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What a difference one month can make! With a balmy temperature of 48 degrees, President Rena Perrigo played hostess to the Brownsdale Study Club on Feb. 25.

The get-together was postponed by one week due to illness. However, everyone was present and well, and roll call was made each answering to the question, “What is your hobby, and why?” Responses included quilting, thimble collecting, perfume bottle collecting, and walking for enjoyment.

It was brought to the Secretary’s attention that Rena was the presenter of the Outside Reading at the January meeting, entitled My Old Age Beautifiers, not Therese Manggaard, as was reported. The secretary apologizes for the error. Discussion occurred over a discrepancy in the treasury, which was resolved. Going forward, the balance stands at $37. In announcements, Therese shared a “thank you” note provided by Bonnie Williams in appreciation for the monetary donation the Study Club had offered to the committee raising funding to erect a pickleball court in Brownsdale.

Shelly Vogel presented the Main Topic, an excerpt from the book, “My Friend Anne Frank” a memoir written by Hannah Pick-Gosler. Hannah was a German Jewish girl who grew up in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and became a close friend of Anne Frank’s since they were little. The two children met in nursery school, neither girl knowing no Dutch and speaking only German, after both girls’ families fled the Nazi persecution in Germany to resettle in Holland. The two families lived next door to one another in adjacent apartment buildings — less than 60 seconds from one another.

They walked to school together, played in a nearby town square, and attended birthday parties and celebrated Jewish holidays together with their families. Both girls, quickly, assimilated into Dutch culture.

Their families, like so many other families, fled Germany after the Nazi’s enacted the Nuremberg Laws stripping away citizenship for Jews—leaving them stateless. Jews were put out of work, Jewish businesses were struggling to survive because Aryan Germans were forbidden to do business with them. By 1939, the population of German Jews in the Netherlands swelled to 33,000, only of which 7,000 were allowed to stay.

Holland, declaring itself a neutral country to the Nazi’s was invaded in May, 1940. The same restrictions imposed on German Jews had, now, come to the Netherlands. With no announcement to Hannah, in early July, 1942, Anne Frank and her family had fled to Switzerland—or so everyone was led to believe. In reality, the Frank family—along with other Jews—went into hiding and were still living in Amsterdam.

Before Rena served a delectable angel food cake topped with cherries, Mary Kidwiler-Moritz, was assigned the outside reading and she chose an excerpt from Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul entitled, What’s a Grandmother? A Letter from a Third Grader.” In the eyes of an eight-year-old, a grandmother:

• has no children.

• doesn’t have to do anything except to be there.

• shouldn’t play hard or run.

• doesn’t have to be smart.

Submitted by Mary Kidwiler-Moritz, Secretary