Mary Anne Jones Horton 1928 - 2016

MA's mama died last Sunday morning in her sleep. The girls called her Anna. She believed that a woman should be in the paper three times: when she was born, when she married and when she died. Her third mention is here.

Her husband of 67+ years, Ira, misses her terribly. They were a devoted couple, a model of what it means to do for one another. We are glad to be able to spend a couple of weeks seeing Ira every day.  We had a service at the Franke, where they have lived for the last nine years, and a graveside service in Orangeburg on May 26th.

Anna loved her children and her granddaughters. She was very happy to make it to Caroline's wedding last fall. She spent hours in the garden while Mary Anne was growing up, and loved her social life in Orangeburg, including weekly bridge parties. She was always impeccably dressed. She knew her Bible better than anyone we know. She was an avid reader beyond that as well, especially British literature. She practically memorized the Samuel Pepys diaries, quoting entire stories and laughing and laughing.

We will always miss Anna.

1968

Alice, Mary Anne, Anna

Laughing before the wedding  1983

Recap from MS Walk 2016

Who knew it could be only 37 degrees at 10am on Saturday April 9th at 10am? Despite the chill (and the wind) we had a great turnout at MS Walk 2016 Lexington. I was proud to serve as the chair of the walk.

It's never too late to give, if any of you missed the opportunity.

The walk made the nightly news (WKYT - channel 27). I was interviewed, but they wisely went with a person who actually had MS. I am, however, in the background over her right shoulder, sporting my Eben hat.

It did make me glad we didn't do the WOC in early spring and get caught by this kind of cold.

Mary Anne and Muv came. Muv did two half mile laps with me. The cold was more than MA could take, so she waited in the building.

Masteron Station was full of people. When people are this strongly touched by a cause, weather is not a deterrent.

I have raised over $3500 so far, and the team is over $4300, with come more checks in the mail. Special thanks also to my colleagues at Xerox for joining the team and raising money.

Don't you love the party hats?

Muv during the walk

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The Wedding of this Century

I've already shared about the WOC from the 1900s. This wedding was daughter Caroline marrying Bill. Last October 10th, we had a celebration here in the bluegrass and it was a weekend to remember.

Caroline did an amazing job of planning. We had a full, well organized and fun week with family and friends. Thursday was an all day tailgate at Keeneland. Cousin Tish did us proud with the food and the spot. It was a perfect day and we taught several out of town folks how to bet (or how to give money to the track). The only downside came the next morning when Bill asked if he could borrow the car to take groomsmen to Woodford Reserve. I said "Sure". He came back shortly asking where the car was. We looked around but couldn't find the car. Turns out we had taken 7 cars to the track, but only brought 6 back. Luckily, folks end up leaving cars parked in the grass overnight, and it was there for us to retrieve it.

Friday was a glorious rehearsal dinner, hosted by Bill's family. Special props to machatenista Deaver for all of her hard work. The weather held up - just warm enough and no substantial rain.

The wedding was beautiful. Preacher Mark was poignant, funny and very meaningful.

Leading up to the wedding, Caroline asked me if I still had my extra wedding ring. Back in the late nineties, right after winter moved to spring, I lost my gold band from 1983. We bought another, and I started wearing that one. Then when the seasons shifted again, I switched back to winter work shoes and found my wedding ring in that pair in the closet. Life was more complicated when I had to go to a gym to work out. So look closely at the picture, and you'll see 1983 in the ring Bill is wearing

The flowers were done by Anna at Bellaire Blooms. Locally grown by the daughter of TGP's medical partner

Kim had a friend who had a cool car for the get-away.

At clean up time on Sunday, we were retrieving the left-over alcohol from the venue. Cousin Tish was helping. I had been enjoying a dinner party game for a couple of years with two bottles of single barrel Four Roses that were bottled for Wine and Market. Same mash bill, same age (10 years 4 months when bottled), same rick house, but different parts of the rick house. One high and toward the outside, one low on the inside. They tasted like two entirely different liquors. While unloading, I noticed a stricken look on Tish's face. She had combined the two bottles to make space in the liquor cabinet, because the labels looked the same. We all got a good laugh out of it, and I had a little bit of a unique blended bourbon.

We're thrilled to have Bill in our family, as well as all of our other new relatives. It really was the wedding of the century.

Enjoy the pictures

The Reveal

Jordan and Kate

Kate and Lucy

MS Walk 2016

If you are in a hurry, here is the donation link.

The Lexington MS walk is coming up soon, on Saturday April 9th.  If you're in town and can join me at Masterson Station, please join my team. If you want to know more about the walk, or the MS Society, we will be having a kickoff gathering for the walk on Saturday March 12th (who said there is no such thing as a free lunch!). We look forward to another successful event raising money for this very important cause.  We are much more involved with the KY chapter for the National MS society this year; I'm on the board and am the chair of the local walk. The MS Society does great work and we're always thrilled when our friends can help.

We've been doing the walk for a long time.  You can read about Mary Anne's progress, and why the advances that this walk funds are important to us in these earlier posts:

MS Walk 2009

MS Walk 2010

MS Walk 2013
MS Walk 2014
MS Walk 2015

There were many more walks than that, but I didn't start writing until fall of 2008.

The annual health update is basically the same as last year's update. The MS news remains steady, which is positive. Mary Anne's energy level is good, and we've had another year without any exacerbations.  Basically, with this disease, no news is good news..

We appreciate your help in the past, and are always grateful when any of you can contribute again.

Donate to the MS walk on Mary Anne's behalf

MA was moving around well enough this summer to take part in the annual silly string battle at the beach