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Yorkfield Tabernacle Choir
 
by Sean 2002
       We sang Christmas carols for hours to the entire neighborhood of Yorkfield.  Jane wouldn’t take money and instead gave Karl the job of distributing hand-made invitations  welcoming them to our home for a feast.  I distinctly remember the singing because Jane’s dream had always been to return to teach choral music -  she was using my back as a metronome pounding out a beat to keep me on track with the melody as she introduced two and three part harmony. 
   
       These were the years of celebration – Karl  was on the team that took the  county championship in little league, I was in my glory juggling 38 different computer classes and Jane was plotting up a surprise for Christmas.  She wouldn’t tell. 
   
       We just bought the house in Yorkfield, Illinois a few years prior to this and we didn’t really know a lot of people except for being judges in a local Halloween contest.  She made the rounds with cookies and noticed that there were no plans for Christmas caroling that year.  The surrounding neighborhood had just been hit with a bad flood.  “A lot of gloomy gusses”, she told us at thanksgiving but Karl and I thought nothing more of it since everything was rolling along fine in our lives
   
       The plot was afoot.   I was sent to make copies of Christmas carol music and a cover, which I didn’t understand that read
   
 

       Yorkfield Tabernacle Choir – Christmas Eve concert”.

Rehearsal Christmas Eve

At the  gnomes house. 
   
      She took the flyers all over the neighborhood one week prior to Christmas Eve. 
   
      At 5 PM we had guests from Chicago, 15 miles away, from Hinsdale 2 miles away – Yorkfield hadn’t seen too many African-Americans up close let alone  an interracial couple with children but the  neighbors started coming and finally we noticed that was amazing was the range of age – 4 years old was the youngest that was Mat and 84 years old that was a Norwegian couple named Larsen.   We all got fortified by the fire in the fireplace and  with warm apple cider with cinnamon sticks floating in mugs. 
   
      The Yorkfield Tabernacle Choir continued for three years until Jane’s traveled east to care of her dying parents.