By MEGAN GARNETT
Student Writer
After 85 years, Lorraine Malzahn has many collections: tea pots, old tins, spoons, a refrigerator full of magnets and a world map with dozens of pins stuck in it.
She proudly displays the pin-filled map, in her living room beside the front door. Each pin represents a place that she, her husband Paul or their children have been.
Lorraine’s pins are stuck in 34 states and 18 countries. She’s lived in more than 14 towns in six different states, speaking fondly of Louisiana and remembering a small house in Texas that had orange crate cabinets and a plywood bathtub.
Most of Lorraine’s international travel came as a result of Paul’s job designing and building grain elevators.
Belgium, Ecuador and Hong Kong were among the many countries the family came to know.
Lorraine says she still has many places she would like to go.
She wants to see the states she hasn’t been to before like Oregon, Idaho and Maine.
Lorraine explained that she’s had an interesting life, saying, “there’s been a lot of ups and downs in it, but of course that’s what makes life.”
Lorraine was born on a farm southeast of Alva. She attended college at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in 1948 and 1949. After she was married she was gone for 40 years and came home to care for her mother.
Lorraine still lives in Alva today, where she sometimes works at Graceful Arts Gallery and Studios.
She said “she never dreamed she’d get to see anything at all ,but is so thankful to have had the experiences, remembering to never take them for granted.”
Lorraine smiled fondly when she said in a quiet voice, “I guess you could sum me up just saying, I had a good time.”