Visits from Scotland, France and Mexico

Global experiences in our homeland

Last month presented one occasion after another of the kind of personal international experiences one can have without actually leaving the U.S. again.

A couple from Kenmore, Scotland made a side trip here to get acquainted with boosters of Kenmore, Washington. A Frenchman who spent a year with us 40 years ago spent a week in Bothell rekindling memories of his year at Bothell High School. And I was fortunate to meet and hear of the work of a true servant of God who packed his bags seven years ago to cross our southern border to become director of a children’s home in a poverty-stricken region of Mexico.

Not one of those treasured experiences could be blunted by the wag who e-mailed me that a truly undecided voter in the U.S. was one who couldn’t decide whether to move to Mexico or Canada should the president be re-elected.

Kenmore, meet Kenmore

Kevin Mitchell is a student of accounting in Edinburgh, Scotland who married Megan, his wife of less than a year who is from Abbotsford, B.C. He is from Kenmore, Scotland where his mom and dad – Keith and Sheila Mitchell – operate a wholesale bakery after Keith spent more than 20 years as a restaurant chef. The four had a trip planned to visit Megan’s family in B.C. for an opportunity to get a little better acquainted than families can do at a wedding.

Members of the Kenmore Heritage Society who visited the Kenmore of Scotland have become friends with the Mitchells ever since cityhood became a reality here not long ago, and so the Mitchells took advantage of a standing offer to visit our Kenmore. Sheila’s sister Naudeen and brother-in-law David McInelly (an Irishman) and the four Mitchells were warmly greeted with a luncheon graciously hosted at the last minute by an avowed Scotsman, Dick Ramsey.

(Ten years ago I accompanied Ramsey and the esteemed columnist La Conner Fats on a golfing trip through Scotland. It was at the Kenmore course where the mere return to his hereditary roots must have been responsible for Dick playing what probably was the best golfing round of the trip, if not his life. We took pictures, noted the village landmarks and found a few Scotsmen willing to tell us about their homeland.)

The visitors joined the Heritage Society at an evening meeting in the refurbished Kenmore Community Club where the Mitchells showed slides and talked about their community – also located at the head of a lake (loch) in Scotland. They noted that their Kenmore golf course is much like that of Kenmore’s Inglewood Golf Club.
Enjoying the visitors were Society members Jack and Char Crawford, Annette and Bud Eaton, Elmer and Pat Skold, Priscilla Droge and LeRoy Aenenson. Mayor Steve Colwell and his wife Kathie greeted the Mitchells at the luncheon.

Staying in touch

There is far too much to tell about the visit of Yves Mosse from Caen, France, than this column space will permit. Yves was in Bothell to celebrate the anniversary of his arrival here in August, 1964 where he spent a year as an exchange student. Yves lived with Northshore Rotarian Carl Knoll and his family and developed a legion of friends here with whom he has maintained contact over the ensuing 40 years. He says the number is at least a hundred.

His frequent return here and the hospitality he has extended Bothell travelers to France speaks well for the value of one-on-one international relations.

This past June he was instrumental in planning and staging the 60^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy. Today, Yves is the appointed prefect (governor) of Lower Normandy where he lives with his wife Solange and their two remarkable children Marie and Pierre.

While here he attended Rotary meetings in Woodinville and with the Northshore club that hosted him in 1964-65. He had breakfast with a D-Day veteran retired paratrooper Colonel Bob Matthews; had dinner with John and Gracy Karp in Bothell (he recalled having many “political” discussions with John’s father, the late Julian Karp, who was superintendent of Northshore schools at the time); watched the Presidential debates with our family at the home of Egon and Laina Molbak; and renewed acquaintances with Rotarians and Bothell classmates at a dinner held in his honor.

Included were Bothell graduates Bob Haynes, Darrell and Pam (Clark) Green, Earl Wayman and Ron Frost (class president); Betty HasBrouck and Lois Sundstrom Hall; and Rotarians Jerry Molitor, Al Zweber, Egon Molbak, Lou Roselli, Chip Davidson, Phil Carter, Lowell Haynes and Dick Chamberlain. After acquiring a complete set of history books on Thomas Jefferson at his favorite bookstore, Yves headed home with the hope that a summer here next year for son Pierre would cement an even deeper, lasting relationship between his family and our community.

Caring for 60

Brad Perrigo and Art Haines of Bothell introduced us to the work of Gil Sanchez, who is executive director of Casa de la Esperanza, a home for 60 children in a poverty-stricken region in northern Mexico. It is truly a “House of Hope” for children who show up on Gil’s doorstep, the victims of drugs, murder, abandonment and extreme poverty. The goal, says Gil, is to provide a feeling of home for these youngsters, provide them with an education and help them “become good citizens of Mexico.” The ages run from pre-school through college (three are attending university, living and working at Casa).

Gil gave up a life of a city planner, university professor of economics to take up an interest in these children of such tragic backgrounds as a member of a Church of Christ congregation in Pueblo, Colorado. After five years of “being involved”, he and his wife Becky packed up their belongings and moved seven years ago to Anahuac, Mexico where today he has dreams of adding a school to the Casa and doubling the number of children who can be cared for.

He was here telling the story of Casa de la Esperanza as well as thanking local church supporters who have been sending youths to Casa to experience life there as well as to help with the many projects in the development of the 10-year-old children’s home.

And, as a footnote, and to complete these international experiences, it looked as if I would have to leave the U.S., if only briefly, to take a journey to Surrey, B.C. for a flu shot. It is nice to have friends in Canada willing to help keep us virus safe over the influenza season!

for the October 20 Northshore Citizen tribute to Marianne LoGerfo,
"Our Lady of the Seniors"

The
Northshore
Citizen
weekly newspaper would have been
100 years old in 2003. Over the years it covered events in Bothell, Kenmore and Woodinville. The Citizen gave way in January of 2002 to the
Bothell-Kenmore
Reporter
mailed twice monthly free to homes in both communities

Previous Columns

October 20, 2004
Our Lady of the Seniors

October 6, 2004
Fabric addict discovered

Sept 15, 2004
Time of Civil Elections

Sept. 1, 2004
Three golden opportunities

August 18, 2004
All about Grace

August 4, 2004
Maltby Cafe Anniversary

July 21, 2004
Tent City in Bothell

July 7, 2004
Saga of Harry Tracy

with the late Peg Phillips

John B. Hughes
was editor and publisher of the
Citizen Newspapers from
1961-1988 and now writes
a column for the
Reporter under the title of
Northshore
Citizen

Hughes serves as grand marshal
in Grace, under the name of Hugo B. Jonsen
and is in charge of the town's parades, special events and celebrations.
For some odd reason, most of the town's planned events have been cancelled of late.

Hugo and
Mayor-for-Life Terry Jarvis
co-publish
The Greater Grace
Daily OnLine
Gazette
from offices in
Grace Town Hall
P.O. Box 967
Grace, Wa 98072

(425) 482-4076