them from a record. So when I heard about Donna’s passing, I poured a glass of wine and listened to Tom on You Tube. Salute. I’m so sorry for your loss, but cherish the memories.

Donna listened to WFMT every weekday, all day long. She would listen to the radio station's internet stream, so no matter where we lived she could tune in her favorite classical music station. It was on WFMT that Donna first heard mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist Cecilia Bartoli. I think it was love at first sing. Donna purchased a number of Bartoli's recordings and listened to them again and again. We read that Cecelia Bartoli would be performing at Chicago's Symphony Center. I asked Donna if she would like to attend. Donna answered yes in the blink of an eye. I called about tickets. The performance was sold out except for one box seat held by a season subscriber who couldn't attend. I invested in that box seat, and explained the situation to Donna. She was saddened that we couldn't attend together, but thrilled to go nonetheless. A box seat! That was a first. On the day of the performance I drove Donna to the front entrance of Symphony Center, then I walk...

 In this YouTube video, Donna Michels walks us around her gardens .

 

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.

A few weeks before the last Christmas of the twentieth century, my brother Mike and I stepped out into a cold and gray winter day for holiday shopping in Chicago. Mike informed me at the out-set that he was on a “mission” to find a Christmas something for Donna.    “Something really unique,” he said in calm, almost reverent voice.  “Something Donna!” For the entire day we visited several used vinyl record and CD establishments, Mike, as always meticulously combing through tightly packed bins throughout the cramped stores.  What was extremely notable and different this day was observing Mike veer from rock n’ roll LP’S to check out the classical music inventory.  At a few used music stores, he would ask my thoughts on classical CD’s he found, most piano, violin or quartet.   Thereafter, he would seek information on his selected CD’s from store employees and listen intently to a selection or two on each.  I do not think Mike cared much about wh...

“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.

  Donna and I traveled to Florida. My dad was in the hospital there. He was unconscious by the time we arrived. Things weren’t good. After a conference with his surgical team, and in line with my dad’s directive, the decision was made to remove life support. My family went back to my mom and dad’s home. Donna and I stayed at the hospital with my dad. We saw him out. I was crushed. Donna stayed close. She had lost her dad some years back and knew what I was going through. When I had pulled myself together enough to converse with her, Donna said, “It gets better. It takes a long time, but it gets better.” So I’m passing along this message from my partner of thirty years. It gets better.