100-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Granted Wish to Reunite with Sister One Last Time, Thanks to AARP Program…

Helena Stefaniak’s life story is one marked by the bonds of sisterhood growing up in war-torn Warsaw—and she rekindled that spirit of resilience one last time at age 100, thanks to an AARP program that grants wishes for seniors.

Helena and her sister Barbara protected one another from the horrors of their surroundings during World War II. Yet, the war ultimately tore them apart five years after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. They forcibly took her to a work camp in Germany in 1944, while Barbara’s fate remained unknown.

Helena recounted her harrowing experience being on her own for three years, saying, “I was really lost. Most of the time the war was going, I was scared.”

Despite the odds, Helena never lost hope of reuniting with her sister.

After enduring years of hardship and uncertainty, Helena was liberated from the work camps and became determined to find her sister. The relentless search finally led to their reunion in Germany in 1947.

Helena and her new husband started afresh, moving to Connecticut and living among fellow Polish immigrants. The sisters reunited again in New Jersey in 1950, where Barbara lives—and their bond remained unbreakable through the decades.

This year, though, as she approached her 100th birthday—and with her health deteriorating—Helena’s greatest wish was to reunite with Barbara once more.

Touched by their story, Wish of a Lifetime from AARP made Helena’s dream come true, allowing her to travel from her current home in Montana to New Jersey, so she can spend precious time with her beloved sister.

“At our age, you have to say goodbye,” Barbara told GNN.

“I was very, very happy. I know I won’t see her again, and that was our last time.

Founded by Jeremy Bloom in 2008, Wish of a Lifetime, a charitable affiliate of AARP has granted over 2,700 wishes nationwide, averaging 300 per year.

“We believe that everyone should be able to age with hope and joy. We empower wish recipients to fulfill their hopes while reconnecting with the people and passions that matter most to them.”

Helena, for one, is grateful beyond words. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

…I’m such a huge supporter of the dots…

Brontë sisters finally get their dots as names corrected at Westminster Abbey…



An 85-year injustice has been rectified at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey with the corrected spelling of one of the greatest of all literary names. Reader, it is finally Brontë, not Bronte.

An amended memorial to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë was unveiled on Thursday with added diaereses (two dots) that ensure people pronounce it with two syllables. As if it rhymed with Monty, not font.

The memorial was installed in 1939 and, for whatever reason, came without the diaereses that the Brontës used.

The correction came about after an approach to the abbey by Sharon Wright, the editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, who visited Poets’ Corner as part of research for a new book.

“The first thing I thought was: ‘They’ve spelt the names wrong!’ Surely I can’t be the first person to notice it. I don’t think I am but I might be the first to call it to anyone’s attention and say ‘can we spell the names right please?’,” Wright said. “These women are three of this country’s greatest writers. They deserve to have their names spelt correctly on the memorial created to honour them.”

Wright remembered feeling genuine indignation when she saw the plaque. “I’m from Bradford like them and I want them celebrated properly in London, or that London, as we say. They are Yorkshire heroines and their name is Brontë, not Bronte.”

Wright said everyone else’s name in Poets’ Corner was spelled correctly, not least the poet Robert Southey who is represented by a magnificent monument and bust.

Southey is something of a villain in Brontë circles in that he told 20-year-old Charlotte that poetry and literary creation could not and should not be a woman’s work. “I thought ‘they’ve got his name right’ before I went stomping off,” Wright said.

She was half expecting a battle to get the name corrected but actually found an open, friendly door and a willingness to correct.

The reasons for the mistake are not clear although timing presumably played a part, in that the tablet was installed on 8 October 1939, soon after the outbreak of the second world war.

It meant there was no fanfare. In a letter dated 2 November that year, Paul de Labilliere, then the dean of Westminster, wrote: “I should greatly wish that its completion should be marked by a ceremonial unveiling but in these times anything of that sort is out of the question.”

The installation was sponsored by the Brontë Society, founded in 1893 and one of the oldest literary societies in the world.

It was July 1947 before there was a formal ceremony at the abbey with the society, by which point bigger issues about rebuilding the nation were on collective minds. Or society members perhaps felt they should be grateful for just being there. “I don’t know,” said Wright. “You know Yorkshire people, we do like to stick our hand up and make a fuss, so I don’t know what happened there.”

The missing diaereses may be as much of a mystery as the diaereses themselves. No one can say with absolute certainty why the Brontë name evolved from their father Patrick’s Irish surname of Prunty or Brunty when he arrived at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1802.

It may have had something to do with his admiration for Horatio Nelson, who was made Duke of Bronte, and the way Patrick, as someone born in County Down, would pronounce it. It may also have been a gentrification based on a Greek word for thunder.

None of that matters in Wright’s eyes. “This is not about the men, it’s about the women and their name was Brontë, that is how they spelt it from being really little girls. This is a really happy and timely ending to the story.”

Those sentiments were echoed by the dean of Westminster, David Hoyle, who said he was grateful to have the omission pointed out and now put right.

“Memory is not a locked cupboard, but an active thing,” he said. “The Brontë Society have given us a glimpse of their commitment to a lively remembering.”

…I knew that some day, this would apply as the perfect gif…85 years actually but close enough…

https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc...FJZu/giphy.gif

i've been waiting for my name to be spelt correct ... böts

https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc...FJZu/giphy.gif


…:fan:…

not quite that long :laugh:

I was just thinking the other day that i was born about 14 years after the 2nd world war ended and the technology jump from then to now is just mind bending :laugh:

…for any of us if we live to an older age…?..the changes in our lifespan will be incredible…I mean, even for much younger people, the landscapes of their childhood will look entirely different from the landscapes that are familiar to them now…that’s a thought I often have in thinking of my parents who have both passed now, how many changes they saw through their lives and how many ‘firsts’ they felt a part of…?…you know…


"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

….is this a good news story…?…I think so, any old cheese is good news…

Cheese dating back 3,600 years found in Chinese tomb, researchers say…


The world's oldest piece of cheese has been discovered - found laid across a mummy's neck.

A 3,600-year-old coffin was opened in the Xiaohe Cemetery in Xinjiang, China, during an excavation in 2003, where a substance was draped across the neck of a mummified young woman.

Despite seeming like a piece of jewellery at the time, scientists have now said they have identified the sample as the oldest piece of cheese in the world.

Qiaomei Fu, a paleogeneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told Sky's partner network NBC News: "Regular cheese is soft. This is not. It has now become really dry, dense and hard dust."

She explained that when the woman's coffin was exhumed, it was found to be well preserved because of the Tarim Basin desert's dry climate.

While the production of cheese has been long depicted in history, the researchers wrote in a study - published in the journal Cell - that the "history of fermented dairy is largely lost in antiquity".

Speaking to NBC News, Ms Fu said that she and her team took samples from three tombs in the Xiaohe Cemetery and processed the DNA to trace the evolution of the bacteria across thousands of years.

The samples were then identified as kefir cheese, made by fermenting milk using kefir grains, and there was also evidence of goat and cow's milk being used.

In their research, the team said the use of kefir cheese shows how Bronze Age populations interacted and how the Xiaohe people - who were known to be genetically lactose intolerant - consumed dairy before the era of pasteurisation and refrigeration.

They wrote: "These 3,500-year-old kefir cheese samples are among the few dairy remains preserved more than 3,000 years and were produced by the Bronze Age Xiaohe population - a population that possesses mixed lifestyles and techniques."

However, when asked by NBC if the cheese was edible and if she would try it, Ms Fu said "no way".

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_3fulCuW7l/


Dog running after that Ambulance
as his owner is off to hospital................................



In Columbia

….awwwww, the power of dog love and devotion…:lovedup:….I hope that his human was ok and recovered/recovering well…

….awww, a great story…:love:.many happy pickle making times to Emerson and wishing her excellent health with her new heart…:love:…

The fact she made pickle juice ice cubes for lemonade :clap1:

…:laugh:…if Ben had a daughter….eh…you and she would be a great/enterprising team of home makes…:flutter:…

Hahaha we’d be at farmers markets selling the **** out of chutneys, preserves, pickled goods, candles and wax melts :laugh:

lol….me too :bawling:

…you really would…not the dream team but the pickle pair…and I know from games etc that you’re very good at selling your product so I’m thinking that you’d be making your chutneys and pickles from a paradise island somewhere gorgeous…

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/boy-...me-in-7-years/

…oh I’ve read of this condition before and with eyelashes growing inwards and I can’t even begin to imagine that pain almost every second of every day…’he slept until noon…:love:…wow, how it must feel for his mom to be able to say those words after the years of pain she’s watched him had to suffer…so amazing and wonderful to hear about this surgery…and as the person to perform the surgery/or the team, I should say…how incredible that must feel for them to, to know that they’ve been part of giving this little guy some sleep and a release from his constant pain…so emotional for them, I imagine they’ve shed some tears…I wish Carter well for his future…:love:..

Britain Celebrates Birth of Baby Bongo Antelope–with Fewer Than 100 Left on Earth…

In an English safari park, keepers are celebrating the arrival of a calf from the world’s most endangered species of antelope, the eastern mountain bongo.

Born October 16th, first-time mom Othaya welcomed a male calf in the late afternoon marking the first bongo calf born at Woburn Safari Park in over 10 years.

It’s both a major success for the park and global conservation efforts to save this species native to Kenya.

“Othaya the bongo has successfully given birth to her first calf on Wednesday afternoon. After a long labor, the large healthy male calf was born and was soon seen standing on wobbly legs, in the deep bed of straw prepared for his arrival,” stated Tom Robson, Head of Reserves at the park. “Both mom and calf are doing really well.”

Sonny, the calf’s father, joined the four-strong bongo herd at the park last November and successfully mixed with the females, wasting no time in doing his job and displaying breeding behaviors.

“The bongo is part of a crucial breeding program and we are hoping in the future our new calf will travel to another wildlife collection and start a breeding group of his own,” Robson added.

Once the mom and baby are ready, they will rejoin the rest of the bongo herd in the African Forest exhibit, where visitors will soon have the chance to see the calf in person.

The eastern mountain bongo species has been hunted almost to extinction in the wild, and with less than 100 individuals remaining, this birth is hugely important for the future of the species.

Its near-cousin the lowland bongo is readily dispersed across the Congo region and southern West Africa, and is not endangered. The mountain bongo, with its much deeper red coat, is found only on Mount Kenya.

It has been estimated that without appropriate protections, the eastern mountain bongo may go extinct within 2 decades. However, several Critically Endangered species, like the West African lion, have made recoveries on the continent in recent years.

very cute :laugh:

Omigosh that's adorable

…this story is around one year old but I’m going to post it anyway because it’s pretty cool…

NASA Finds Cluster Of Young Stars That Looks Exactly Like A “Cosmic Christmas Tree”….

https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-c...2-png__700.jpg


https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-c...397bd__700.jpg
All of these little stars are in our Milky Way, located about 2,500 light-years away from Earth, and are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses, NASA stated.
In the jolly photograph, the cluster’s resemblance to a Christmas tree has been enhanced through image rotation and color choices.
According to the American Space Administration, optical data from a telescope showed gas in the nebula represented by wispy green lines and shapes, which created the boughs and needles of the tree shape.

https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-c...-cluster-3.jpg

looks like the grinch running away in the that top picture

…after stealing the cosmos like he stole Christmas…