Mary Joanne Reece Miller

Profile Updated: July 18, 2021

Residing In	Fort Pierce, FL USA

Spouse/Partner	Never remarried Robert Curtis Pearson is my companion

Occupation	Retired

Children	Jon Lee born 1970

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Udate: Jul 18, 2021. Covid's Delta Variant is still around. Florida didn't get enough people vaccinated. Now we have a stubborn amount of un-vaccinated residence. Covid ramping up again. March 2020 We became "Staying-in-Place people. After a year we got use to staying at home. Curt has COPD and he can't afford to get Covid. We are told now that fully vaccinated people, as we are, can get Covid but it won't put us in the hospital. I'm not sure about Curt? So we continue to be safe and even being told we don't need to wear masks, we wear masks when out in public and avoid crowds. I now have repairmen fixing things here in the house but I keep Curt well away from them. I had stop seeing my beautician and getting my hair cut back in March 2020. But yesterday I ventured out to a well spaced shop and again got my long gray hair cut short. AH So nice. But we came straight home because we didn't need groceries.
My home is large, one story with no steps. So getting around is easy. I love the pool and every morning I take my coffee out to the pool, get in the pool even if my degenerating spine won't let me kick and swim. I still enjoy playing in the water. Palms trees and palm shrubs surround my pool, giving privacy. I can look out across the small lake in my back yard and see a small park and neighbors across the lake but my landscape lets me relax in private. I watch the bright cardinals, blue birds, doves and other birds fly and sit on my chair link fence to eat berries. I don't encourage squirrels so they stay away from me and my fence keeps out the raccoons. They can walk around in the grass between my pool and the lake! The water fowl are not a plentiful for some reason and I miss them walking with their mates or babies.
I get out of the pool and have built a very large area with my gazebo frame and two huge rectangle umbrellas back under the Bamboo Palms in giving deep shade where I sit and read for a few hours. I finally hit the slow down and smell the roses. (smile)

2020, Aug 6.
Curt Pearson and I lost our schoolmate, Percy Nelson Hazel .
Nels passed away in the Vero Beach Hospital with Covid. I put a Memorial on Percy Nelson Hazel Class site with lots of picture t0 show the fun we had with Nels. My Florida friend, Bruce, stops by to enjoy the shade out by the pool with us. We continue to miss Nels. He was such a good friend; so positive and so fun loving. He & his wife were going to move here but Linda passed from a return of cancer. Nels settled this in Bellingham and came to live here just a few blocks away. So he was always a part of our household. Curt finds some days hard without Nels catting about something.
We were 3 Bellingham High Kids on a retirement adventure in the sun, that was us.
I stopped teaching Landscaping and How to plant your yard with Florida plants at the Library long ago. I still have some contact with a few old students.
I continue to use my computer almost daily but time sitting at a computer is hard these. ..so I find other things to do.

Not much to research on my family tree but I wrote a lot of biographies for many members of my tree now. I am starting to update and fill out the brief biographies. I wish I my skills were better because I want to include what it was like living in their time. I need to do that while I still remember things like my grandmother with an old washer, manual wringer and two galvanized wash tubs for 2 rinses. Grandma was born and live on Lopez Island. Her father had 3 wives and 13 kids. He moved to Lopez in 1800's and many of his older children fallowed with their families. My grandmother was the middle family with only two younger sibling from his 3rd wife. I now communicate with a grandson of her youngest sibling. He is a retired timber man up in BC Canada. He still can't stop doing something with timber as his children & nephews run the sawmill he and his brother built and own. Another shirt tail cousin and I write. She is in Texas. But I have lost contact with the Washington famlies. Mostly through death.

I still make Beignets after a few visits to New Orleans' Farmer's Market with their Beignets and Coffee & Chicory (a true love of mine). I recommend Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I have tasted Beignets in Dallas and other places but nothing compares to Cafe Du Monde's.
Florida is not a coffee drinking place as Seattle was/is? I like like Hawaiian Kona Coffee and send every few years for a lb of Pure Kona coffee. Florida folks are ice tea drinkers. I have become hooked on Ice Tea. Or Fresh strawberries in champagne! Not often but my doctor recommends an enjoyable cocktail at bedtime. I'm not one to take pills but sleeping is difficult these days. Sipping champagne with an ice cube during the last movie on TV at night.. with a few big strawberries dipped in powder sugar seems to keep away the nightmares I seem to have started. My mine is too active and I need to chill out. Stop spending my time thinking of when I was younger and could run and dance. No more skipping rope and no more dancing these days. Hip going. (smile). But that is ok. My mind is still sharp. I love my two Burmese cats but I miss my harlequin Great Dane. He was such a wonderful friend.

I still move furniture around this big house to make it feel different to us. Curt just throws up his hands. We did need to get a new TV for the front room. My son encouraged me to get an LG this time and 65" flat screen. It doesn't take much more space on my Grandmother 100 plus plus yr. old small dining table. Strange little table. Has one leaf that automatically folds up under the table top. Pops up and lays out after you unlock it with a little ring in the front of the table. Makes a small dining table. I like old solid wood furniture. I dislike veneer, which is all I can afford these days. But I have a large oak Lion's Head solid wood dining table. Hmmmm should have brought more of my old family furniture when I came to Florida. Hind sight is good but irritating.

Yesterday Curt and I were talking as we sat out by the pool. Florida was a good choice for a comfortable retirement. 12 months of sunshine. But to have this, we left old friends and all our family back in Washington. One day Covid will actually be handled and hopefully my nephew may come and visit. He is past retirement but doesn't know what people do when they stop working. Maybe I can show him (smile).

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School Story

I never write or talk much about school. My school life was: trying to get good grades; working after school; and watching other students. I was too shy to get involved.

In my endeavor to be un-noticed I found Mr. Emery loved to call on students to read out loud. Oh how I hated that. I found he was irritated by asking him what a word meant in the middle of my reading period. Not paying attention, I busied myself with pointing out words "what does this mean". Mr. Emery was a very smart and patient teacher but he got tired of my antics. I came to the word

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