Endeavor

May All Your Endeavors Be Fruitful
And Your Heart Be Filled With Joy

Kaleidoscopic illustration by Danielle Barlow
so perfect for the perpetually changing seasons,
from summer to fall . . .

The colorful graphic also made me think of this lapel pin that I discovered when sorting through my Grandmother Rovilla's things, enclosed in her Grandmother Elizabeth's little trinket box. I wonder who once wore this intriguing little pin, preserved among my grandmother's treasures? My guess is that it belonged to Elizabeth's daughter / Rovilla's mother -- my Great - grandmother Anna Mary.

Now that it is in my possession, I wanted to learn more about what it means:

"When I see a woman wearing a little bangle, pin or badge enameled in yellow, blue, violet, green and white, and bearing the letters U. F. E. C. M., I know that I have met a woman that has pledged herself to keep as sacred the duties of a Royal Neighbor of America Lodge as those of her own household. To show that she . . . has taken such an obligation . . ."

~ from the Christian Cynosure, August, 1901

The initials:
• U – Unselfishness
• F – Faith
• E – Endurance
• C – Courage
• M – Modesty
"The Royal Neighbors of America was originally founded in 1892 as a fraternal benefit insurance society for men and women aged 16 - 60. There were 159,982 members in 1994. The organization publishes Field News, Office News, and Royal Neighbor, all monthly. The Royal Neighbors began as an auxiliary of the Modern Woodmen of the World and were then reorganized in 1895 as a separate benefit society. The rituals are rooted in deism with heavy Christian overtones, and the overall head of the organization is a Supreme Oracle. In practice, this is a typical successful insurance society, in which the fraternal ritual is increasingly irrelevant. Its good works are directed toward orphans and the deaf."

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Also found in
Great - great - grandmother Elizabeth's trinket box,
two more pins dating from the late 1890s:

My Grandmother Rovilla's note
says that "The Eastern Star Pin
is from Aunt Dora" (her father's sister)

I'm guessing that this one, representing the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
belonged to her father, who was a carpenter.

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With all these relatives and good deeds and he word endeavor swirling around in my ahead, I was was visited in a dream by my Aunt Anne (my dad's sister-in-law). She was was sitting on my bed, making tea, and reading aloud from a plaque that was hanging on the wall above the headboard:

"In any endeavor
invest in being whole all the time.
Worth repeating."

I awoke with that mantra ringing through my ears,
and all these years later, it remains embedded in my brain.