Portrait of my father as college senior, Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas, 1946-47.

Around early September 1946: rural home missions

“I spent Friday of that week [Aug 16] sightseeing in Chicago with Dot – the big city certainly does fascinate and thrill me, and still I want none of it.  We saw the Chicago Temple, Chicago University, drove around Lake Michigan at night, looked out over the city from the top of Stock Exchange Building, went through the Chicago Library—wouldn’t I love to spend a week in there writing a termpaper!...

“Some of you may know that our work on the Caravan this summer helped me to make a decision I have been working on for a long time—my field of religious education.  It is now definitely rural home missions, so I chose for an interest group at Convocation ‘What is the mission of the church in rural life?’ and met here people young people from all over the nation who are going into the same sort of field.”

-- Letter from my mother to “friends from Missouri” (likely a draft letter).  My father had visited Chicago two weeks earlier. My mother and father had yet to meet.