About:
The magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina have been my home since 2002, quite a different terrain than the wide-open prairie of Wichita, Kansas, where I was born, a third-generation Kansan. Before I was a year old, my family moved to Shrewsbury, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and then in second grade we settled into our Fairview Avenue home in Webster Groves, where I lived until I married Arie E. Greenleaf in 1967.
Our honeymoon destination was the cozy wilds of the Northern Wisconsin woods. This magical place with its lakes and forests, with its deer and wildlife, called our hearts and we opened The Greenleaf Shoppe in downtown Minocqua in 1974. We sold it three years later and moved away, only to return to live there several more times over the next 25 years. We were either living in the North Woods, it seems, or we were living in or around the Bloomington – Normal area of central Illinois, with even a stint in Greenville, South Carolina. While in Illinois, I was able to complete my Masters degree in Reading at Illinois State University, adding to my Elementary Education degree from Bradley University in Peoria. After teaching grades three through six, I became a reading specialist. In between years of teaching, Arie and I started several businesses, ending with our pewter jewelry business, Rapture Inc., which we operated for twelve years until his death from cancer in 2004.
As life unfolded, our greatest joy was the birth of our dear son, Arie Todd, now husband to lovely Dewa, parents of our precious grandchildren, Divya and Aarush, their Seattle home quite the vacation destination.
The month before my first husband died, God spoke to my heart with the exhortation to cling to Him and not be afraid to go forward… adding, or I wouldn’t make it. I accepted this challenge, seeing the invitation and opportunity to join the church choir as part of my going forward. Patrick Wirtz was the choir director, single, talented, faithful, and a friend.
Once that difficult first-year-of-widowhood had passed, the eyes of my heart began to see Patrick as more than a friend… and I perceived the same awakening in him. As our friendship blossomed into love, we both felt God’s anointing assurance that we were made for each other, which immediately proved true following our marriage in 2006. As we completed each other’s musings and found we were contemplating words and thoughts in similar, if not identical, fashion, it quickly became clear how well-suited we were for each other: two peas in a pod is a description that aptly describes us.
Along life’s journey, I also discovered a love for genealogy, which led to a remarkable meeting with my second cousins. Research uncovered my Brubaker roots, Anabaptist to the core since 1525, when my Swiss ancestors who lived in Zurich joined the Swiss Anabaptist Movement which taught believers’ vs. infant baptism. The Mennonite Church was formed, and many of my ancestors joined and were persecuted for their belief. They ultimately fled to Germany, but persecution followed and led to their emigration to America. John Brubaker, who was Mennonite, came to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1700s and married Anna Myers. In the 1790s they settled in the Botetourt region around Roanoke, Virginia, and joined the Brethren Church, an Anabaptist denomination which began in Germany. Great-Grandson Noah moved west, married Elizabeth Baird, and in 1900 settled in Sawyer, Kansas. He became an Elder in the Old German Baptist Brethren Church they established there. These dear, faithful people are my Great-Grandparents.
After Arie died, I flew to Sawyer in 2004 to meet my Brubaker second cousins who are still farming and living on the land that has now belonged to the Brubaker family for over 100 years. It was a reverent encounter, meeting these kind and loving, very dear Old German Baptist Brethren cousins. I was amazed to see myself in them, despite the long, cape dresses and prayer coverings worn by the women, and the broadfall pants and suspenders worn by the men. It was a true revelation how their heart desire and natural inclination toward faith in Jesus matched my own. It was the genetic component of faith, if you will, on display for all of us. Frankly, meeting them explained why I’m the way I am. I consider our time together, then and when Patrick and I drove out to visit them several years later, absolutely priceless.
The magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina have been my home since 2002, quite a different terrain than the wide-open prairie of Wichita, Kansas, where I was born, a third-generation Kansan. Before I was a year old, my family moved to Shrewsbury, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and then in second grade we settled into our Fairview Avenue home in Webster Groves, where I lived until I married Arie E. Greenleaf in 1967.
Our honeymoon destination was the cozy wilds of the Northern Wisconsin woods. This magical place with its lakes and forests, with its deer and wildlife, called our hearts and we opened The Greenleaf Shoppe in downtown Minocqua in 1974. We sold it three years later and moved away, only to return to live there several more times over the next 25 years. We were either living in the North Woods, it seems, or we were living in or around the Bloomington – Normal area of central Illinois, with even a stint in Greenville, South Carolina. While in Illinois, I was able to complete my Masters degree in Reading at Illinois State University, adding to my Elementary Education degree from Bradley University in Peoria. After teaching grades three through six, I became a reading specialist. In between years of teaching, Arie and I started several businesses, ending with our pewter jewelry business, Rapture Inc., which we operated for twelve years until his death from cancer in 2004.
As life unfolded, our greatest joy was the birth of our dear son, Arie Todd, now husband to lovely Dewa, parents of our precious grandchildren, Divya and Aarush, their Seattle home quite the vacation destination.
The month before my first husband died, God spoke to my heart with the exhortation to cling to Him and not be afraid to go forward… adding, or I wouldn’t make it. I accepted this challenge, seeing the invitation and opportunity to join the church choir as part of my going forward. Patrick Wirtz was the choir director, single, talented, faithful, and a friend.
Once that difficult first-year-of-widowhood had passed, the eyes of my heart began to see Patrick as more than a friend… and I perceived the same awakening in him. As our friendship blossomed into love, we both felt God’s anointing assurance that we were made for each other, which immediately proved true following our marriage in 2006. As we completed each other’s musings and found we were contemplating words and thoughts in similar, if not identical, fashion, it quickly became clear how well-suited we were for each other: two peas in a pod is a description that aptly describes us.
Along life’s journey, I also discovered a love for genealogy, which led to a remarkable meeting with my second cousins. Research uncovered my Brubaker roots, Anabaptist to the core since 1525, when my Swiss ancestors who lived in Zurich joined the Swiss Anabaptist Movement which taught believers’ vs. infant baptism. The Mennonite Church was formed, and many of my ancestors joined and were persecuted for their belief. They ultimately fled to Germany, but persecution followed and led to their emigration to America. John Brubaker, who was Mennonite, came to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1700s and married Anna Myers. In the 1790s they settled in the Botetourt region around Roanoke, Virginia, and joined the Brethren Church, an Anabaptist denomination which began in Germany. Great-Grandson Noah moved west, married Elizabeth Baird, and in 1900 settled in Sawyer, Kansas. He became an Elder in the Old German Baptist Brethren Church they established there. These dear, faithful people are my Great-Grandparents.
After Arie died, I flew to Sawyer in 2004 to meet my Brubaker second cousins who are still farming and living on the land that has now belonged to the Brubaker family for over 100 years. It was a reverent encounter, meeting these kind and loving, very dear Old German Baptist Brethren cousins. I was amazed to see myself in them, despite the long, cape dresses and prayer coverings worn by the women, and the broadfall pants and suspenders worn by the men. It was a true revelation how their heart desire and natural inclination toward faith in Jesus matched my own. It was the genetic component of faith, if you will, on display for all of us. Frankly, meeting them explained why I’m the way I am. I consider our time together, then and when Patrick and I drove out to visit them several years later, absolutely priceless.
