By Regina Harris
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

“My grandfather had many, many stories he told throughout the years. I always thought I could remember them, but you don’t, and now those stories are gone,” says Bob Vehlow, who began writing his memoirs just weeks after moving to Sedgebrook. The retired insurance company vice president did not want his stories to be lost like his grandfather’s.

“I figured, if I put them on paper, my kids will remember them. There are things that I’m going to write that I never told them,” he adds, laughing.

A brush with art
While Vehlow has no background in writing and admits that taking on such an enormous writing project has been a challenge, he has never been one to shy away from new experiences.

Far from a time of leisure, Vehlow views his retirement as an opportunity to learn new skills and try new things. Just over a year ago, he took up painting. “The first three or four canvases were a disaster,” he admits. “But now I’m doing pretty good.”

Aiding aspiring priests
Currently, Vehlow is trying his hand at another skill entirely new to him: scrapbooking. “I have a lot of material that I’ve gathered, but I didn’t know quite how to put it together in a nice scrapbook.” So Vehlow decided to help start a scrapbooking club at Sedgebrook. Specifically, he wanted to learn how to better organize his mementos from a project that’s been close to his heart for many years.

Back in 1991, Vehlow and his wife started an action program through the Catholic church to provide financial aid to foreign seminarians studying in the  U.S. “They come from Africa, Korea, China, Vietnam—all over. Many of these students face a double problem: they can’t speak English, so they have to then take English language courses in addition to their seminarian courses, so they can’t make extra money,” he explains. “This helps a lot.”