Category Archives: Family Stories

Stories about family life and memoir

An Anniversary Remembrance

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

My husband and I celebrated our fifty-ninth anniversary a couple of days ago. Wow, it sounds like a lifetime. Well, it almost is. We met in high school and that was that. Going through old journals and blogs (something I do at the end/beginning of a year) I found this piece I wrote ten years ago. I think it is worth revisiting.

August 2012. Steady Eddie and I recently took in a movie called Hope Springs.  At times it was like watching someone suffer with an aching tooth remembering that your toothaches too.  Ouch!  It was also a reminder of why we are married.  Not that there is any good reason as reason goes, just that there are emotional connections and shared memories that cannot be compared or duplicated by any other couple.  They make our marriage, ours.  They make the humdrum every day and annoying things bearable.  They make us laugh together, sigh together, sometimes cry together and smile at each other when no one else can understand.  Those private moments and memories are the superglue that holds our ship together in stormy seas.

I don’t think this movie appeals to a wide audience but considering the number of baby boomers, it has a fairly deep pool from which to pull.  A good friend of our daughter, Calliope, set her criteria for movie-going to a high standard.  “No old people sex”, Lisa once said.  At the time she defined “old people sex” as any hanky panky on screen by anyone over 30.  This movie would definitely not meet her criteria.  Even though overtly it is about the sex follies of the senior set, it is ultimately about the strong link forged through fire and ice by people over years of married life.

So many times – sometimes daily – I get annoyed with Steady Eddie, like a gnat at a picnic that dives at your eyes, ears, and nose.  All I want to do is pinch his head off.  For instance, when he buys the largest container of mayonnaise at Costco that does not fit in our refrigerator without rearranging ALL the shelves and it is so big we don’t have a spoon or spreader long enough to reach the bottom of the container.  Is that not annoying?  Especially when he defends his choice and says he’ll do it again if left on his own at Costco.  To top it off whenever he goes to the frig to make a sandwich he says, “Where did YOU put the mayonnaise?”  and it is the largest thing in the front on the second shelf.  He says, “It is below my eye level so I couldn’t see it”.  Now how can you NOT want to pinch his head off? Eddie, on the other hand, has no reason to be annoyed with me.   Well, maybe I forget to take the safety brake off when I drive his truck.  But that is it.

I do admit Eddie has many endearing qualities.  For one he cooks eggs benedict for me every Saturday morning. Then there are the times when he brings home flowers just to make me smile, or he touches me gently as we pass in the hall, or remembers an obscure special occasion, or lets me know he is thinking about me when I am most vulnerable, that makes all that other stuff go away.  I could make long lists of those good moments, but they wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else but me.

Anyway, most of the time marriage is great and the rest of the time it teaches patience, tolerance, and restraint – all of which are good skills to have so you don’t go to prison for capital murder and leave the children as orphans.

January 2023. More than ten years have passed since I wrote this, and it still holds up. I laugh at the names I assigned people on the premise they can’t sue me if they are not recognized. We’ve shared so many adventures and weathered many more storms in the meantime and our ship is still upright, maybe even stronger as we age together. Thank you, Steady Eddie, you know who you are. I love you.

If Furniture Could Talk – Interview with an Ethan Allen Secretary

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

I began in a rock maple forest of Vermont. I was taken to an enormous mill and fashioned into my current shape at a company called Ethan Allen Furniture. I am what is known as a drop-front secretary. You can open my front panel to reveal the writing desk. When the writing surface is exposed you see six small cubbies, three on one side and three on the other with a drawer beneath each side. The center cubbie is wider and has a shelf beneath it. When the writing surface is closed you see a lock to secure it. Below the writing surface is a shallow drawer the width of the desk, and beneath that are three drawers. One deep file drawer on the right and three smaller drawers on the left. The large file drawer has a lock on the side. I sit on delicate square feet.  

In 1955 I was ordered and shipped to Seattle for Mrs. Louvee. I resided on the west wall near the entry across the living room from the fireplace and big bay window. Next to me was placed a curved spindle back maple chair. On my top rested a hobnob milk glass lamp with two stacking globes connected by brass fittings, and a clear white chimney coming from the top. We were Mrs. Louvee’s delight and the first thing visitors saw when they came into the room.

Mrs. Louvee was meticulous. I was dusted and polished each week. She placed bills to be paid in one of my cubbies, letters to be answered in another, business envelopes in a third, and letter-sized envelopes in a fourth. The other side cubbies were used for office necessities like a stapler, an electric pencil sharpener, a small hole punch, tape, stamps, a clear plastic box of paper clips, and the necessary box of eighteen milk chocolate Ferrero truffles. The two short drawers under the cubbies held pens, pencils, erasers, staples, and lip gloss. The long drawer under the writing surface held important papers and paid bills that would be filed in the large file drawer at some point. The other three smaller drawers held an engagement calendar along with three past year calendars, photographs, and address books – she had several. That was my life until Mrs. moved to Tucson in 1999.

She insisted on bringing me with her to her new, much smaller, home and I had a place in her bedroom. Still dusted and polished, I was no longer on display and seldom used. When she passed, I went to live with her daughter Miss Diana.

What a difference! Now I reside in Miss Diana’s writing room. My inside cubbies are cluttered with a hodge-podge of sticky notes, a flashlight, hand cream, 3 x 5 cards, stickers, stamps, hard drives, bookmarks, photos, candles, DVDs, CDs, and of course a box of chocolates – not Ferrero truffles but dark chocolate cherries and coffee nips. The drawers are crammed with tarot cards, writing prompt cards, outdated manuals for electronics, a whole drawer of old electronics like recorders, headsets, more hard drives. The big file drawer is stuffed with writing notebooks, files of stories, poems, chapters of partially written books, and miscellaneous notes. Neatness doesn’t count. I have not seen a dusting rag or polish in at least six years. My top is littered with old photos, a Kleenex box, a glass keepsake box full of who-knows-what, a stack of coasters, and a stack of books. A lamp that looks like a stack of kittywampus books took the place of the lovely milk glass lamp. Around me is a plethora of books and papers Miss Diana uses as she creates word pictures. An old office chair sits before me. Sigh. But I am used daily. I am no longer an occasional piece of gleaming furniture. I have a very important job.  Even if I don’t look so good – I’m happy.

Christmas Gift

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

This week we hosted a reunion of our family and former neighbors.

Our fourteen-year-old grandson, Henry, met two neighborhood children when they were all two-years-old. We were his full-time caregivers while his mom, our daughter, worked. Henry was at our home every weekday and grew up with the kids in our neighborhood. As time passed, changes were inevitable. Jill’s family moved to Washington DC and Bobby’s moved to a different part of Tucson. We kept in touch sporadically during the years as the kids grew. Our grandson was, for a while, in the same school as Bobby, when he lived across the street. But by the age of seven, they were all separated with Jill being the farthest.

2012

The boys get together several times a month and remain close friends. Our daughter took Henry to Washington DC one summer to visit Jill and her family. Another summer, they met halfway in Chicago. Jill’s family visited Tucson once and all three kids got together.

2013

This year they made the trip to Tucson for a short visit. We hosted the reunion at our house. All the adults wondered how the teens would react to each other after a four-year separation. By noon the boys sat by the window watching for Jill’s arrival. It was an amazing greeting. All three kids moved right into the space of their friendship as if only a day or two had passed. They chatted non-stop. In the afternoon they took a two-hour walk while we, grownups, were fixing dinner. They bought sweet rolls for our dessert.

2017

After dinner, the kids went into the room that we keep for Henry’s occasional overnights; the room that once housed his toys and where he napped as a baby. On his walls are photo posters that I made each year from when he was two until seven. All three kids are in those posters. They stayed in the room reminiscing over their pictures, laughing and talking for quite a while. I know those memories meant something to them.

Greater than any wrapped present, purchased or made, is the gift of friendship. We know these three will maintain their relationship as they become adults. Each is on the brink of adulthood now, each has their own interests, their unique set of talents, their own friends at schools but they will always remember the closeness that came of their time as children. Another reunion, possibly in California, is being planned for summer. Henry has no siblings, Bobby has no siblings, and Jill has a sister seven years younger. The relationship the three teens created is very like brothers and sister – family.

2022

Where I Am From

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

In this hurly-burly of year-end and holidays, it is nice to take a breath and reflect. Who am I now? With each year and the myriad of experiences it brings, it is good to assess the changes that may have been of consequence. Births, deaths, marriages, jobs, illness can all impact our sense of self. What is at your core and how was it created?

As Sally posted on Wednesday, I also admire Amanda Le Rougetel’s blog What’s My Story from her blogsite, https://fiveyearsawriter.blogspot.com/. I did not rise to Amanda’s challenge to make my story in sixty-five words or less. However, it is a great way to describe yourself by encapsulating your experiences in a short poem. In light of Sally’s post “Who Am I”, I was reminded of a prompt Beth Alvarado gave us in a 2013 writing group.  Write a poem that describes where you are from. (I know, I know – don’t end a sentence with a preposition – cardinal error). In 1998 George Ella Lyon, a Kentucky poet, wrote a book titled Where I Am From that was used as a model in teaching memoir writing. Clues to who you are come directly from your roots and experiences. Those memories are touchstones that reconnect me deeply back to myself in chaotic times, physical or emotional. Each stanza describes places that formed my view of the world, places where I was at home or where I lived tenuously until I could move on, ending in Tucson where I belong. I was born in Kansas, spent summers over many years with grandparents in Colorado, lived forty years in Western Washington, and finally settled in the Southwest that combines the sunshine of Kansas, the mountains of Colorado, and the extraordinarily high desert skies. These short phrases packed with images, smells, and sounds tell my story.

Where I Am From

I am from the traveling wind, wide blue skies, and waving wheat

Great-grandma’s raw onions by the supper plate

Great-grandpa’s coffee can spittoon beside his rocker

Refrigerator on the back porch and dirt fruit cellar

Fireflies on summer nights

I am from the deep dark earth, mountain highs

Fishing at Estes Park

Honeysuckle, snapdragons, and putting up the beans

A ringer on the washing machine

Cold fried chicken and white bread with butter and sugar

I am from endless gray skies,

Armies of black-green sentinel firs reaching to the clouds

City of a thousand cultures mingled like succulent odors of stew

The drizzle of cold, the smell of mold

Wind in the sails, islands in the fog

I am from the knife-edged mountain peaks with hidden crevices

That rise from the desert floor

Coyotes howling, javelina prowling

The soul-filling smell of the creosote bush after summer monsoons

The endless blue of sky and translucent flower of prickly pear

This is one of the poems published in our book, Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets; Chapter 4, page 285. I sincerely hope you are creating happy memories with family and friends during this holiday season.

Elvis

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First posted on A Way with Words, November 28, 2022

There is only one. My husband and I went to see the movie, Elvis, with Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker. Let me just say, Austin may be a good actor, but he is no Elvis. The 1979 movie with Kurt Russell as The King was a more convincing portrait. This new movie, however, was heavy on the portrayal of Parker and his relationship with Elvis. Tom Hanks disappeared into the role of the Colonel. He was amazing. How sweet Tom H. could embody the sleaze that was Parker makes it clear he is an incredible actor. This is not meant to be a movie critique. Many of my friends saw the show and have differing opinions. I think it is doing well at the box office but I would not recommend it. The music, of course, carries the show.

I was twelve when Elvis entered my life. He had been around for a while by then, but it was his music played on KJR in Seattle that got my attention. I think the fervent plea Don’t Be Cruel was my introduction. With the urgency only a teen can understand, I talked my mom into taking me to the record store. In those days there were stores dedicated to vinyl records, where you could spend hours listening to your favorite songs at individual turntables with headphones. It was a Saturday pastime for me and my friends. I bought a 45 of Don’t Be Cruel with Hound Dog on the B side.  Don’t Be Cruel was played until there were no more grooves, Hound Dog not so much. With my babysitting money, I bought each album as they came out from 1957 to 1963. Elvis was the guest of honor at all sleepovers with my friends – swooning, giggling, weeping, whispered secrets, popcorn, hot dogs, layered jello dessert, and coke, the order of the night. The walls in my bedroom were papered floor to ceiling and wall to wall around windows and closets with Elvis pictures taken from fan magazines. That is impressive in my memory because my mother was a stickler for clean and orderly. Nothing in her house was less than perfect – except my room. I teased her that she lived in a Doris Day movie – sheets and underwear ironed; closets, cupboards, and drawers in color-coordinated tidy stacks and rows. The fact that she accommodated my obsession with Elvis adorning every nook and cranny of my room for six years is, as I look back, a testament to love or maybe just giving up to a headstrong teen. When I married and left home, the room was quickly reclaimed.

In 1963, as a newly engaged woman, I believed it was time to put those teenage things away and become the adult my new status decreed, even though I was still 18. I had my own real-life love (even better looking than Elvis in my eyes) so dream lovers were no longer significant. I gave all my LP’s and 45’s to my sixteen-year-old neighbor who was as ga-ga about Elvis as I had been.

Now fifty-eight years later I am an Elvis fan-atic once again after being reintroduced to his music.  I listen to his channel on SiriusXM Radio, on Amazon Music, and Alexa. I rediscovered songs I forgot. His voice is unmistakable and moves me whether I’m listening to heartfelt gospel, crooned love ballads, or feverish rock and roll tunes. They send me back in time, but in another way, I enjoy a new perspective after living and loving for so many years. Thank you, Elvis. Your legacy is very much appreciated.

This is one of the stories in my life, a short version. It is important to recognize all the stories that make up a life and honor them. Sharing tales, fiction, and non-fiction, is how humans connect. We discover that we have more in common and our differences become less important. As we show in our book, Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets, a writers’ group can help a writer develop those stories for themselves and their families. Take some time today to write a memory.

Ghost Story

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Originally posted on A Way with Words

Here we are in October, rolling toward the holidays with the anticipation of ghouls, ghosts and goblins that visit on October 31, All Hallows Eve. Many cultures celebrate November 1st called by different names All Saints Day, All Souls Day and Dia de Los Muertos, a day to honor those who passed before. The practice goes back centuries in Christian culture and ancient civilizations such as the Aztecs. A day of prayer and remembrance after a night of hijinks and revelry.

Well, I have a real ghost story. There have been times in my life when the unexplained/unexplainable occurred. Are they mind tricks? Is it wishful thinking? Or are there spirits reaching from the other side? I’ve journaled about these times and told friends about them. Now I will share one such experience with you.

It happened over fifty-five years ago and is as vibrant in memory as if it happened fifteen minutes ago. My father passed away unexpectantly. He had serious heart issues, but I did not think he was on the brink of death. Dad and I were very close. He got me. He was the loving bridge, firmly anchored on my side, across a chasm of mother-daughter expectations.  Dad was an invaluable ally to a headstrong teen.

Married at eighteen, by twenty-two I was in my own home with a husband and two young children (a baby of one month and a toddler eighteen months). Our little family lived out in the “sticks”, the only place we could afford a house. My parents and brother lived a few miles away in another town, so we saw them about once a week.  Dad loved being with his grandbabies.

Mom called to give me the news that Daddy had passed. Devastated, inconsolable, I descended into a robotic state doing only what was needed. Grief held my heart in a spikey vice grip, severed from my body.

Several nights later, I was driving home on a dark, rain-slick road after going to the grocery store miles away for a few necessities. My husband was home with the babies. It was mid-February in the Pacific Northwest, cold, dank, and dreary. I was enveloped in a blackness not only of the night but of spirit. The empty country road bordered by an ominous phalanx of fir trees was unlit, no traffic ahead or behind me, only the thin beam from my headlights to guide me. I wept, thinking about my father, cheeks drenched in tears, the deepest sorrow I had ever known. In a haze, I pictured accelerating off a curve in the road into the woods, slamming against a tree to stop the pain. No thought of my husband, children, mother, or brother – just the unbearable ache of wanting to be with my father.

“Honey, you have many, many miles to go before you are done.” My father was next to me in the car telling me to go on. I glanced at the passenger seat, nothing, no one; yet his voice was as clear as crystal and so was his message. My sobs stopped instantly. The death grip on my heart released. My attention focused on the road. I felt wrapped in a warm embrace. He was with me. His voice is still distinct, those words still in my ear when I recall that night. I know my father saved my life. We will meet again.

Family Stories

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Originally published on A Way with Words blog

I was very excited to have Nancy Turner as one of my writing teachers. She wrote a novel based on early twentieth-century journals of one of her family members called These is My Words. Two subsequent novels continued the story, Sarah’s Quilt, and The Star Garden. These is My Words has been one of my favorite books since I first read it. It introduced the spunky woman, Sarah Prine to me. Through the years I’ve collected family stories also.

Family lore, oral tradition, is a way of connecting generations and a treasure chest for writers to plunder for story ideas. One such legend is of my great grandmother, Nellie Mae, who as a child traveled with her nearly blind father from Nebraska to Washington D.C. in the 1880’s to obtain a civil war pension. Her father James A., had been in the Union Army during the Civil War and was injured when a shell exploded in his face. He was taken prisoner. He tried to escape and was shot again. When the war ended, he went back to his family in Nebraska. Disabled by war wounds, he earned a living by writing and selling songs and poems; and, he played music with a small crank box-type organ. When government pensions were offered to Union soldiers, James A. traveled with his young daughter Nellie by train to Washington DC to obtain his. She was nine or ten at the time. James found he was listed as a deserter because his status as a prisoner of war was never verified.  Pension denied, he played music and sang with Nellie at the train station to earn enough money to get back to their home in Nebraska. He tried until his death to straighten out the records but never succeed. James moved his family to Woods County, OK where they all did farm labor for local farmers. His wife died when Nellie was young. Nellie grew to be a very pretty Irish lass. She left school in the fifth grade to work to help support her family. She had several older brothers who worked the farms in the area too. One of Nellie’s jobs was to cook for the threshing crews in harvest season and keep house for her father and brothers. She met a skinny German man, named James K who worked at a nearby ranch. (He always emphasized to me that he was Prussian, not German.) James was twenty-two, Nellie was fourteen. James charmed her into leaving with him to start a new life. Late one night, they met in a peach orchard and fled the territory in his wagon. When their absence was discovered, Nellie’s brothers set out hot on their trail, not just because she was their sister but because she was their cook. The brothers chased them on horseback across Oklahoma into Kansas, then gave up. Nellie and James were married in 1888 in Hugoton Kansas and were together nearly 70 years until James’ death in 1956. They raised six children.

They were my great-grandparents and I remember them well. Great-grandpa had a big hooked nose and grew a fabulous garden that would feed an army. He rocked in his chair with grandkids on his lap. Smelled of tobacco chew and occasionally spit tobacco juice into the coffee can by his rocker. Great-grandma was the matriarch. She cooked meals for large family gatherings. She always had a fresh onion from the garden by her plate and ate it like an apple. Her hugs were magnanimous. She smelled like baking. Great-grandparents were fixtures in my life; old folks I saw for Sunday dinners, at birthday parties, and holidays. It never occurred to me they had a STORY beyond my knowing. I regret not having those conversations with them. I’m currently researching letters, family notes, photos, and history to piece together a narrative of their unique story.

Just like Nancy Turner and me, every family has legends and unique stories to tell. My co-author Jackie put several of her family stories in our book Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets.

Ten Years Later

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Rutherford B 2012
Rutherford B 2022

I just looked back on this lame blog that was started ten years ago. It has been abysmally neglected in the intervening time. Ten years ago Steady Eddy (I named my family in my first blog post and will stick to those names to protect the innocent) and I were spending a good deal of time as caregivers for our grandson while his mom, our Athena, worked hard to support them. It was our pleasure, our delight, and our privilege. We had a world of fun watching him grow. He is a very bright, very charming person who, even at age three, taught us a lot. Now he is thirteen, on the brink of manhood, taller than his grandmother – but not yet his grandfather. He is still teaching – me about computers, the internet, and, other stuff I didn’t know I needed to know, instead of me teaching him reading and writing. Time doesn’t just fly, it rockets.

MARRIAGE

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Steady Eddie and I recently took in a movie called Hope Springs.  At times it was like watching someone suffer with an aching tooth remembering that your toothaches too.  Ouch!  It was also a reminder of why we are married.  Not that there is any good reason as reason goes, just that there are emotional connections and shared memories that cannot be compared or duplicated by any other couple.  They make our marriage, ours.  They make the humdrum every day and annoying things bearable.  They make us laugh together, sigh together, sometimes cry together and smile at each other when no one else can understand.  Those private moments and memories are the superglue that holds our ship together in stormy seas.

I don’t think this movie appeals to a wide audience but considering the number of baby boomers, it has a fairly deep pool from which to pull.  A good friend of our daughter, Calliope, set her criteria for movie going to a high standard.  “No old people sex”, Lisa once said.  At the time she defined “old people sex” as any hanky panky on screen by anyone over 30.  This movie would definitely not meet her criteria.  Even though overtly it is about the sex follies of the senior set, it is ultimately about the strong link forged through fire and ice by people over years of married life.

So many times – sometimes daily –  I get annoyed with Steady Eddie like a gnat at a picnic that dives at your eyes, ears and nose.  All I want to do is pinch his head off.  For instance, when he buys the largest container of mayonnaise at Costco that does not fit in our refrigerator without rearranging all the shelves and it is so big we don’t have a spoon or spreader long enough to reach the bottom of the container.  Is that not annoying?  Especially when he defends his choice and says he’ll do it again if left on his own at Costco.  To top it off whenever he goes to the frig to make a sandwich he says,“Where did YOU put the mayonnaise?”  and it is the largest thing in the front on the second shelf.  He says, “It is below my eye level so I couldn’t see it”.  Now how can you NOT want to pinch his head off? Eddie, on the other hand, has no reason to be annoyed with me.   Well, maybe I forget to take the brake off when I drive his truck.  But that is it.

I do admit Eddie has many endearing qualities.  For one he cooks eggs benedict for me every Saturday morning. Then there are the times when he brings home flowers or he touches me gently or remembers a special occasion or lets me know he is thinking about me when I am most vulnerable that makes all that other stuff go away.  I could make long lists of those good moments but they wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else but me.

Anyway, most of the time marriage is great and the rest of the time it teaches patience, tolerance, and restraint – all of which are good skills to have so you don’t go to prison for capital murder and leave the children as orphans.

Cleaning Day Lament

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The washing up was all but done
Her tussle with the mop was won
She sighed and looked the kitchen round
And shook her head, then leaked a sound
 
The sound grew loud, to her dismay
“I’m leaving now – I’ll run away”
“Away to where” a small voice asked
Away to where I have no task
 
The endless days of wash and scrub
That must be done, redone…drub,drub
“And what would satisfy your soul?”
Again, the voice in calm cajole.
 
To ride a horse, to lead a charge
Be bold, be alive, be larger than large
To stand my ground, to make my mark
To be another Joan of Arc
 
Deeds of honor must be done
Heroic songs must be sung.
Another voice piped up to say
“Mom, can you drive to practice today?”
As bubbles dissolved in her soapy pail
The wind escaped from out her sail
To earth she fell. Her reverie
Impaled upon the need to be
….Mom.