Betty MacDonald's sister Alison Bard Burnett
Betty MacDonald's mother Sydney with grandchild Alison Beck
Betty and Don MacDonald in Hollywood
Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
we had several very successful International Betty MacDonald fan club events in 2016.
We totally agree with Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund who wrote:
Our Betty MacDonald fan club events are fascinating and very successful.
Betty MacDonald fan club fans from 5 continents used the unique opportunity to meet each other.
The International Betty MacDonald fan club events became the start for great friendships around the World.
We are really very happy, grateful and proud about this because it makes the World a better place.
There will be many new Betty MacDonald fan club activities, Betty MacDonald fan club items and International Betty MacDonald fan club events in 2016 according to the motto of unique Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel:
Sail away and find new Betty MacDonald treasures every day!
We totally agree with Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund who wrote:
Our Betty MacDonald fan club events are fascinating and very successful.
Betty MacDonald fan club fans from 5 continents used the unique opportunity to meet each other.
The International Betty MacDonald fan club events became the start for great friendships around the World.
We are really very happy, grateful and proud about this because it makes the World a better place.
There will be many new Betty MacDonald fan club activities, Betty MacDonald fan club items and International Betty MacDonald fan club events in 2016 according to the motto of unique Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel:
Sail away and find new Betty MacDonald treasures every day!
Which cities do you prefer in 2017?
Send us your favourite one, please.
You can win new Betty MacDonald fan club event DVD's and new Betty MacDonald fan club items.
Thanks a million in advance for your support.
We are going to publish the new Betty MacDonald essay in October by unique Betty MacDonald fan club research team Anita and Eartha Kitt II.
The subject is ' Betty MacDonald's life on Vashon Island ' with several great info and never published before interviews of Betty MacDonald's family, friends and neighbours.
We are very happy indeed that our beloved Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is back.
New Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many new interviews.
Don't miss Vita Magica September with Wolfgang Hampel, Sabine Arndt and tenor Heinz Meisel please.
It will be as great as ever.
Alison Bard Burnett and other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's new project Vita Magica.
More
exciting news about Betty MacDonald's filmed interview will come soon.
Don't miss Brad Craft fascinating thoughts, please.
Enjoy a very exciting Saturday,
Daniel
Don't miss this very special book, please.
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald fan club
Betty MacDonald forum
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - LinkFang ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )
Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
Betty MacDonald fan club items
Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
Betty MacDonald fan club groups
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund
Linde Lund shared Pictures of Heidelberg's photo.
Dear Aashish Bernd Rudi Friedrich Pascale Heiderose Nunzia Pieter Michail Waseem Ursula Thomas Tatjana Theresia Franziska Nicole Ernst Wolf, Michael Sabine Winfried Schwab Immo Sascha Karl Angela Ulrich Wellhöfer Perkeo Thomas Barth Kirsten Birthe Andre Horst Dawid Dr. Karl A. Lamers Europäischer Hof Heidelberg
and all our other friends don't miss Vita Magica on Tuesday 28 th, 2016
please. The subject is magical Heidelberg with Rudi Lerche and other
surprising guests. http://wolfvitamagica.blogspot.de/…/vita-magica-juni-2016-m…
Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles.
Following in Betty’s footsteps in Seattle:
or some small talk with Betty
Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
translated by Mary Holmes
We were going to Canada in the summer. “When we are in Edmonton”, I said to Christoph Cremer, “let’s make a quick trip to Seattle”. And that’s how it happened. At Edmonton Airport we climbed into a plane and two hours later we landed in the city where Betty had lived. I was so happy to be in Seattle at last and to be able to trace Betty’s tracks!
Wolfgang Hampel had told Betty’s friends about our arrival.
They were happy to plan a small marathon through the town and it’s surroundings with us. We only had a few days free. One should not underestimate Wolfgang’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty’s friends, even though it was holiday time. E-mails flew backwards and forwards between Heidelberg and Seattle, and soon a well prepared itinerary was ready for us. Shortly before my departure Wolfgang handed me several parcels, presents for Betty MacDonald's friends. I rushed to pack the heavy gifts in my luggage but because of the extra weight had to throw out a pair of pajamas!
After we had landed we took a taxi to the Hotel in downtown Seattle. I was so curious to see everything. I turned my head in all directions like one of the hungry hens from Betty’s farm searching for food! Fortunately it was quite a short journey otherwise I would have lost my head like a loose screw!
Our hotel room was on the 22nd floor and looked directly out onto the 16-lane highway. There might have been even more than 16 but it made me too giddy to count! It was like a glimpse of hell! “And is this Seattle?” I asked myself. I was horrified! The cars racing by were enough to drive one mad. The traffic roared by day and night.
We immediately contacted Betty MacDonald's friends and let them know we had arrived and they confirmed the times when we should see them.
On the next morning I planned my first excursion tracing Betty’s tracks. I spread out the map of Seattle. “Oh dear” I realized “the Olympic Peninsula is much too far away for me to get there.”
Betty nodded to me! “Very difficult, Letizia, without a car.”
“But I so much wanted to see your chicken farm”
“My chickens are no longer there and you can admire the mountains from a distance”
But I wanted to go there. I left the hotel and walked to the waterfront where the State Ferry terminal is. Mamma mia, the streets in Seattle are so steep! I couldn’t prevent my feet from running down the hill. Why hadn’t I asked for brakes to be fixed on my shoes? I looked at the drivers. How incredibly good they must be to accelerate away from the red traffic lights. The people were walking uphill towards me as briskly as agile salmon. Good heavens, these Americans! I tried to keep my balance. The force of gravity is relentless. I grasped hold of objects where I could and staggered down.
In Canada a friend had warned me that in Seattle I would see a lot of people with crutches.
Betty laughed. “ It’s not surprising, Letizia, walking salmon don’t fall directly into the soft mouth of a bear!”
“ Betty, stop making these gruesome remarks. We are not in Firlands!”
I went further. Like a small deranged ant at the foot of a palace monster I came to a tunnel. The noise was unbearable. On the motorway, “The Alaskan Way Viaduct”, cars, busses and trucks were driving at the speed of light right over my head. They puffed out their poisonous gas into the open balconies and cultivated terraces of the luxurious sky- scrapers without a thought in the world. America! You are crazy!
“Betty, are all people in Seattle deaf? Or is it perhaps a privilege for wealthy people to be able to enjoy having cars so near to their eyes and noses to save them from boredom?”
“When the fog democratically allows everything to disappear into nothing, it makes a bit of a change, Letizia”
“ Your irony is incorrigible, Betty, but tell me, Seattle is meant to be a beautiful city, But where?”
I had at last reached the State Ferry terminal.
“No Madam, the ferry for Vashon Island doesn’t start from here,” one of the men in the ticket office tells me. ”Take a buss and go to the ferry terminal in West Seattle.”
Betty explained to me “The island lies in Puget Sound and not in Elliott Bay! It is opposite the airport. You must have seen it when you were landing!”
“Betty, when I am landing I shut my eyes and pray!”
It’s time for lunch. The weather is beautiful and warm. Who said to me that it always rains here?
“Sure to be some envious man who wanted to frighten you away from coming to Seattle. The city is really beautiful, you’ll see. Stay by the waterfront, choose the best restaurant with a view of Elliott Bay and enjoy it.”
“Thank you Betty!”
I find a table on the terrace of “Elliott’s Oyster House”. The view of the island is wonderful. It lies quietly in the sun like a green fleecy cushion on the blue water.
Betty plays with my words:
“Vashon Island is a big cushion, even bigger than Bainbridge which you see in front of your eyes, Letizia. The islands look similar. They have well kept houses and beautiful gardens”.
I relax during this introduction, “Bainbridge” you are Vashon Island, and order a mineral water.
“At one time the hotel belonging to the parents of Monica Sone stood on the waterfront.”
“Oh, of your friend Kimi!” Unfortunately I forget to ask Betty exactly where it was.
My mind wanders and I think of my mountain hike back to the hotel! “Why is there no donkey for tourists?” Betty laughs:
“I’m sure you can walk back to the hotel. “Letizia can do everything.””
“Yes, Betty, I am my own donkey!”
But I don’t remember that San Francisco is so steep. It doesn’t matter, I sit and wait. The waiter comes and brings me the menu. I almost fall off my chair!
“ What, you have geoduck on the menu! I have to try it” (I confess I hate the look of geoduck meat. Betty’s recipe with the pieces made me feel quite sick – I must try Betty’s favourite dish!)
“Proof that you love me!” said Betty enthusiastically “ Isn’t the way to the heart through the stomach?”
I order the geoduck. The waiter looks at me. He would have liked to recommend oysters.
“Geoduck no good for you!”
Had he perhaps read my deepest thoughts? Fate! Then no geoduck. “No good for me.”
“Neither geoduck nor tuberculosis in Seattle” whispered Betty in my ear!
“Oh Betty, my best friend, you take such good care of me!”
I order salmon with salad.
“Which salmon? Those that swim in water or those that run through Seattle?”
“Betty, I believe you want me to have a taste of your black humour.”
“Enjoy it then, Letizia.”
During lunch we talked about tuberculosis, and that quite spoilt our appetite.
“Have you read my book “The Plague and I”?”
“Oh Betty, I’ve started to read it twice but both times I felt so sad I had to stop again!”
“But why?” asked Betty “Nearly everybody has tuberculosis! I recovered very quickly and put on 20 pounds! There was no talk of me wasting away! What did you think of my jokes in the book?”
“Those would have been a good reason for choosing another sanitorium. I would have been afraid of becoming a victim of your humour! You would have certainly given me a nickname! You always thought up such amusing names!” Betty laughed.
“You’re right. I would have called you “Roman nose”. I would have said to Urbi and Orbi “ Early this morning “Roman nose” was brought here. She speaks broken English, doesn’t eat geoduck but she does love cats.”
“Oh Betty, I would have felt so ashamed to cough. To cough in your presence, how embarrassing! You would have talked about how I coughed, how many coughs!”
“It depends on that “how”, Letizia!”
“Please, leave Goethe quotations out of it. You have certainly learnt from the Indians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incredible how you can distinguish between so many sorts of cough! At least 10!”
“So few?”
”And also your descriptions of the patients and the nurses were pitiless. An artistic revenge! The smallest pimple on their face didn’t escape your notice! Amazing.”
“ I was also pitiless to myself. Don’t forget my irony against myself!”
Betty was silent. She was thinking about Kimi, the “Princess” from Japan! No, she had only written good things about her best friend, Monica Sone, in her book “The Plague and I”. A deep friendship had started in the hospital. The pearl that developed from the illness.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Betty, that an unknown seed can make its way into a mollusk in the sea and develop into a beautiful jewel?” Betty is paying attention.
“Betty, the friendship between you and Monica reminds me of Goethe’s poem “Gingo-Biloba”. You must know it?” Betty nods and I begin to recite it:
The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.
Is it one living thing.
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?
The friendship with Monica is like the wonderful gingo-biloba leaf, the tree from the east. Betty was touched. There was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“Our friendship never broke up, partly because she was in distress, endangered by the deadly illness. We understood and supplemented each other. We were like one lung with two lobes, one from the east and one from the west!”
“A beautiful picture, Betty. You were like two red gingo-biloba leaves!”
Betty was sad and said ” Monica, although Japanese, before she really knew me felt she was also an American. But she was interned in America, Letizia, during the second world war. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Betty, I never knew her personally. I have only seen her on a video, but what dignity in her face, and she speaks and moves so gracefully!”
“Fate could not change her”
“Yes, Betty, like the gingo-biloba tree in Hiroshima. It was the only tree that blossomed again after the atom bomb!”
The bill came and I paid at once. In America one is urged away from the table when one has finished eating. If one wants to go on chatting one has to order something else.
“That’s why all those people gossiping at the tables are so fat!” Betty remarks. “Haven’t you seen how many massively obese people walk around in the streets of America. Like dustbins that have never been emptied!” With this typically unsentimental remark Betty ended our conversation.
Ciao! I so enjoyed the talk; the humour, the irony and the empathy. I waved to her and now I too felt like moving! I take a lovely walk along the waterfront.
Now I am back in Heidelberg and when I think about how Betty’s “Princessin” left this world on September 5th and that in August I was speaking about her with Betty in Seattle I feel very sad. The readers who knew her well (we feel that every author and hero of a book is nearer to us than our fleeting neighbours next door) yes we, who thought of her as immortal, cannot believe that even she would die after 92 years. How unforeseen and unexpected that her death should come four days after her birthday on September 1th. On September 5th I was on my way to Turkey, once again in seventh heaven, looking back on the unforgettable days in Seattle. I was flying from west to east towards the rising sun.
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Betty MacDonald's Vashon Island is a paradise.
info to: Sandra Lorinda Traci Petr Dana Jana Michaela Rebekah Swiss Charrd Tru John Darsie Darsie Toby Jeanine Carol Justin Lila Daniel Mo Nika Steve Neal Jitka Jitka Tami Pete Laurie Maia Nancy Kelly Pam Mary Jan and all our other friends
www.bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/
info to: Sandra Lorinda Traci Petr Dana Jana Michaela Rebekah Swiss Charrd Tru John Darsie Darsie Toby Jeanine Carol Justin Lila Daniel Mo Nika Steve Neal Jitka Jitka Tami Pete Laurie Maia Nancy Kelly Pam Mary Jan and all our other friends
www.bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/
Take an illustrated day trip through Washington state’s largest city with artist Candace Rose Rardon.
gadventures.com
Linda White yes,if my health allows.I have a few problems but is something I have always wanted to do,especially as I reread her books.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · August 1 at 6:37pm
Linde Lund Dear Linda I'll keep you posted.
Like · Reply · 1 · August 1 at 6:42pm
Bella Dillon · Friends with Darsie Beck
I still read Mrs Piggle Wiggle books to this day. I love her farm on vashon.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · August 1 at 10:32pm
Lila Taylor Good morning...Linde Lund
One of our most popular International Betty MacDonald fan club events ever
Swedish ex-glamour model becomes princess with wedding to Prince Carl Philip
Prince Edward and Countess of Wessex guests as Sofia Hellqvist, a 30-year-old commoner, marries prince who is third in line to the throne in lavish Stockholm wedding
She is the glamour model turned princess; he is the scion of an ancient royal household.
The aristocracy and royalty of Europe gathered in Stockholm on Saturday
to witness the wedding of Prince Carl Philip of Sweden to Sofia
Hellqvist.
Prince Edward and Countess of Wessex arrive (Reuters)
After the prince appeared to struggle to place the ring on his bride’s
finger, the couple said their vows in the royal chapel and a band played
a cover version of Coldplay’s song “Fix You”.
The newly-weds were then serenaded by a man singing a Swedish version of “Umbrella” by Rihanna.
Sweden's Princess Madeleine, her husband Christopher O'Neill and Princess Leonore arrive for the wedding (AFP)
The guests were drawn from the second rank of Europe’s royal families, notably Crown Prince Fredrik of Denmark and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway. The House of Windsor was represented by the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
Prince Carl Philip, 36, is the second child of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia. His 30-year-old wife - now Princess Sofia - is a commoner without a drop of blue blood and an unusually racy background by the standards of royal brides.
Queen Sonja of Norway, left to right, Queen Margarethe of Denmark and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands (Rex/AFP)
As Sofia Hellqvist, she took part in a Swedish reality TV show called “Paradise Hotel” in 2005.
This placed an array of men and women in a luxury resort, where they tried to avoid being voted off by engaging in various pranks and intrigues, while also becoming progressively more scantily clad.
Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria and Sweden's Prince Daniel (AFP)
The previous year, Miss Hellqvist, then aged 20, had posed topless with a boa constrictor for the men’s magazine “Slitz”.
As a glamour model, she won so many hearts among the readers of this publication that they made her “Miss Slitz 2004”. Until she became a Princess of Sweden on Saturday, this was her only previous title.
Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist (Rex)
Thanks to the photos, Swedes have learnt that Princess Sofia possesses a pierced navel and a few discreetly elegant tattoos.
Prince Carl Philip and his new wife are keen to project an image of themselves as modern and open. They are often seen running errands in Stockholm or buying pizza in fast food restaurants.
Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Sweden's Queen Silvia (AFP)
In the past, royal weddings were “a way of building power alliances”, but today “they’re a way of uniting the monarchy with the people”, said Louise Berglund, a Swedish historian, according to TT, Sweden's only national news wire service.
Raised in a middle class family in the small town of Alvdalen, Miss Hellqvist left Sweden for New York in 2005, where she studied accounting and worked variously as a yoga teacher and waitress. “I can say I have lived my life to the fullest,” she said in the documentary.
She then served as a volunteer aid worker in several African countries. In 2010, she co-founded “Project Playground”, a charity designed to help disadvantaged children in South Africa.
She left this organisation in March to focus on her new duties as princess, the title she received on her marriage on Saturday.
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Swedish Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist during their wedding in the Royal Chapel (Reuters)
She then served as a volunteer aid worker in several African countries. In 2010, she co-founded “Project Playground”, a charity designed to help disadvantaged children in South Africa.
She left this organisation in March to focus on her new duties as princess, the title she received on her marriage on Saturday.
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