Information presented on this website is based upon knowledge of my sister and our family life together and apart. We were a year and half apart in age. In our early years we were dressed alike and received the same gifts at Christmas time and other times from our parents. We shared the same bedroom sleeping in twin beds until we left home to be married. We also shared that same bedroom with our younger sister, Karen, when she joined the family. ASH

2 turkey wing meats
1 tbsp. salt
1 medium onion (chopped or sliced)
1 cup carrots (chopped)
1 cup celery (chopped)
1 cup potatoes (diced)
4 cups turkey broth
6 tbsp. flour
2 cups of milk
1/4 cup of butter
1 cup shredded cheese

Cook carrots, celery, and potatoes. Mix milk and flour; add to vegetables with butter & cheese to thicken; add meat.

Mary Sandra Iris Shields was born a 7 month preemie on the 22nd of March 1938 at the hospital in Piqua, Miami County, Ohio. She weighed in at 3 lbs. 14 oz. Because she was so small her first snug crib was a cracker box according to our parents. She was the daughter of Rita Marie Lehmann of French, German, & English descent and Dale Caleb Shields of German and Irish descent. She was proud of her heritage and especially proud of her Irish ancestry of seven generations ago.

In 1939 she welcomed me into the household by drinking the only bottle of milk that was sent home from the hospital with Mother. We were inseparable in those early years as living in a duplex above our Grandmother Lehmann’s we did not have others to play with. Sandy was the quiet one and could become lost in her own little world. She loved playing in the sandbox with her PawPaw, a toy panda bear sitting quietly beside her. She could be found talking to Pinkie, our white bunny, in the back yard. One might say that she was a dreamer. During summer’s light rain showers we’d be permitted to put on swimsuits and run in the raindrops and splash in the puddles…she’d walk through and I’d jump in. In the winter we played together with our dolls and paper dolls and romped in the snow together. We were almost always dressed alike since our mother sewed most of our clothes, and for years what she got, I got.

Today, December 6th, is St. Nicholas Day. I recall in those early years Sandy and I would hang our stockings pinned to the sofa on St. Nicholas Day and wait for it to be filled with goodies, rather than a clump of coal. Saint Nicholas Day was celebrated to remind us to be good, tell the truth, be kind to each other, respect people and always try to be the best we can be…especially since Christmas was coming!

In 1948 Dad lost his job with the Piqua Bottle Cap Company. No longer were the old-fashioned paper bottle caps needed for milk bottles. A job change took Dad and us to Texas, and then back to Piqua. Then in 1949 our sister Karen joined the family while we were living with our paternal grandparents on a farm. Sandy and I delighted in her birth, as it was nice to be big sisters and babysitters for the new little one in our lives. Another job change for Dad took us to Illinois and finally to Indiana in our early teens. We would miss the closeness of our Shields and Lehmann extended families through the years as Mother was one of eleven and Dad was one of six.

Sandy was affectionately known as “Pokey” to us. She was one to stop and smell the roses, and I think she would have even petted a bee on that rose if she could have. I must have been the “speedy one,” for I’d lie out her schoolbooks, coat and hat and try to hurry her on, so we wouldn’t be late for school. When we’d clean our bedroom, she was the one to stop and clean out her jewelry box while I quickly got the task done probably sweeping the dirt under the rug. Maybe I should have stopped to clean out MY jewelry box. Sandy was the one who must have chewed every morsel of food 25 times (savoring each morsel), as I wolfed it down. Even while Karen and I fed her tidbits at the hospital, she would chew and chew. She was our “Pokey.”

In Indiana, Karen, Sandy and I grew to adulthood. At 16 years she went to work at St. John’s Hospital as a medical transcriptionist, and here she would meet and fall in love with Leroy Joseph Mast. They were married in June 1960 and I was married in August of the same year. She and Roy moved to Virginia, and from that time on our lives were separated by distance, time, and growing families. By the time she returned to Indiana, I would be in Michigan.

In 1961 she gave birth to Michael Joseph. Annette Marie joined the family in 1964. Sandy delighted in sharing this good thing and that good thing about Mike and Annette. She was so proud of her children…she had plans for them before they had plans for themselves. Like our mother, Sandy was ribbons, lace, elastic, needles, thread, and buttons. She loved sewing and delighted in making clothes for herself, her children and grandchildren. While Karen and I were helping her straighten her house 3 weeks ago, we came across packages of yard goods with buttons, thread, zipper, and a pattern. She had sewing plans for the day she would retire, but instead was forced to take a medical leave of absence.

Sandy was an avid gardener. Every year we’d learn of the vegetables that she had grown, and of course, they were twice as big as the one’s we had grown. Sandy baked and canned and froze food. She especially delighted in learning to cook new foods from her Amish mother-in-law and in-laws, and collected hundreds of recipes from magazines. At Christmas, she’d make her special fruit salad and pecan pies. Three weeks ago she gave Karen and me a bag of pecans saying that would be all she could give us for Christmas, as she couldn’t get out to shop this year. Don’t think I will ever bake a pecan pie like Sandy!

As a member of her church, Sandy sang in the choir. She was also a Eucharistic minister who visited the sick and a member of various church societies. She was a devoted Catholic who practiced the faith passed down to us from our mother. Yet like Karen and I, she was aware of our diverse religious Protestant background, also.

Sandy took pleasure in little things, and the little things as we grew older were our children and grandchildren. She was proud of the accomplishments of each: Mike and his wife, Mickie, and their children: Margo, Michael, and Mindy. She was proud of Annette and her husband, John. As the years passed the phone calls kept me abreast of big and little events in their lives. She could talk on and on for an hour making sure that I knew every detail (twice), but then one day not so long ago, I called and we talked for only a minute and future phone calls brought forth the same, and then 5 weeks ago, I finally heard her say, “The doctor has given me 3 weeks to 2 months.” This was what we all feared a year and half ago when she found the cancer.

Sandy had suffered through the years with many medical problems, and medications that were given had numerous ill effects on her body. She had a compromising immune system, which may have been the result of having been born a preemie.

When Karen was little, Sandy loved to dress her up, brush her hair, and take her places. If Karen went places with me in those days, it was “come as you are!” So, when the end was near and she needed a temporary place to go, Karen (our family’s caregiver, who also cared for our mother) took her into her home, and the two of us helped to care for Sandy when her family could not be there. Within a week she was admitted into the hospital. Together Karen and I visited her daily at the hospital and fed her lunch and put cream on those itching places…that’s what families are about. There on Thanksgiving evening she ate pumpkin pie with her children gathered round. And then on Sunday after feeding her lunch, I left. Within 24 hours of my saying “good-bye” and kissing her and having returned to Michigan, and…within moments on Monday from the time Karen having fed her lunch, Sandra…the daughter, the sister, the wife, the mother, the grandmother, the aunt, etc., etc. took her last breath and departed this life. Good-bye Sandy. Your family misses you, but we know you are in a better place, yet you remain in our hearts.