TonganoxieMirror.com

We were astonished as our guest -- a young man from Israel -- began to cry as he sat with our family at our dinner table.

He said he'd heard about families eating meals together, but he'd never seen it before. After getting control of himself, he explained that in his home country families didn't live together. This was in the 1950s, when my family lived in Manhattan, Kan. Our home extension group had invited foreign exchange students into our homes, as they progressed through Kansas State University on their way to their farm families.

We met students from all over the world, but that young man, whose first name was Guy, stayed in our hearts. In his communist-dominated homeland, when a young couple married, they didn't keep house as we do. The man went to work each day with other men, and his wife went to work with other women. They didn't even eat meals together.

When a child was born, it was placed with a foster-like mother who cared for several babies. The mother went right back to work.

Guy told us that he knew his parents and siblings, and parents were allowed to have their children together a few hours a week.

I hope life has changed for Guy by now.

God bless, Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie, 66086.

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