I was thinking today of treasure hunts. When Bill’s mother went into a nursing home, after his father died, we cleaned out their house. Be sure to look everywhere, she said, especially up high, because I suspect your father hid money around. This made cleaning out the house seem like a treasure hunt. We did look everywhere – inside the clock, under chair cushions. We took out the drawers of his desk. No money. He had a strong box that he had had with him since their marriage, 55 years. He kept it in his closet and never told his wife what was in it. Cleaning his closet, she would pick it up and notice that something inside rattled. She never asked him what was in it, but she was curious. After he died, Bill rifled through his desk, found the key and took the key and box to his mother to open. There was nothing in it. What had rattled was the metal divider.
When we were cleaning out Bill’s aunt apartment house, we tackled the cellar, a vast dungeon, full of rooms going back and back and back, packed with stuff. Aunt Elsa had told us that the padlocked cabinet in one of the rooms was her father’s, and she was sure it contained valuable tools. Our friend Louie came with his hacksaw, sawed away at the lock, and finally got it open. Bill and I crowded around, expecting wondrous things. The cabinet was full, but with used plumbing fixtures, some screws, a broken hammer, that sort of thing. We laughed when Louie finally pulled out a key – the key to the padlock.
My neighbor Jack came by for a visit this afternoon. I was telling him of my musings. He had inherited a handsome armoire. It needed repairs, which he made. When his father came, Jack’s wife took him to see the cabinet, to admire the repairs, and told him to look inside. No, he said, he couldn’t. It had been his mother’s, and as a child he had been forbidden to open it. After all those years, seventy or more, he still couldn’t bring himself to disobey.
Gaston Bachelard writes, “Wardrobes with their shelves, desks with their drawers, and chests with their false bottoms are veritable organs of the secret psychological life.”
Showing posts with label family history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family history. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Swinging
We’ve been having a lot of fun the last few days because our daughter is in a terrific commercial which just began airing. Advertising a Canadian lottery, it has her swinging on a chandelier. Her brother said he demonstrated his brotherly affection because he had to watch a lot of lousy television in order to see it. He has managed to videotape it. There seems to be two versions – a longer one and a shorter. It is a strange sensation to merely be tolerating the main show in order to catch a glimpse of the commercial and then to wish the ad would go on longer.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Coming and Going
It is hard to believe that soon the day will start to get longer, although as my friend explained to me, because of the proportions, it will not seem to be any longer until well into January. I should get him to explain the situation to me again. The sun is out now, yet so low on the horizon that it seems to be rising rather than having risen two hours ago. I am once again bombarded by people – clerks and radio announcers -- bemoaning the lack of snow. “We won’t have a white Christmas.” Was this ridiculous yearning started by Bing Crosby: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”? At a time of year when everyone is on the road, making an heroic attempt to get home for Christmas, who wants snow? Who wants a loved one to be driving on the awful stretch of road between Riviere-du-Loup and the New Brunswick border in a blizzard? Someone waiting to collect the insurance money? Someone I love is going to be in a bus on that stretch of road today. Tomorrow two people I love are going to be in a car on that road going the other way. I’m dreaming of a brown Christmas.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Christmas is Coming
Our granddaughter is coming for Christmas, a delightful surprise. One of my neighbours was almost as excited as I was. I wouldn’t have put up a tree or made much of Christmas at all, if she hadn’t decided to come, but yesterday we bought a small tree, and today I will put it up and get out the crèche. She is a vegetarian, so I will also get out my recipe notebook. Vegetarian cooking is labour intensive, I have discovered. You must dice things small and make sauces. I suppose that is in keeping with the celebration of someone who lived in the middle east two centuries ago.
I do send about 60 cards. I have talked to people who don’t send cards, telling me that it is a waste of time and money, but I couldn’t bear not to send them and lose complete touch with people who in the past meant so much to me.
Maybe my granddaughter will like to go to the midnight Christmas Eve service, and Santa Claus will come in the night, even though the roofers boarded over the chimney last summer. I will be thinking of my aunt and uncle, whose 58 year old son died December 22 two years ago while he was home for Christmas. She went in to the guest room to wake him up and he was gone. Christmas will never again be a joyful time of year for them. A young friend of ours is giving his girlfriend a diamond this year. Emotions of any kind are heightened at Christmas. I don’t know why. Something to contemplate.
I do send about 60 cards. I have talked to people who don’t send cards, telling me that it is a waste of time and money, but I couldn’t bear not to send them and lose complete touch with people who in the past meant so much to me.
Maybe my granddaughter will like to go to the midnight Christmas Eve service, and Santa Claus will come in the night, even though the roofers boarded over the chimney last summer. I will be thinking of my aunt and uncle, whose 58 year old son died December 22 two years ago while he was home for Christmas. She went in to the guest room to wake him up and he was gone. Christmas will never again be a joyful time of year for them. A young friend of ours is giving his girlfriend a diamond this year. Emotions of any kind are heightened at Christmas. I don’t know why. Something to contemplate.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Memorabilia
Having organized the papers I brought home from my office and found places for the books by culling out other books, yesterday afternoon I tackled the so-called archives room down cellar. Everyone in my family has given me the archives they have collected, letters, photos, clippings, birth and death certificates. Yesterday I was dealing with a banker box full of papers my stepmother gave me after my dad died. I was going through these papers one by one, weighing whether each should be saved or not. I would think, I can’t throw this out. And then I would think, But who would want it after I go? Would anyone want the tender love letters my mother wrote to my father before they were married?
I have a box full of my mother’s letters to me. I know how happy I was to get the letters sent to my great grandmother, so I am pretty sure that some great grandchild would be pleased to get these. But where will they go in the meantime, where will they rest for the next hundred years? And for that matter, where will my great grandmother’s trunk go, the one filled with a hundred letters, two diaries, a fur cape and lace she made, jokes and valentines and calling cards? She died in 1913, so the trunk and its contents have survived for nearly a hundred years already.
And where will the horse chestnut go, the one that Bill’s great great grandfather carried in the Civil War for luck? It was lucky, too, because in the Petersburg campaign he was shot through the mouth and survived, the story being that he talked so much that his mouth was fortunately open.
Would anyone want the cartoons of my father that the artists in the Boston Globe art room drew? Often they would use these cartoons in ads, so there are not only the originals but the actual ad. My father was the director of the art room. Sometime ago the Globe asked for memorabilia for their archives, and I joyfully offered them all of these, but they must have changed their mind, perhaps after the paper was sold to the NY Times, because I never heard from them.
I have a box full of my mother’s letters to me. I know how happy I was to get the letters sent to my great grandmother, so I am pretty sure that some great grandchild would be pleased to get these. But where will they go in the meantime, where will they rest for the next hundred years? And for that matter, where will my great grandmother’s trunk go, the one filled with a hundred letters, two diaries, a fur cape and lace she made, jokes and valentines and calling cards? She died in 1913, so the trunk and its contents have survived for nearly a hundred years already.
And where will the horse chestnut go, the one that Bill’s great great grandfather carried in the Civil War for luck? It was lucky, too, because in the Petersburg campaign he was shot through the mouth and survived, the story being that he talked so much that his mouth was fortunately open.
Would anyone want the cartoons of my father that the artists in the Boston Globe art room drew? Often they would use these cartoons in ads, so there are not only the originals but the actual ad. My father was the director of the art room. Sometime ago the Globe asked for memorabilia for their archives, and I joyfully offered them all of these, but they must have changed their mind, perhaps after the paper was sold to the NY Times, because I never heard from them.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Family History Part Three
I have become acquainted with a whole set of relatives that I barely knew existed. Very heady stuff. And now, going over it all again, sorting out the documents, I am reliving those great eleven years of being introduced to a missing grandmother. What I had known about her before was that she died of TB and that every year on Candlemass day my grandfather would say to my father, “Well boy. This is the day our luck ran out.” I knew that she was a sweet and beautiful woman. I didn’t know anything about her sisters, even though one of them lived just a few miles from us. It is a mystery to me why I didn’t know anything about that side of the family. That mystery will never be solved.
The hunt has become less productive, but it still goes on. Just this morning, coming across a note I had made about an obscure book on the sanatorium where my grandmother stayed for a few months, I thought, I wonder if I can find anything on the internet about it. And lo and behold, there was the book for sale – and for only $10!
The hunt has become less productive, but it still goes on. Just this morning, coming across a note I had made about an obscure book on the sanatorium where my grandmother stayed for a few months, I thought, I wonder if I can find anything on the internet about it. And lo and behold, there was the book for sale – and for only $10!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Family History Part Two
I wanted to know who all the people were in the diary, not just the relatives, and after a few years I began to piece together the place and the neighbors. Bill and I spent many a happy hour in the Belfast Library reading old copies of the Republican Journal, in the Penobscot Museum going through family folders, and in tramping around the area where my grandmother had grown up. I joined some family genealogy associations,meeting people there who helped me. I met a man at the Penobscot Museum who was doing research on part of my family – and it wasn’t even his family. He was a pilot, had been in the Vietnam War, had retired to the coast of Maine after having several heart attacks; the history of the area had become his passion. Through censuses, cemetery lists, vital records, I figured out who all the people were and found out quite a bit about them in newspaper accounts.
Later my cousin gave me my grandmother’s trunk, filled with letters, another diary, and other treasures. I typed up the 100 or so letters to add to the diaries and annotated both the letters and the diaries. I gathered family photos and eventually compiled a family history of about 250 pages. I wrote to my cousins to ask who would like a copy, and finally I printed out 35 copies.
Now I am organizing what I have accumulated into two categories: important documents that shouldn’t be thrown away, and papers and notes important only to me that can be chucked when I bite the dust.
Later my cousin gave me my grandmother’s trunk, filled with letters, another diary, and other treasures. I typed up the 100 or so letters to add to the diaries and annotated both the letters and the diaries. I gathered family photos and eventually compiled a family history of about 250 pages. I wrote to my cousins to ask who would like a copy, and finally I printed out 35 copies.
Now I am organizing what I have accumulated into two categories: important documents that shouldn’t be thrown away, and papers and notes important only to me that can be chucked when I bite the dust.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Doing Family History
One part of my tracing my way from birth that I haven’t mentioned is my researching my family history. It began eleven years ago. My aunt Tempy, my father’s youngest sister, had given me my grandmother’s diary perhaps 20 years ago. I had looked into it, but it was like many diaries of the time, filled with the day to day, mentioning names and places I had no knowledge of, so not too interesting. Someone has said that reading a diary is like walking into a room full of strangers.
Eleven years ago, Bill and I went on an Elderhostel in Belfast Maine, and part of the course was a trip to the Penobscot Museum, near where my grandmother grew up. I became interested in the area and in my unknown family.
My grandmother died when my father was three. All that he remembered about her was once being brought into her darkened bedroom. She was dying of TB. I never heard any stories about her or her family, and that is odd because my father and my aunt were great storytellers. The sad irony of my search is that if I had begun it when his three older sisters were still alive, I would have been spared some of the work.
I went back to the diary, read it, and decided to type it so that my cousins could have a copy. Bill typed it while I read the cramped small writing on the brittle paper. As we progressed, we got intrigued by the characters – who were they? Where was this place? It is astonishing how much of the puzzle of family history you can figure out. The hunt is what grabs people, what makes genealogy such a captivating activity.
More anon of what I found.
Eleven years ago, Bill and I went on an Elderhostel in Belfast Maine, and part of the course was a trip to the Penobscot Museum, near where my grandmother grew up. I became interested in the area and in my unknown family.
My grandmother died when my father was three. All that he remembered about her was once being brought into her darkened bedroom. She was dying of TB. I never heard any stories about her or her family, and that is odd because my father and my aunt were great storytellers. The sad irony of my search is that if I had begun it when his three older sisters were still alive, I would have been spared some of the work.
I went back to the diary, read it, and decided to type it so that my cousins could have a copy. Bill typed it while I read the cramped small writing on the brittle paper. As we progressed, we got intrigued by the characters – who were they? Where was this place? It is astonishing how much of the puzzle of family history you can figure out. The hunt is what grabs people, what makes genealogy such a captivating activity.
More anon of what I found.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Am I Old Enough?
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force. (Dorothy Sayers) Having been, by fits and starts, in no discernable order, tracing my way from birth, I will start on my being old, inspired by two quotations I have unearthed from my newly dismantled office and by the novel I am now about 15,000 words into.
What are these controlling earthly forces? Responsibility for family is the main one, I suppose. Gradually, I am feeling less responsible for saving my children and grandchildren. It occurred to me a while ago that, unfortunately for them, they are probably going to have to save me in the not too distant future.
What are other things that control a woman? I no longer feel it is my duty to save the world. I can even look upon global warning as something not in my power to correct. This provides me with an immense amount of freedom. Looking respectable, even attractive is a control, but I can see that when you are old, the harder you try to look attractive, the more ridiculous you look. As my daughter said, “Botoxed lips make you look like you’ve been punched in the mouth.”
One morning, when she was about 95, my grandmother came downstairs in the morning to find that a thief had come in the night, stolen her old age pension money, and cut the phone wire, so that even if she had heard the thief she couldn’t have used the phone beside her bed. She didn’t seem frightened by this. About the same time, she was putting out the trash, and a swarm of bees covered her arms. She had something like 100 stings. This also didn’t seem to bother her as much as it would have most people. Pain and fear, all controls, were lessening. In a few years she began to long for death. Dread of death, the last control.
I have always wondered if I would be brave enough to risk my life for another. Now, I am pretty sure I would, especially if the other was younger than I. A liberating feeling.
What are these controlling earthly forces? Responsibility for family is the main one, I suppose. Gradually, I am feeling less responsible for saving my children and grandchildren. It occurred to me a while ago that, unfortunately for them, they are probably going to have to save me in the not too distant future.
What are other things that control a woman? I no longer feel it is my duty to save the world. I can even look upon global warning as something not in my power to correct. This provides me with an immense amount of freedom. Looking respectable, even attractive is a control, but I can see that when you are old, the harder you try to look attractive, the more ridiculous you look. As my daughter said, “Botoxed lips make you look like you’ve been punched in the mouth.”
One morning, when she was about 95, my grandmother came downstairs in the morning to find that a thief had come in the night, stolen her old age pension money, and cut the phone wire, so that even if she had heard the thief she couldn’t have used the phone beside her bed. She didn’t seem frightened by this. About the same time, she was putting out the trash, and a swarm of bees covered her arms. She had something like 100 stings. This also didn’t seem to bother her as much as it would have most people. Pain and fear, all controls, were lessening. In a few years she began to long for death. Dread of death, the last control.
I have always wondered if I would be brave enough to risk my life for another. Now, I am pretty sure I would, especially if the other was younger than I. A liberating feeling.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Beta Version
I have migrated to Beta Blogspot, thanks to the recommendation of ukbookworm, and I am now supposed to be able to do wonderful things. I haven’t yet figured out what. Fiddling with the technical end of the computer is relaxing for me in the way that doing the crossword puzzle is, but exciting also, the way no crossword puzzle could be. I am now on Instant Messenger, thanks to my son and his WebCam, two other marvels. According to The Female Brain what is missing is the actual physical touch. More about that later.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Whoopee
When I got back from Maine, I had a lot of catching up to do, reading the blog posts on my list, back nearly a month. I had to read them because of my insatiable curiosity. My kids have always kidded me about this curiosity about other people’s lives. “Who’s their doctor?”, they mimic me. This is a practical question, the only way really to find out who is a good doctor and who is a mediocre one. You have to be roundabout in determining this. At one point I heard many tales of a back surgeon who was bad. Eventually, probing, I realized that the many tales was just one tale of a person who had a bad experience and had broadcast this widely. Probing further, I discovered that the surgeon in question was really very good. Fortunately I have never had to use this information because none of us has had to have back surgery.
Blogs do give me some of that same kind of information. For example, today Anecdotal Evidence writes about Isaac Babel, one of the few notable Russian writers I haven’t read, giving me the urge to find one of Babel’s books.
Reading some blogs is very much like reading published journals, the ones of May Sarton, for example. After I had read one of her journals, I read some of her poetry and one of her novels, Anger. They are not nearly as good as her journals. In fact, she writes about the experience on which the novel is based in one of her published journals. This is so much more immediate and unmitigated. In the blogs, I follow the adventures of a man moving into a new house, of a woman with a new baby and still having time to homeschool her children, of the comforts of a woman having a toothache, the details of ordinary lives, but with those details thought about, philosophized over.
A while ago I went through my blog list and took some off it because it was becoming unmanageable to read all of them daily. Recently I added two. There are millions of English blogs (since I am unilingual, those are the only ones I know) and I have only found a tiny percentage of them. I am sure there are many that I would find fascinating if only I could discover their whereabouts.
Because I took as my theme, tracing my life from birth, I do not write about the day to day as much as others do. Saturday night Bill and I watched the end of the Detroit Tigers game where the young players were so excited by their victory that they ran out into the stands and squirted champagne at the fans, unadulterated joy and high spirits. Wonderful. A few days ago the new premier put the first Aboriginal to be elected MLA into the cabinet as Minister of Justice and Attorney General. The Aboriginal MLA was so excited that he used the word “extremely” many times in the newspaper interview. Today in a quote of a few sentences he again used the word three times. Is he going to do a good job? I would bet on it. High spirits and joy and thoughtfulness. Ah yes.
Yesterday we had Thanksgiving at our lake camp with part of our family and some friends, a delicious meal, a beautiful warm day, leaves turned, great company. While we were there our daughter phoned to say she was to be in a commercial in which she has to swing from a chandelier, shouting “Whoopee.” "Whoopee," I say.
Blogs do give me some of that same kind of information. For example, today Anecdotal Evidence writes about Isaac Babel, one of the few notable Russian writers I haven’t read, giving me the urge to find one of Babel’s books.
Reading some blogs is very much like reading published journals, the ones of May Sarton, for example. After I had read one of her journals, I read some of her poetry and one of her novels, Anger. They are not nearly as good as her journals. In fact, she writes about the experience on which the novel is based in one of her published journals. This is so much more immediate and unmitigated. In the blogs, I follow the adventures of a man moving into a new house, of a woman with a new baby and still having time to homeschool her children, of the comforts of a woman having a toothache, the details of ordinary lives, but with those details thought about, philosophized over.
A while ago I went through my blog list and took some off it because it was becoming unmanageable to read all of them daily. Recently I added two. There are millions of English blogs (since I am unilingual, those are the only ones I know) and I have only found a tiny percentage of them. I am sure there are many that I would find fascinating if only I could discover their whereabouts.
Because I took as my theme, tracing my life from birth, I do not write about the day to day as much as others do. Saturday night Bill and I watched the end of the Detroit Tigers game where the young players were so excited by their victory that they ran out into the stands and squirted champagne at the fans, unadulterated joy and high spirits. Wonderful. A few days ago the new premier put the first Aboriginal to be elected MLA into the cabinet as Minister of Justice and Attorney General. The Aboriginal MLA was so excited that he used the word “extremely” many times in the newspaper interview. Today in a quote of a few sentences he again used the word three times. Is he going to do a good job? I would bet on it. High spirits and joy and thoughtfulness. Ah yes.
Yesterday we had Thanksgiving at our lake camp with part of our family and some friends, a delicious meal, a beautiful warm day, leaves turned, great company. While we were there our daughter phoned to say she was to be in a commercial in which she has to swing from a chandelier, shouting “Whoopee.” "Whoopee," I say.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Being Lulled to Sleep
We have a new radio station affiliated with ESPN. It is broadcasting the baseball play-off games. Last night I went to bed at 9, put the light out, snuggled down, and prepared to listen to the Yankee/Tiger game. I lasted for the first half inning and woke up at 12:40 in time to hear that the Yankees had won. I began to remember my mother. She would go to bed with a snack and a magazine to listen to ballgames. In those days she could even get minor league games, and as a consequence she knew all about the rookies who finally made it to the major leagues. My dad worked nights, and after my brother and I left home, she would be by herself. We didn’t even have locks on our doors. She loved baseball and the radio broadcasts must have been a great comfort to her. A game has a plot, interesting characters, a soothing jargon, my own partisanship and yet its outcome has no dire consequence.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Mother and Daughter
Big excitement here. Our daughter is coming home for ten days. We only heard yesterday – she has been trying to figure out a good time to come, and yesterday she found a window of opportunity. We will spend some days at Slow Loris – she loves it almost as much as our son does. She is the only one of my relatives who regularly reads my blog. Or at least the only one who comments on it.
I have finished my review. It’s too bad I don’t get paid by the hour, or for that matter, too bad I don’t get paid at all.
Family and writing have made up the major portion of my life. I do some volunteer work – less now than before. I used to teach. I read. I used to have an herb garden. Friends.
Because my mother went into a coma before she died, I never said goodbye. She couldn’t give me her last wishes, so I made them up. I knew she that there were three things she worried about. One was that I wouldn’t tweeze the hairs from my chin, one was that I would drink too much, and one was that I wouldn’t dress my daughter in “cute” clothes. I regularly (I almost wrote “religiously” because that is how I feel about it) tweeze the hairs, I am a complete teetotaler, and for as long as she would let me, I dressed my daughter in “cute” clothes. She was five when my mother died, and she became very firm about what to wear by the time she was seven and that didn’t include “cute” clothes. However, I never did stop spending effort and money on keeping her as my mother would have wished.
I have finished my review. It’s too bad I don’t get paid by the hour, or for that matter, too bad I don’t get paid at all.
Family and writing have made up the major portion of my life. I do some volunteer work – less now than before. I used to teach. I read. I used to have an herb garden. Friends.
Because my mother went into a coma before she died, I never said goodbye. She couldn’t give me her last wishes, so I made them up. I knew she that there were three things she worried about. One was that I wouldn’t tweeze the hairs from my chin, one was that I would drink too much, and one was that I wouldn’t dress my daughter in “cute” clothes. I regularly (I almost wrote “religiously” because that is how I feel about it) tweeze the hairs, I am a complete teetotaler, and for as long as she would let me, I dressed my daughter in “cute” clothes. She was five when my mother died, and she became very firm about what to wear by the time she was seven and that didn’t include “cute” clothes. However, I never did stop spending effort and money on keeping her as my mother would have wished.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Genes
In church today, in keeping with the theme this summer of having lay people talk about their faith, the speaker was a Biblical scholar, and her focus was the subject of her PhD thesis, the book of Ruth. She had some interesting points to make that I had never considered. The book starts out Once Upon a Time and thus announces itself as a story rather than history. Because Ruth is a Moabite, she is surprised that Boaz is kind to her, a foreigner. What I didn’t know is that the legendary foundation of Moab is chronicled in the Bible: Lot’s two daughters seducing him so that they can have a child. The Moabites come from that ignominious beginning.
Our speaker didn’t say this, but I was thinking that from a genetic point of view, Ruth was wise to go into Judah to find a mate. What a great thing it has been for North Americans to have the genes of many countries. I come from a small village, and I can’t think of one of my contemporaries who married someone from the village. I have read that there is something in women’s makeup that prevents us from wanting to mate with our brothers and the boys in our neighbourhood are too much like brothers. We don’t often marry the proverbial “boy next door.” The aim of our complicated method of reproduction seems to be to have as many different kinds of unique individuals as possible.
I have noticed that people often speculate that a child looks like so and so or acts like so and so. It is interesting to try to figure out which genes are responsible for making us what we are. My mother-in-law, husband and daughter all have the same wiry hair and dark blue eyes. On the other hand my brother and I are left-handed, but our parents were right-handed. We don’t look like either of them nor do we look like each other. I would think I was adopted except that I have my mother’s feet. My daughter does too. I also like mayonnaise, as my mother did. My parents-in-law both had a strong addiction to cigarettes, as does my husband. This bad gene is more than compensated for by his getting their smart genes.
Our speaker didn’t say this, but I was thinking that from a genetic point of view, Ruth was wise to go into Judah to find a mate. What a great thing it has been for North Americans to have the genes of many countries. I come from a small village, and I can’t think of one of my contemporaries who married someone from the village. I have read that there is something in women’s makeup that prevents us from wanting to mate with our brothers and the boys in our neighbourhood are too much like brothers. We don’t often marry the proverbial “boy next door.” The aim of our complicated method of reproduction seems to be to have as many different kinds of unique individuals as possible.
I have noticed that people often speculate that a child looks like so and so or acts like so and so. It is interesting to try to figure out which genes are responsible for making us what we are. My mother-in-law, husband and daughter all have the same wiry hair and dark blue eyes. On the other hand my brother and I are left-handed, but our parents were right-handed. We don’t look like either of them nor do we look like each other. I would think I was adopted except that I have my mother’s feet. My daughter does too. I also like mayonnaise, as my mother did. My parents-in-law both had a strong addiction to cigarettes, as does my husband. This bad gene is more than compensated for by his getting their smart genes.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Something Happened Last Night
Every year about this time, my mother-in-law would say, “Something happened last night,” meaning that the weather overnight had changed from summer to autumn. We would nearly always be visiting her in the middle of August. Summer school would be over, the boys’ baseball or later their jobs would be finished.
Last night something happened. Up at Slow Loris they had a fire in the wood stove. This morning here in town the outside thermometer read 7 degrees Celsius, 44 Fahrenheit.
When Canada changed to the metric system, we found it difficult to get a handle on Celsius. Eventually we discovered that we used Celsius for the winter and Fahrenheit for the summer. Bill says that is because zero, rather than 32, is a rational base for understanding freezing, whereas Celsius doesn’t have the fine gradations needed to understand hot weather. The car we bought 2 years ago has a thermometer in it. I printed out a chart comparing the two systems. I will say, “It’s 22 out.” Bill will say, “What’s that in Fahrenheit”, and I will get the chart out of the glove compartment.
When I was young, my father measured the distance from our house to Gilson’s store, exactly a mile. I walked it often and so knew in my bones what a mile was. The post office was halfway there so I knew what a half mile was. I will never know what a kilometer is.
Last night something happened. Up at Slow Loris they had a fire in the wood stove. This morning here in town the outside thermometer read 7 degrees Celsius, 44 Fahrenheit.
When Canada changed to the metric system, we found it difficult to get a handle on Celsius. Eventually we discovered that we used Celsius for the winter and Fahrenheit for the summer. Bill says that is because zero, rather than 32, is a rational base for understanding freezing, whereas Celsius doesn’t have the fine gradations needed to understand hot weather. The car we bought 2 years ago has a thermometer in it. I printed out a chart comparing the two systems. I will say, “It’s 22 out.” Bill will say, “What’s that in Fahrenheit”, and I will get the chart out of the glove compartment.
When I was young, my father measured the distance from our house to Gilson’s store, exactly a mile. I walked it often and so knew in my bones what a mile was. The post office was halfway there so I knew what a half mile was. I will never know what a kilometer is.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Reading Faces
Last Sunday, at the Camp of the Slow Loris, I fell out of a hammock, or to be more precise, I fell out trying to get into the hammock. I plunged face down on the forest floor, pushing my glasses into my nose. I had two superficial scrapes, which bled at first and scared my son, he thinking I had lost an eye. The next morning I had developed a black eye, but the glasses themselves didn’t get bent or scratched, my nose was intact, my vision fine, and my eyes not bloodshot.
A few days later I took a self-portrait with my new digital camera to send in e-mails as a joke, but my grandchild saw it, was “scared”, and had a “bad dream” about it. The neighbour’s child saw my black eye, was visibly shocked and presented such an alarming picture to the parents that the wife brought me over food. Another neighbour said I looked so awful that I wouldn’t be able to go out of the house for two weeks. My daughter wrote, apologetically, that she was going to delete the photo because it looked so “harsh.” She was not amused, I could tell.
Various charitable agencies often use a photo of a sad child or a child with bruises in their ads that ask for donations. In our newspapers a while ago, there was a child with a birthmark that made her face look as if it had been bruised. She actually had been mistreated, but not on her face. The photo was used over and over, a lie in one way. We do judge a person’s mental and physical health by their face, no doubt about it, and a child must learn that very early.
Last month my aunt phoned me to complain that I hadn’t worn my one false tooth to have breakfast with her. “You look awful without it.” I have always been vain about not being vain, but these experiences have taught me a lesson. Now that I am old, I do owe something to my friends and relatives to assure them that I am in good health. Of course they worry if they think I am not well. I did have a breast cancer removed nine years ago, but knock on wood, I have been free of cancer ever since and in general I am in good health. I guess I need to show it.
A few days later I took a self-portrait with my new digital camera to send in e-mails as a joke, but my grandchild saw it, was “scared”, and had a “bad dream” about it. The neighbour’s child saw my black eye, was visibly shocked and presented such an alarming picture to the parents that the wife brought me over food. Another neighbour said I looked so awful that I wouldn’t be able to go out of the house for two weeks. My daughter wrote, apologetically, that she was going to delete the photo because it looked so “harsh.” She was not amused, I could tell.
Various charitable agencies often use a photo of a sad child or a child with bruises in their ads that ask for donations. In our newspapers a while ago, there was a child with a birthmark that made her face look as if it had been bruised. She actually had been mistreated, but not on her face. The photo was used over and over, a lie in one way. We do judge a person’s mental and physical health by their face, no doubt about it, and a child must learn that very early.
Last month my aunt phoned me to complain that I hadn’t worn my one false tooth to have breakfast with her. “You look awful without it.” I have always been vain about not being vain, but these experiences have taught me a lesson. Now that I am old, I do owe something to my friends and relatives to assure them that I am in good health. Of course they worry if they think I am not well. I did have a breast cancer removed nine years ago, but knock on wood, I have been free of cancer ever since and in general I am in good health. I guess I need to show it.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The Family Circle
My aunt phoned last night, and we got talking about her father. I have written about him before, the early Jehovah Witness. She described how special the time with him was when they would kneel at her bedside to say her prayers. He would say, “Who do you want to bless tonight?” She would name the usual people and sometimes add someone new. This is a lovely picture, isn’t it? I am assuming he did this with my mother as well. I wonder why she didn’t do it with me. The closest my mother and I came to naming people was to induce me to eat she would say, “This spoonful is going down to Grammie. This spoonful is going down to Aunt Tempie.” The idea that there was an intimate circle of relatives and friends who should be blessed or fed was early ingrained in my aunt’s mind, my mother’s, mine. My mother expanded that circle to include many of the walking wounded of the world.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Getting Through Trouble
The last two years we spent in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Bill got his PhD, was a difficult time. When I look back at those years, I wonder how we got through them. The trouble started in August of 1963, when I was 7 months pregnant. Our 3 year old son was playing in the neighbor’s sandbox and came in with gunk on his hands. I looked at the box – an animal must have vomited in it. I phoned the pediatrician who said to bring the three kids in. He looked at our hands to see if there were any cuts where rabies might have entered. The neighbor’s kids had none, our son and I had some. Should we have the rabies shots? The other pediatrician had been present in a hospital where they had made the decision not to give the rabies vaccine and the man had died of rabies. It was determined we would have the vaccine, a shot each day in the muscle of the abdomen. The doctor explained that they were especially painful shots but that after a few days our pain threshold would rise and they wouldn’t be so painful.
The day of the doctors’ decision, the campus police chief came to look in the neighborhood to see if he could find the sick animal. He saw something under our flimsy graduate student house he thought might be an animal, went on his hands and knees to retrieve it, and my hopes soared. But alas, it was only a piece of cardboard.
My brother and new sister-in-law were on the road after their wedding, coming to visit us on their honeymoon, and they arrived just as the awful decision was being made. They were a tremendous comfort to us, although I often have said to my sister-in-law that with such an omen on her honeymoon, she would have been justified in turning right around for home and having the marriage annulled.
I have written about the birth in my post of May 6. My mother had come down to look after our son near the due date, but the baby was 3 weeks late. She and my father had never been apart for more than a few days. On Friday, November 23, we brought the baby home. My husband took our son to the football parade, but when he got to the site, there wasn’t a parade, only people milling around. He inquired and was told that President Kennedy had been shot. In the meantime, our neighbor came to tell my mother and me the news.
On Saturday night, my father went to visit a friend. He was distraught over the death, apparently had too much to drink, and was in an accident on the way home. He nearly died. My mother had to fly home the next day. As the days went by and it became apparent that he was not going to die, we settled down.
We had done our Santa shopping through the Sears’ catalogue. The presents didn’t come, didn’t come, and finally on Dec. 24 Bill went to Durham to see what was the matter. Only one of the presents we had ordered had arrived, a metal racing car, the kind the child gets in and pedals, the present I had ordered from my parents. Bill set out to buy for Santa. He came home with wonderful gifts, a tent, a policeman’s uniform, a life-size dum-dum, a long horn like a medieval page would blow. The car had to be assembled, there were missing pieces and most of the parts that were to go together couldn’t be made to fit, and it was complicated, and about 3 AM, after an argument, Bill went to bed, but I, saying to myself that it was my parents’ present, soldiered on. The car never did work.
On Christmas day my cousin and his girlfriend, also PhD candidates, came by and of course had to blow the horn. After they left, our son complained of sore cheeks. He had mumps. My cousin and his girlfriend got them, the girlfriend having to be hospitalized with mumps in her ovaries.
Several days after Christmas, we drove back to New England to visit our parents. I’ve written a poem about the horrendous trip, the only poem of mine that has ever been published. We drove through a blinding snowstorm; our son was restless with so little room; we were exhausted and worried.
The day of the doctors’ decision, the campus police chief came to look in the neighborhood to see if he could find the sick animal. He saw something under our flimsy graduate student house he thought might be an animal, went on his hands and knees to retrieve it, and my hopes soared. But alas, it was only a piece of cardboard.
My brother and new sister-in-law were on the road after their wedding, coming to visit us on their honeymoon, and they arrived just as the awful decision was being made. They were a tremendous comfort to us, although I often have said to my sister-in-law that with such an omen on her honeymoon, she would have been justified in turning right around for home and having the marriage annulled.
I have written about the birth in my post of May 6. My mother had come down to look after our son near the due date, but the baby was 3 weeks late. She and my father had never been apart for more than a few days. On Friday, November 23, we brought the baby home. My husband took our son to the football parade, but when he got to the site, there wasn’t a parade, only people milling around. He inquired and was told that President Kennedy had been shot. In the meantime, our neighbor came to tell my mother and me the news.
On Saturday night, my father went to visit a friend. He was distraught over the death, apparently had too much to drink, and was in an accident on the way home. He nearly died. My mother had to fly home the next day. As the days went by and it became apparent that he was not going to die, we settled down.
We had done our Santa shopping through the Sears’ catalogue. The presents didn’t come, didn’t come, and finally on Dec. 24 Bill went to Durham to see what was the matter. Only one of the presents we had ordered had arrived, a metal racing car, the kind the child gets in and pedals, the present I had ordered from my parents. Bill set out to buy for Santa. He came home with wonderful gifts, a tent, a policeman’s uniform, a life-size dum-dum, a long horn like a medieval page would blow. The car had to be assembled, there were missing pieces and most of the parts that were to go together couldn’t be made to fit, and it was complicated, and about 3 AM, after an argument, Bill went to bed, but I, saying to myself that it was my parents’ present, soldiered on. The car never did work.
On Christmas day my cousin and his girlfriend, also PhD candidates, came by and of course had to blow the horn. After they left, our son complained of sore cheeks. He had mumps. My cousin and his girlfriend got them, the girlfriend having to be hospitalized with mumps in her ovaries.
Several days after Christmas, we drove back to New England to visit our parents. I’ve written a poem about the horrendous trip, the only poem of mine that has ever been published. We drove through a blinding snowstorm; our son was restless with so little room; we were exhausted and worried.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Plymouth Brethren
My friend Ted, a regular reader of my blog, has sent me these quotations from Don Akenson’s An Irish History of Civilization, volume 2, about the beginnings of the Plymouth Brethren:
“The moment of creation is when John Nelson Darby, Anglican priest and avocational ascetic, came down from the Wicklow mountains in 1827, broken in body, unstable in mind, incandescent in belief. He created a tiny religion in Dublin, whose chief characteristic is everything that the Church of Ireland is not. His Brethren are not ordained, not salaried, not corrupt, not accepting of dogma. They are committed to a literal reading of the Bible, and what a reading it is…"
"These people extend in England into the Plymouth Brethren and of course they fight with each other…"
"William Bell Riley… becomes one of the two strongest figures in the American fundamentalist movement, an unswerving promoter of John Nelson Darby’s literalist and apocalyptic reading of the bible, and the godfather of the twentieth century’s most influential preacher, the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham.”
“The moment of creation is when John Nelson Darby, Anglican priest and avocational ascetic, came down from the Wicklow mountains in 1827, broken in body, unstable in mind, incandescent in belief. He created a tiny religion in Dublin, whose chief characteristic is everything that the Church of Ireland is not. His Brethren are not ordained, not salaried, not corrupt, not accepting of dogma. They are committed to a literal reading of the Bible, and what a reading it is…"
"These people extend in England into the Plymouth Brethren and of course they fight with each other…"
"William Bell Riley… becomes one of the two strongest figures in the American fundamentalist movement, an unswerving promoter of John Nelson Darby’s literalist and apocalyptic reading of the bible, and the godfather of the twentieth century’s most influential preacher, the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham.”
Sunday, July 02, 2006
God Hole Gene
My grandfather was an early Jehovah Witness, joining the sect about 1920. It was founded about 1916 by “Pastor Russell” as my grandfather called him and later was led by “Judge Rutherford.”
I am not sure which of my grandfather’s eccentricities were his alone and which were associated with his religion. He was a blacksmith by trade, but by the time I knew him well he must have been retired, because he spent his time walking long distances, going from house to house, spreading the word. He would visit my father’s sister, Tempie, and seeing an abundance of vegetables she had just harvested, he would request some to take on his journey. “Mrs. Bartlett could use these.” He also carried discarded clothing to the needy. If we saw him walking up the hill to our house, we would alert my mother, who would quickly hide her cigarettes and ashtray. He remonstrated with me about crossing my legs at the knees—this was bad for circulation. I still don’t cross my legs at the knees. He brought my brother and me treats from the health food store--this was back in the 1940’s--candy made from carrots, for example.
On one memorable afternoon he preached to me and my boyfriend for about an hour about God. I wish I could remember what he said. I was amazed at this memory – he quoted many passages of the Bible – he seemed to know the whole book by heart.
I suspect that what attracted him to the Jehovah Witness sect was its scholarly nature. After he died, my grandmother gave me his Bible. Half of the volume is the actual Bible, half study apparatus. She also gave me his interlinear translation of the New Testament.
His father was a shepherd who had emigrated from England. The story goes that he went to work in the wool mill and at one point had a conversation with the owner. When the owner discovered that he had been a shepherd and was working towards bringing his large family over and eventually having a sheep farm of his own, the owner offered to pay for this dream. I learned from family research done by a cousin that Tom Senior had given some of his land to the Plymouth Brethren to build a church. The church is still there although it has changed its stripes several times over the years.
Tom Senior was long gone when I arrived in this world. He died 6 months after my mother’s birth. My grandfather married late, in his forties. He was 20 years older than my grandmother.
My mother remembered the slight embarrassment of being called in from playing to evening prayers. “The other children knew why I was being called in.” My aunt doesn’t remember the embarrassment, but she does remember the evening prayers. “My father would kneel with me beside my bed.”
I think my brother and I have inherited our God holes from this grandfather. Alas, we didn’t inherit his amazing memory.
I am not sure which of my grandfather’s eccentricities were his alone and which were associated with his religion. He was a blacksmith by trade, but by the time I knew him well he must have been retired, because he spent his time walking long distances, going from house to house, spreading the word. He would visit my father’s sister, Tempie, and seeing an abundance of vegetables she had just harvested, he would request some to take on his journey. “Mrs. Bartlett could use these.” He also carried discarded clothing to the needy. If we saw him walking up the hill to our house, we would alert my mother, who would quickly hide her cigarettes and ashtray. He remonstrated with me about crossing my legs at the knees—this was bad for circulation. I still don’t cross my legs at the knees. He brought my brother and me treats from the health food store--this was back in the 1940’s--candy made from carrots, for example.
On one memorable afternoon he preached to me and my boyfriend for about an hour about God. I wish I could remember what he said. I was amazed at this memory – he quoted many passages of the Bible – he seemed to know the whole book by heart.
I suspect that what attracted him to the Jehovah Witness sect was its scholarly nature. After he died, my grandmother gave me his Bible. Half of the volume is the actual Bible, half study apparatus. She also gave me his interlinear translation of the New Testament.
His father was a shepherd who had emigrated from England. The story goes that he went to work in the wool mill and at one point had a conversation with the owner. When the owner discovered that he had been a shepherd and was working towards bringing his large family over and eventually having a sheep farm of his own, the owner offered to pay for this dream. I learned from family research done by a cousin that Tom Senior had given some of his land to the Plymouth Brethren to build a church. The church is still there although it has changed its stripes several times over the years.
Tom Senior was long gone when I arrived in this world. He died 6 months after my mother’s birth. My grandfather married late, in his forties. He was 20 years older than my grandmother.
My mother remembered the slight embarrassment of being called in from playing to evening prayers. “The other children knew why I was being called in.” My aunt doesn’t remember the embarrassment, but she does remember the evening prayers. “My father would kneel with me beside my bed.”
I think my brother and I have inherited our God holes from this grandfather. Alas, we didn’t inherit his amazing memory.
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