The Tour 1 – Defiance Street
Caption: Our fomer house on Defiance Street as it looks today.The very first home I recall in my hometown of

Tour of Homes 4 – Back in Town
When I went back to Wapakoneta alone, it welcomed me with the same icy February breath that I recalled from my childhood. The weatherman had been gabbing about “lake effect” snow for several days in Cleveland but there was already more snow on the ground down here than up by Lake Erie and it was drifting in winds gusting to 35 miles an hour. The temperature was minus 10ºF – cold enough – but th

Tour of Homes 3 – Home away from Home
Caption: L-R - Jim, Darla and Dan, in the '90s at the Newland family home on Kelly Drive.As shopping sprees go, I’ve had better. My sister Darla and I were in the market for some type of monume

Tour of Homes 2: Greenlawn – Beginnings and Endings
The main cemetery in Wapakoneta, my hometown, is called Greenlawn. Like cemeteries in other towns, for most people it's "a sad place". But for me, Greenlawn never was, because as I was growing up I registered it as a venue for beginnings rather than endings.Until he was middle-aged, my maternal grandfather, Vernon Leroy Weber, known to me as Grandpa Vern, was a tenant farmer. He worked his youth away on the Herbst Farms, which belonged to a large landowner of that surname whose holdings were mostly in Shelby and Auglaize counties. Grand