You are invited to attend the choral concert of the Oak Park Symphony on Sunday, Feb. 22 at 4 p.m. You will see and hear your neighbors up there in the sanctuary singing and loving every note. The Schubert Mass #6 is this year’s offering.

The first half of the program will feature Chicago Symphony Concertmaster Charles Pikler playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Tickets are only $20, $15 for seniors, and school-age children get in free. The concert will be at United Church of Christ, 848 Lake, in Oak Park.

Among the singers is Liene Sorenson of Forest Park. Liene sings soprano and, when she’s not singing, you can find her at the Oak Park Library in the reference department.

Your neighbor, Gerry Hills, is also back with the chorus this year. Gerry has many talents, not the least of which is her green thumb that produces a lovely garden every year.

Erik Hollander has been singing with the Saint John choir for most of his life. He sang with the Festival Chorus at Concordia until that group disbanded. Now he sings with the symphony every year and spends his non-singing time painting his house.

Congratulations to grandparents Geraldine and Roger Grant who are back from North Carolina where they saw their family increase by one on the first of the month. Son Daniel and his wife Jennifer now have their second boy, Aiden Philip. Aiden has a big brother Judah who is anxiously waiting for Aiden to get bigger so they can play.

Elfie Pett died last week. Elfie was a gentle soul who loved to sing and travel. She had been a member of the Damenchor for many years and loved the camaraderie of that group. Her husband Ron died several years ago and preceding Ron’s death, Elfie’s son George. Elfie will be missed by all who knew her.

Happy birthday to Mary Haley on Feb. 19, and to Shartiase Clay; on the 20th, Kristi Kasack, Alexandria Reina and Jonah Victorson will celebrate a birthday. On Feb. 21, Jacquie Madden, Megan Lyons and Bill Dunne; Feb. 22, Michael Gillian, Xavier Skinner, Rich and Bob Krieger; on the 23rd, Phil Kachlic, Jean Guntow, Chris Wood, Jean Leinweber, Meghan Krieger, Jacqueline Janney; on the 24th, Mary White, Sam Huynh, Scott Grams; on Feb. 25th, Alexandria Eterno, Rachel Hamilton and Gary Neibeisr.

Some leftover Valentine Day morsels … way back in the years 269 and 279 there were, supposedly, two holy men named Valentine who were martyred on Feb. 18. One was a priest/physician who was beheaded by Claudius II. The histories of these men are, obviously, vague and contradictory.

February 18 would be the 150th birthday of Sholem Aleichem, storyteller and originator of the plot for Fiddler on the Roof. The planet Pluto (when it was still a planet) was discovered in 1930; Toni Morrison was born in 1931, Yoko Ono in 1933, and Vanna White in 1957.

It was on Feb. 18 in 1942 that 110,000 people – two-thirds of whom were Japanese-Americans – were relocated to concentration camps here in the U.S., mostly in California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. They lost about $400 million in property, and weren’t fully released until Jan. 1, 1945.