McHenry County Blog

My Grandmother Addie Watling-Skinner had a glass replication of Durer’s praying hands on her coffee table. My cousin has them now.

Nothing expensive, but they probably had more significance than I realized as a youth.

Today is a day that some Christian church’s hold prayer vigils. My First United Methodist Church has done this for several years and is doing again this year tonight through Easter.  (If you have prayers for the vigil, drop them off at the church–corner of West Crystal Lake and Dole Avenues–anytime before or during the vigil.)

That brings me to the Message of the Day–my grandmother’s praying hands, but rendered in chocolate, rather than in glass.

Albrecht Durer’s Praying Hands rendered in chocolate.

Today’s “Message of the Day” is a rear window decal.

It is a representation of Durer’s Praying Hands etching.

I first saw them in my grandmother Addie Skinner’s home in Crumpton, Maryland.

She had what I remember as a glass representation.

I last saw them on her coffee table in a senior citizens housing complex in Sudlersville, MD, when I interviewed her.

She was 95 years old.

After her husband Roy died, I noticed that her return address appeared as “Addie Watling-Skinner.” It had never been hyphenated before.

When she died I convinced the family that her name should be hyphenated on her tomb stone.

So, when you see the hyphen in the little cemetery in Crumpton, Maryland, and wonder why, that’s the reason.