LAHARPE—When she heard the news that Bonnie’s Cafe in Gas was closing, Norma Jean Van Dam of LaHarpe got nervous.
Within the cafe’s doors were two pictures crafted by her mother, the late Opal Lovanna Van Dam. Though they’re simple, “bean art,” the rooster and hen are heirlooms to Van Dam. Her grandmother gave Bonnie Stewart, owner of the cafe, the pictures as a gift.
Upon contacting Stewart, Van Dam was told she could have the pictures for $25.
“It’s worth it,” Van Dam said. “I want them back.”
Van Dam said Monday afternoon she wouldn’t have the cash until her Social Security check arrived the first of next month.
“This month’s is gone already,” she said.
Stewart said that was fine.
“I’ll hold the pictures for her,” she said in a brief phone conversation also Monday afternoon.
VAN DAM is a relatively new resident to LaHarpe. It was her hometown some 70-plus years ago.
“I was born here, but as an infant moved to Baldwin City, then to Greenfield, Mo.,” following her father’s, James Van Dam, lumber business.
Van Dam kept in touch with LaHarpe through subsequent visits to her grandmother, Lennie Bell Meek.
“All of my life I said I was going to live in LaHarpe,” Van Dam said. “I loved coming here to visit my grandmother.”
Now that she’s here, “it’s different from what I remembered as a child,” Van Dam, 78, said.
She is, in fact, a stranger in the small town, living an isolated life. Poor vision restricts her from driving or getting about much, she said.
“I need to get cataract surgery, but I’m so scared something will go wrong,” she said of the procedure. A magnifying glass helps her read, but she’s let a local bank assume her bookkeeping duties.
“They pay everything for me. It’s such a convenience,” she said.
