Edith Lillian Riecken

Edith Lillian (Craddock) Riecken was born on Saturday, April 16, 1921 in Merigold, Mississippi to Ernest Clinton and Dora Mae (Leuzinger ) Craddock. The Craddocks were likely of Welsh descent. The Leuzinger family name appears to have originated in Glarus, Switzerland. Edith was the fourth child with three older siblings, T.B., Ernest, and Flora (also known as “Sister”) and one younger brother, Horace, who was called “Buddy.” Buddy and “Doll” as Edith was known to all in childhood were best friends. All are now deceased. The family was poor. She graduated from Merigold High School in 1938, the same year Neville Chamberlain met with the Chancellor of the Third Reich regarding the Sudetenland. The Merigold High School 1938 class motto was “Knowledge in youth is wisdom in old age.” She attended the Church of Christ with her Craddock family and was baptized, presumably through total immersion and in the name of the Holy Trinity. Edith was awarded a “letter” in basketball at Merigold High School. Edith left Mississippi as a young woman and lived in Memphis, then Schulenburg and Dallas in Texas. On January 26, 1947 she married John William Riecken at St Paul’s Evangelical and Reformed church in Dallas. Johnny had served in the Army Air Corps in the United Kingdom during World War II. They moved to a log cabin in the woods, which the family called Sylvan Hedges, near Evansville’s Browning Road in Johnny’s home state of Indiana. In the early days in Indiana, Edith and Johnny were befriended by Bertha Heuwinkel and her family. At the log cabin, the family’s beloved dog, a collie mix, was named Canna. Edith eventually worked as a bookkeeper at Vandeveer Dodge. In 1954, her son, Mark Ehren, was born and indoor plumbing was introduced to the cabin. In the spring, she harvested morels which jumped up from the forest floor and in autumn, persimmons were gathered to make persimmon cookies. After moving to the city, Edith worked for years as a bookkeeper and in music (sheet music, piano pedagogy) sales at Schuttler Music Store on Sixth Street, a store originally owned by “Pops” Schuttler and dating back at least to the 1920s. During her time at Schuttler’s, she and her son met the mother, Rildia Bee, of the legendary Texas pianist Van Cliburn. Later she served as the registrar for the Buffalo Trace Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She worked as a hostess at the downtown Executive Inn where she met famous people including the Terre Haute comedian, Red Skelton. In January 1996, her husband, my father, John William died in their 49th year of marriage. Towards the end of her working life she was a saleslady for a small dress shop. This work she truly enjoyed. In 2004, she moved to Orlando, Florida where she lived until ill health compelled her to move to Indigo Palms at Maitland, an assisted living facility. There Edith died at the age of 93 in the early morning hours of Thursday May 8, 2014. She lived 33,990 days. In 1921, the president of the United States was Warren G. Harding and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was David Lloyd George. Ludwig Wittgenstein published his first edition of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1921. The perfume Chanel Number 5 was introduced in Paris. Bobbing pins, also known as “bobby pins” were in wide use to support the new “bobbed” hair styles. This was also the year of the Great Russian famine brought on at least in part by Lenin and the Bolshevik turmoil. General Motors was 13 years old. Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics. The yogi, Sri Aurobindo, started a philosophical magazine in India. The East African Shilling was introduced in Tanzania. 1921 was only 35 years after the death of Alexander Campbell, the Scots-Irish immigrant who was one of the founders of the Restoration Movement, resulting in the modern day Church of Christ. The common treatment for heart disease was ground-up foxglove leaves (digitalis purpurea), a practice dating back to the 18th century. Paul Whiteman and Eddie Cantor were popular musicians. 1921 was also the year in which the reformed theologian B. B. Warfield, professor at Princeton University, died. In much of Christendom, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was still in use. This was two years before the first draft (1923) of the 1928 prayer book. Edith’s favorite flower was the magnolia. She had a knack for growing African violets in the kitchen window. She treasured shopping and dining out at restaurants. She also enjoyed listening to the music of the Waltz King, Johann Strauss Junior. She was an expert at making a certain style of small biscuit made with Clabber Girl baking soda, served hot with butter and strawberry preserves. She made unparalleled fried chicken in the Southern style. The fried chicken was served hot with honey. It was also excellent cold from the “icebox” served up with a salt cellar and green onions. She was proud of her four grandchildren, Karl Rafe, Kurt Henry, Kip William, and Annemarie Lillian. May 8, the day of my mother Edith’s death, is the feast day of Lady Julian of Norwich, an anchoress of 14th century England. This world is lively with connections and signs, all pointing to the true and brightest Morning Star, our Jesus. T.S. Eliot wrote Little Gidding, joining profoundly with Lady Julian and her “ground of our beseeching.” Mr. Eliot is said to have visited Little Gidding in 1936, possibly at the same time Edith was making biscuits or playing basketball in Mississippi. Lady Julian wrote the following, embedded in verse by Eliot using an old English word, behovely, to refer to something like useful necessity: “Sin is behovely, but All shall be well, and All manner of thing shall be well.” Arrangements are entrusted to DeGusipe Funeral Home & Crematory, 9001 N,. Orlando Ave. Maitland, Florida 32751, 407-695-CARE (2273).

Edith Lillian Riecken

April 16, 1921 - May 8, 2014