Tag: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Now & Forever ABCs (Yvette)

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Doctor Yvette Angelica Conners née Swanson

13 October 1967
Lutheran (ELCA)

Yvette is one of ten children and grew up, almost literally, on the Canada-Washington border.  She was educated at University of Washington and then at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland.

She met Lucas while they were in school, and they were married quickly after.

Yvette is a quiet, reserved person.  She doesn’t get emotional easily, and she takes a cool, collected, rather logical approach to her life and the universe.  She has few wants, and they all revolve around her family being safe, healthy, and happy; the rest of her happiness revolves around caring for her patients.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Maureen)

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Maureen Violet Conners

30 November 1989
Lutheran (ELCA)

Maureen is a student at Harvard University where she is taking her first strides toward becoming a paediatric psychiatrist.

Maureen has always been a highly academic young woman, and currently is taking as full a course load as her school will allow and each semester, including summer, that is offered.  She plans to get ten years of school in, at least, six.

She volunteers her time with tutoring her favourite subject, English, and by this met her boyfriend, Kaede.

Emmy, as Maureen is often called by Gramps (short for Emily Post), is a fastidious and very Proper young woman.  She has always, even at a young age, preferred to dress very well and very neatly, she took her lessons in etiquette and decorum to heart, and is always well spoken and polite.  Though her maternal grandfather was something of a corruptive influence, possibly genetically, as she has his habit of calling people by random nicknames — though, unlike him, she doesn’t do it to everyone nor in any and sundry circumstance.

By her own opinion she got next to no colour from her parents.  With regards to features she got her mother’s striking blue eyes, her father’s blonde hair — though she did get a red tint from Yvette, and through an interesting blending of skin types she barely freckles let alone tan.  Makeup quickly became as automatic to Maureen, therefore, as breathing; this has lead to teasing from Lauren and a few of her friends with variations on the idea of calling her a China doll.

Many people unaccustomed to her find Maureen a contradiction.  Dressed as immaculately and primly as she is, they would expect her to be stuck up or a bit prissy at worst, certainly very squeamish and reluctant to go near even a little dust, but she isn’t.  She is a very personable young woman who, while conscious of her clothes and careful of actually ruining them, is largely unconcerned with soiling her wardrobe; she will gladly engage in work on the farm, or help her parents in the garden, or perform household chores without the faintest hesitation.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Lucas)

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Doctor Lucas Garcia Conners

15 May 1966
Lutheran (ELCA)

Lucas is an N.D. and certified for surgery.  He was educated at the University of Washington and at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland.  He co-owns and operates a naturopathic, homeopathic, and acupunture clinic in downtown Seattle with Yvette.

He tends to look the part of the the hippie doctor with his long hair pulled into a ponytail, and his tendency to dress for comfort rather than professionalism.  His office is even painted in a tie-dye style.  He’s rather popular as a children’s doctor due to his colourful office, and his silly sense of humour and fun — his office is full of toys and odds and ends that he readily lets his patients play with.

In his personal life he is a devoted and loving husband and father, his entire universe revolves around Yvette, Maureen, and Lauren, and for them he would build a ladder to the moon if they took it into their heads to ask for one.

He is an equally devoted physician, taking care to remember his patients and their issues and treatments and speak directly to them rather than always consulting charts.  His memory isn’t perfect, but it’s fairly good, and he has a few magician’s tricks to give the impression it’s better than it is.  Still, he has a reputation among those who’ve met him of really getting to know them, of being willing to help them at all hours of all days, and generally treat them in a way that puts them in mind of the old country doctor in old west stories and TV shows about rural turn of the century towns.

It surprises many, especially those who know how he grew up, just how easily and quickly he took to computerised records, but it was at his suggestion and initiative that the clinic was heavily modernised with all paper records digitised, and all future records kept on computers which have been kept well up to date, though it was Yvette’s idea that the equipment in the place be updated such that all images and similar were processed to computer rather than film — Lucas has a great fondness for darkrooms and development, so hadn’t been in any hurry to modernise in that regard.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Lauren)

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Lauren Felicia Conners

9 January 1996
Lutheran (ELCA)

Lauren is a perfectionist.  She is always striving for excellence in anything she puts her hand to, be it her dancing, her studies, or setting the table.  Often this leaves her with an remarkable lack of confidence — she’s always worried she’ll mess up or fail.

She fell in love with dance at an early age.  By three she had shown such intense desire to dance that her parents had signed her up for lessons, because her wish to learn exceeded her family’s ability to teach her given that none of them knew more than ballroom dancing.  It became her life.  She has studied ballet from that first day — her love of dance having been born upon seeing a ballet, she’d begged to learn ‘the pretty dance’.  From there, however, she branched out and has taken further lessons in ballroom and latin dancing.  She has taken belly dance lessons, and is a long time student of a local modern and jazz dance instructor.  And, of course, ballet — always, she studies ballet.

Eventually she moved from her old ballet school to Mademoiselle Jeanette‘s as it offered a chance to gain greater experience on stage as well as a far more advanced study of technique.  In addition to dancing, Lauren has some interest in general performance so often tries out for school plays and takes drama electives when she gets the chance.

Lauren’s next great love is church.  She has grown up in a very religious family, and has a strong sense of the importance of God and faith.  Between that and having received all of her schooling from Catholic schools she took a strong interest in theology, especially Christian theology.  She has read every English translation of the Bible she could, and thoroughly, as well as making a devoted study of the history of the Abrahamic faiths and the Hebrew people.  She tries to understand her religion and its origins.  This has lead her to frequently excel in her Religious Studies lessons, such her school eventually ran out of options but to skip her ahead in subject, first placing her in Freshman theology in eighth grade, then in Junior’s level in her ninth grade year.  Even placing her in AP level courses has done little to assuage her boredom in these classes.

Her perfectionist and pious nature expresses itself in her relationships with others.  When she dates, she approaches it with the assumption that this person could be who she spends the rest of her life with — she doesn’t date to date or for social status, but to find the one person God has meant for her to be with.  When she makes friends she loves those friends and values those friendships deeply — even a casual friend, or even simply a friendly acquaintance is someone who Lauren cares deeply for and about.  Her capacity for forgiveness and caring even extends to those who are anything but friends — she’s human, she still manages to have angry thoughts and to see horrible things happen to those who upset her, but she simultaneously feels rather guilty about those thoughts and quickly tries to forgive them as much as she can.

This, plus her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible have led many to, depending how much they like her, affectionately or derisively refer to her as Saint Lauren and similar.  She’s seen as too sweet to be real, too good, and other things.  Those who know her well know this isn’t true — that she can be catty or mean when provoked, the she can hold the occasional grudge, that she does not always follow the rules, and that — despite being a virgin — she possibly knows as much or more than some who aren’t — she will investigate any curiosity she has in books and internet, including sexuality.

The one naïvety she ever expresses is in the form of aspects of pop culture.  While Lauren’s family has a television, it is used expressly for watching DVDs, Apple TV, and Blu-Rays; they have no cable nor antenna.  She does listen to the radio, both internet and airwaves (primarily satellite, but sometimes FM) and has an impressive collection of music, both physical and iTunes, and she enjoys movies from every era starting with the original silent silver screen flicks to the newest special effects blockbusters.  Still, the latest hit shows, latest popular talk show trivialities, and other goings on in the daily lives of the little people in the magic box are lost on her.  She’s watched the telly before, and it bored her.

Her friends call her a humble Hermione Granger (simply Hermione for short), and Linus — as in the Peanuts character who has such a habit of quoting Bible verse — but thanks to Salencia they’ve taken to simply calling her Pixie; a nickname she’s far more fond and proud of.  It’s also rather apt.  She has forever been a tiny girl, not always shortest in her class, but close to, very much lithe and petite — many of her clothes can still be bought in the children’s section of the department store, what of it she doesn’t make for herself, and combined with a complexion that is all freckles with copper red hair, she agrees with Sally:  the name fits.

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Now & Forever ABCs (John & Marcia)

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John Adrian Conners & Marcia Helen Conners née Abrams

12 June 1963 & 28 August 1966
Lutheran & Jewish

John is the eldest child of Josette & Charlie, a bee farmer in Oregon.

More modern minded than his parents, as are many of his siblings, so has augmented his sales in local grocer‘s shops with an online honey and beeswax store.

Marcia, his wife, makes a hobby of candle making.  Using the wax supplied by her husband to make various scented candles from oils and herbs.  When she isn’t making candles, Marcia runs a web design business.

The happy couple have three children, a daughter and two sons:  Gloria, Adam, and Jeremy.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Granny)

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Josette Rhianon Morgan Conners

24 February 1944
Lutheran (ELCA)

Josette Morgan, better known these days as Granny, is a fiery little woman born and raised in Wyoming.  As a teenager she took to the road with a boyfriend, winding up living with he and several others in a Wisconsin commune.  There she met Charles Conners and the pair became fast friends, and later they became lovers.  In 1961 they married, and Gerrid (the original boyfriend) was best man and two of his wives were bridesmaids.

Eventually the commune broke up, but by then the young couple had migrated to Winthrop in Washington.  Charlie’s aunt loaned them the down payment for the farm, and soon they and a crowd of friends had the place self-sufficient and earning enough to pay back Jenny and keep the mortgage paid.  As time drifted on, so did the friends — it’d never, strictly speaking, been a commune — but the family, to this day, happily takes in friends and family who wish to stay and no questions asked, so long as the person can help with the work that needs done.

The ancient farmhouse had, initially, relied on outhouses and hand pump plumbing, but Granny had always been fascinated by electrical engineering and managed to construct a turbine out of parts salvaged from a junk yard and otherwise bought from the hardware store and they bought a well pump, by the early Seventies they had a septic system and ordinary modern taps for the plumbing.  Hot water had always been available — the property has a small natural gas well that has long been tapped, powered a very early model water heater, and was used as a starter for the fireplaces.  Granny initially used it to power the generator for the water pumps, but in the late Seventies a friend had helped restore the old waterwheel and connected mill-house, reconnecting the old mechanical pump system to the home, and using it to mill their grain.

When Charlie died Josette continued to work the farm, though now it was almost purely sustenance, the work to make excess for sale being largely beyond her at her age; though she did make some cash selling the products of the maple and apple orchards by the roadside.  These days, though, Elizabeth and her family live on the farm and are building it up to be profitable in dairy, wool, and produce within organic farming circles.

Most recently Granny was convinced, after many long and drawn out arguments, to begin the process of installing gas lamps and lanterns in some of the rooms of the house, though many are still lit only by candles the family makes themselves.  While neither she nor Charlie were willing to part with the old icebox that had been in the home when they bought it, they did buy a deep-freezer which was powered by Josette’s generator until the couple invested in solar panels the year before he died.

Some have accused Josette, and to some extent Charlie, of being backward and technophobic.  Josette always laughs at these accusations.  Too modest, usually, to boast, but she has taught herself computer programming in C, C++, COBOL, and Fortan; she and Charlie we both equally competent to maintain their 1953 Chevy pick-up truck, and Josette has more than once proven she is fully capable of working on the motors of modern Electric and hybrid engines as well — though she lacks the means to utilise the computer diagnostics systems.  She simply loathes the use of technology for its own sake.  She feels that there’s no call for telephones, personal computers, light bulbs, and other things that put such a reliance on other people.

Needless to say, given her life, her experiences in it, and the myriad college degrees worth of knowledge she possesses, Granny is often delighted and borderline smug when she informs those who ask, that she never completed her tenth grade year of high school, never obtained a GED, and has never set foot on a college campus before doing so to watch the graduation of eldest child.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Elizabeth & Mark)

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Elizabeth Nataliya Peyton née Conners &

Mark Pavel Peyton

4 February 1972 & 18 May 1962
Lutheran (ELCA)

Elizabeth is Lucas’ second youngest sister, and third youngest sibling.  She has moved onto the farm with Granny where she, her husband Mark, and their three children help take care of the place.

Liz never moved far from home, having met Mark while she was in high school, and married him shortly after graduation.  She had never had intentions to go to college, instead having hopes to open a small grocer‘s shop in Winthrop for selling local produce, maple syrups, and similar.  Mark’s brother gave them the deed to little downtown store that she could set up in as a wedding gift — he does real estate speculation for a hobby and always has several properties on hand.  The shop has stayed open, though never has it been described as thriving.

Mark has a master’s degree in English literature and teaches at the local high school.

Their three children include twin girls, Crystal Madara and Leanne Bethany, and their very young son, Alex Emanuel

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