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Summertime memories

As we head into the final month of summer, it's fun to reflect on summers past and remember favorite vacations with our families. A few of our residents share some of their fond vacation memories and our Sales & Marketing Director, Stephanie Oehlert offers some treasured family photos that show a long family tradition of enjoying summer vacations near the water.

Name – Larry Blake

Favorite Vacation memory – All of our extended family celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary on vacation in Angel Fire, New Mexico. We would go in winter and summer every year.

Name – Rosella Fischer

Favorite Vacation memory – June 4 -11, 2022, a group of 24 people visited the country of Ecuador to honor the legacy of my husband, Vern Fischer.

After his passing in 2019, the family requested that instead of flowers people donate to the memorial fund to build a church in Ecuador. Generous people contributed and a trip was scheduled sometime in 2020. Due to the pandemic, the trip was postponed several times. They were able to schedule the trip for June of this year.

The memorial fund helped build the Dios Eterno Church of the Nazarene in Riobamba, Ecuador. According to the church, the congregation had been praying for God’s provision to help them expand. Faithful church members had been contributing with their finances and volunteering hours of labor. When they heard of the opportunity to partner with the Fischer Memorial Fund, they felt it was God’s answer to their prayers. Pastor Jose Maria Lara showed his gratitude to members of the Fischer family and the church members who worked tirelessly on their new church building.

As an article from the Church of the Nazarene South America explains, Vern and Rosella Fischer raised four children, Scott, Jon, Shawn and Renae. Vern invested his life in serving the Lord well. His children and grandchildren remember him as the Godly man he was. Recently Scott Fischer, Vern’s oldest son, shared some memories he treasures of his father. “Choices have consequences,” said Scott Fischer. “Our parents chose to follow God, make church a priority, and live a Godly life; and because of that, we all have enjoyed the blessing of that choice they made.”

Name - Stephanie Oehlert

Favorite vacation memory – From the time I was a little girl, I have loved looking through old family photos. I am lucky enough to have many family photo albums and my grandparents used to tell us so many stories while we looked through the pictures. I was always fascinated with the older pictures of my grandfather’s family. You could almost imagine what was happening right after the picture was taken. They looked like they had such fun adventures and I wish I had known them. They loved to go to Lake Itasca State Park in Minnesota and have an album of photos from three happy summers there from 1913 – 1915. These photos are of my great-great-grandfather William Goetze, my great-great grandmother Amelia Goetze, my great-grandfather Hartmann Goetze and his sister, my great-aunt Julia Goetze while on vacation at Lake Itaska, MN in 1914. They were dressed pretty fancy by today’s standards for fishing and boating on the lake!

My grandfather, Hartmann Goetze, Jr. carried on this tradition of going to the shore on summer vacations and went on their first vacation as a family with my grandmother Ruth Goetze and my mom, Susan Goetze Clothier as a baby, when they went to Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island in 1947.

This tradition has carried on in my family and we love going to the shore for our summer vacations, whether it’s a lake or an ocean, there’s nothing like being by the water.

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