Good Night, Marija (Part I)

What fun we've had, Marija, exchanging morning emails for almost eight years. That's how the deepest of friendships are made, two like-minded people exchanging ideas day after day. Two people rejoicing when the dawn bloomed bright in the eastern sky and in our hearts. One cheer-leading the other the mornings you preferred an after breakfast nap, or the matters of the world interfered with my writing. Every morning was a good morning.

Our friendship was foretold when you posted a note on the RootsWeb Internet message board in 2005, an inquiry about the Govert School. Then the snow of three winters fell on your cottage by the pond before I stumbled upon your message. I found you 10 days before your 78th birthday. "What a nice surprise!" you responded to my email, "Thank you for writing!"

After that, you shared your memories, a tomboy growing up in Govert, and I shared my research. You gifted me with answers to nagging questions and details long elusive. Our friendship started out as a long interview, a digital visit over coffee each morning.

Memories that good begged to be recorded, and not many months passed before I surprised you again, this time with your written family history, my first Govert publication. Later, when I began publishing "Thru Prairie Grass", you were the best of boosters, just like Govert Van der Boom and Charles Laflin were the best of boosters for Govert Township. Everything I wrote was, in your opinion, "the best yet".

"Good morning, Marija!", I'd write at the beginning of each day.

The good mornings we shared were many, but no more.

Good night, my dear friend, good night.

Marie Kulisich Webb

April 28, 1930-December 19, 2015

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate