A journey of 6,500 miles

It was dur­ing a few snowy days back in the late 1980s that the Gor­don fam­ily on Lin­coln Avenue built seven snow­men, each depict­ing a mem­ber of the fam­ily. By chance, local water col­orist Ellie Hein­gart­ner walked by and snapped a photo of the scene.

The snow­men turned into a paint­ing by Hein­gart­ner with one ren­di­tion owned by the Gor­dons. A print of the paint­ing was sent along with gifts of local art­work, Beanie Babies and other items when a small con­tin­gent of area res­i­dents went to visit Delaware’s sis­ter city in Rus­sia, Omut­ninsk, back in the sum­mer of 2000 with the Delaware–Omut­ninsk Friend­ship Project.

A cou­ple weeks ago, now more than 20 years after the orig­i­nal scene took place, Kit Gor­don received a let­ter from Helen Devet­yargova of Kirov, Rus­sia. Devet­yargova, with her hus­band and son, now owns the print sent to Rus­sia where it hangs in their home more than 6,500 miles from where the snow­men orig­i­nally stood. (GAZETTE | Liz Robertson)