Category Archives: Family

Saint Elizabeth

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My mother passed away on June 29 after five years of grinning and bearing constant indignities due to living with a colostomy and fainting spells and memory problems because of a weak heart. She had to move out of her home, was in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities, and eventually lived in an assisted living apartment. My father, her partner of more than 50 years, passed away in 2009, after becoming more and more difficult to live with due to his own failing body and mind. Throughout all of this Mom was patient, funny, and a delightful companion. Her nurses loved her, her friends loved her, and her family called her a saint more than once.

It’s hard to know how grief will affect you, but Mom’s passing rendered me mute. I have had lots of ideas in my head, but very little ability to translate them to written words. Shortly after Mom’s death, we went on an amazing trip to southeast England. There are many stories to tell about our vacation but I can’t seem to get started. It took me three weeks to write a simple review on Trip Advisor about the beautiful bed and breakfast where we stayed for most of our time in England.

Because we decided to have her memorial service at the end of the summer after all of our family could make arrangements to come back to Ohio, I have spent the summer in a kind of grief limbo. The excitement of the trip to England dulled the initial pain, but then I returned to my day-to-day existence — an existence without my mom on the other end of the phone line or across the table from me on my trips to visit her.

It seems that the best medicine for grief was to hole up at home and get work done. The busy-ness of taking care of summer tasks that I can’t do doing the school year kept me going. My occasional foray into a social life was bolstered by my faithful and sympathetic family and friends who kept me from breaking down and wallowing in my grief. Even Facebook was a comfort — I heard from many old friends of my mother as well as friends and family from my own present and past.

My niece, the author of the Vanderbilt Wife blog, recently posted two tributes to her grandma. Reading them allowed me to break through my own writer’s block and begin to move on. It’s hard to imagine a life without the presence of my mom’s gentle, supportive spirit. I miss her wry humor, her understanding of my passion for music and performing, and her willingness to listen attentively to my long-winded stories.

Now that my house is clean, it’s also time to clean out and organize my emotions. It’s a new school year, and a new life without my mom — a new normal. The loss of parents is one of life’s passages that people my age endure; many of my friends have gone through this and I know that I will survive just as they have.

The next two weeks will pass in a whirlwind as we enjoy the annual reunion on my husband’s side of the family and then celebrate my mother’s life in her memorial service. It probably won’t hit me again until we get home and I start school, where another group of friends will offer condolences.

There’s still a garage full of boxes from mom and dad’s apartment to open and treasures to be savored and put away. Every box will contain more than one memory of my mom, and as I go through them I’ll remember that she was a human being with failings as well as being a positive role model for me. I know I’ll come to realize that she wasn’t really a saint, but a person to emulate all the same — and that’s a good start toward my new normal.

An Apology to My Father

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My father was an extraordinary man. Some of his behaviors were corrosive to our family relationships, but in some of his eccentricities he turned out to just be ahead of his time.

He was punching holes in gourds and tin cans to make lanterns long before Martha Stewart thought of it. He was an organic gardener when no one was very concerned about putting chemicals on food. He canned and froze the summer bounty from our orchard and garden with abandon not only because it was good for us, but because it kept us fed on a teacher’s salary during the long winter months. He built and then taught himself to play all kinds of instruments when he became intrigued with them in museums and books; we had steel drums, lawnchair chimes, and the ever popular spoons. He even built a stand for his musical saw. You can imagine that there was quite a lot of embarrassment around our house when Dad pulled out his current project to show our visiting friends.

Dad become enthralled with genealogy early on — as the eldest child, I spent quite a bit of my childhood in courthouses and cemeteries looking up family information. I know how to use divining rods to find unmarked graves in burial plots, and before Mr. Internet was there to help us, I could find a will in an old courthouse record in minutes. I still love cemeteries, but he would have LOVED today’s internet genealogy programs and the instant access available on the Web!

This isn’t our family cemetery, but we had one that looked like this on the banks of the Ohio River by Cincinnati. Image via www2.vcdh.virginia.edu.

As Dad learned more and more about our various family connections, he began to create books of photos and anecdotes. This hobby grew and grew until family members no longer wanted to take more of his scrapbooks. “Enough was enough,” we said. As digital imaging become more available, we encouraged Dad to get his original collection scanned so that the old photos were captured for posterity. That was the point that he discovered that libraries often take genealogical records, and he sent his scrapbooks to pertinent libraries in various places across Ohio and Indiana. With computer access to library catalogs, Dad’s work and name was visible on internet files. He was thrilled because he had a new audience for his hobby. When I checked the catalog of the State Library of Ohio, Dad got 39 hits! He would be proud that his work lives on.

Image via library.ohio.gov

In Dad’s later years, he began to write reminiscences and what were essentially religious tracts and disseminate them to family and friends via electronic mail. Unfortunately, many of his family members didn’t read them, and some didn’t really appreciate them. He would ask what we thought of his work, and would be disappointed that we didn’t want to talk about his writing. I remember being annoyed about his frequent emails that didn’t actually have any family news in them. I regret it now.

Someone once told me that a person’s writing is like poop. Little kids are horrified when, after painstakingly teaching them how to use a toilet, we flush their “results” down the drain. As writing teachers, we do the same. Our students present us their gift of words, and we rip it to shreds, usually with a red pen. How cruel is that? And I did that to my dad by being critical of his precious writings.

Image via girlgonegrad.blogspot.com

Today I am that writer, the one that pretty regularly produces “results” for my family and friends to read. I am often disappointed to find that some of my loved ones don’t read my blog posts. I try not to take it personally; they are, after all, busy with their own lives. I had not really thought about how much that makes me like my father until I was back in my hometown for Mothers’ Day.  I can see why he continued to try to get us to value his work, and in hindsight, I understand how deeply we may have hurt him.

Image via Got My Reservations

My father was born on May 11, 1923, and died on June 6, 2009. Over the next weeks my family members will each remember a father, a grandfather, and a husband, a man who was sometimes difficult to love but ours all the same. If he were alive today, I would try to get him to stop talking about his own work and read mine :). In any event, I’m sorry, Dad, that I wasn’t as supportive of you as I should have been.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Today’s post is linked up to Mama Kat’s Writers’ Workshop. After reading and commenting on my post, stop by Mama Kat’s site and check out some other writers’ work!

If My Mom Were A Blogger

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Today’s post is linked up to Mama Kat’s Writers’ Workshop. After reading and commenting on my post, stop by Mama Kat’s site and check out some other writers’ work!Mama’s Losin’ It


If my mom were a blogger she would be able to convince you that romance novels don’t need overt sex. She always preferred Regency novels that led the reader to the brink but never crossed over. Sorry, Mom, but I just couldn’t resist the photo.

Image via camillereads.com

If my mom were a blogger she would be writing about her beloved Ohio State and its sports teams — and also the Cincinnati Reds. She used to let me stay home from school on opening day to watch the game on television with her (but don’t tell anyone).

Image via nationalsportsbeat.com

If my mom were a blogger she would have had to fight with my dad to get computer time. Once he discovered the magic of the internet, there was no chance for her.

If my mom were a blogger, there would be a healthy competition with the blogs of her daughter and her granddaughter. She is so full of wisdom with a pinch of spice that there would probably be little chance for Jessie or me to win. 🙂 But she would be really proud of both of us (and she still is).

Image via vanderbiltwife.com

If my mom were a blogger, it would probably have led to a book. Before she got sick, she had everything it takes to publish. I wish that she had gotten around to writing the novel about our immigrant family that she always intended to write.

If my mom were a blogger, I would devour every single word she wrote as if it might be her last.

The Necklace

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When you first read the title of this post, I’ll bet you were thinking I was going to talk about the classic short story, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. So I will.

In Mauppasant’s tale, middle class but beautiful Mathilde Loisel has the opportunity to go to a fancy ball. She and her husband spend too much money on a dress for the affair, and borrow a diamond necklace from a friend. When Mathilde loses the necklace, she buys a replacement and returns the diamond necklace to her friend without telling her the truth. Then, she and her husband spend ten years dedicated to paying off their debt, losing their home, their servants, and much of their original lifestyle in the process. When she encounters the friend (after ten years of abject poverty), she finally discloses the truth about the necklace. Her friend, aghast, tells her that the original necklace was a fake. Needless to say, I have often used this story in my classroom to demonstrate the use of irony in literature.

My tale for today, however, involves a different kind of necklace.

This necklace was in the bag of ethnic and costume jewelry that came from my mother-in-law’s estate. I thought it was very interesting and possibly cool to wear; my sister-in-law thought it was hideous. I love the mixed media of the beads, wood, and abalone, and it kind of clinks like a wind chime when it moves, but it requires a significant “shelf” upon which to rest. I wore it once with a black shell and liked the effect, but then put it away. The other day I was going to wear a plain black turtleneck to school and thought that this was the perfect opportunity to check out my perceptions of its cool factor.

I’m glad to report that my little fashionista students, who rarely keep their negative or positive opinions to themselves, loved the necklace and I got comments all day about it. It’s not something that I can wear every day, or even every week, but it’s still fun.

Did my self-esteem need the stamp of approval from eighth graders? Not really, but when a teacher places a large piece of jewelry that jingles on her chest, it had better be good, because it’s going to attract a lot of attention. My mother-in-law taught kindergarteners, who probably looked at jewelry placement somewhat differently than my 14-year-olds.

Now I’m looking for some adult feedback. I need to convert this Joann piece into a wearable work of art. I can see it worn with something peasanty and creative when I want to tell that story. Unfortunately it hangs down to that lovely part of my torso just above my waist — not the part of my body to which I want large orange beads to draw attention! I do think it has possibilities, though, and there’s always that connection with my beloved Joann that happens whenever I wear her jewelry.

Any ideas that will dilute the orange? I’d welcome some crafty ideas . . .

Guest Post: The Birthday Tiara

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While enjoying our Christmas visit to Seattle, we also celebrated my sister-in-law’s birthday on December 26. I have been urging her to write a guest post about being a Jane Austen lover, but her day wearing a rhinestone tiara is what stoked her creative furnace (I added the photos). Please welcome Suzanne to our blogging party and leave her a comment!.

THE BIRTHDAY TIARA

In early December, I attended a “December birthdays” party with a friend who presented each of us with a glitter-encrusted “Birthday Princess” tiara.  Being enamored of all things sparkly, I vowed to wear the tiara all day on my actual birthday a few weeks later.  Little did I realize that something undertaken as a lark would turn into quite the social experiment.

The wearing of a birthday tiara definitely loosens the inhibitions of those around you.  People are much more likely to look at you and to engage you in conversation.  Of course, there are the invariable “duh” questions such as “Is it your birthday?” (no, I just like wandering around shops wearing a “birthday princess” tiara) or my personal favorite, “Is that a tiara?” (uh, I don’t know….what do you think it is?).  But I swallowed all those snarky parenthetical remarks because every person who asked me one of those questions was smiling.  One woman at Costco asked if it was my birthday and then reached out to hug me.  That was my first indication of the power of the tiara.

After lunch, the family ventured into Seattle for a shopping excursion at Pike Place Market.  Being December, it was a blustery, rainy day and I immediately discovered a couple of drawbacks to tiara-wearing.  One, your hair gets trapped in the glitter when the wind blows and it’s very difficult to disentangle.  Two, wearing a tiara is quite incompatible with throwing a hood over your head in an attempt to keep your hair dry.  But, by this point, I was unwilling to abandon the experiment.  I had a feeling that there were still more secrets for the tiara to reveal.

Interestingly, Pike Place Market elicited none of the inane questions that I had received at Costco and the mall.  People simply walked up to me and said “Happy Birthday!” and went about their business.  And I discovered another upside to the tiara—people gave me free stuff!  As I wandered among the vendors, I scored a fused glass zipper pull, a chocolate-covered cherry and a crab cocktail!

Weary of shopping and looking for a pick-me-up, we all arranged to congregate at a small wine bar in Post Alley.  Jennie and I had a little trouble finding the wine bar at first, so we stopped at a restaurant in the alley and asked for directions.  When our husbands met up with us a bit later, it turned out that they had stopped at the same restaurant and told the maitre d’ that they were supposed to meet their wives at a wine bar.  The maitre d’s response:  “Was one of them wearing a tiara?”  Obviously another benefit of the tiara—people remember who you are.  Finally ensconced at the correct locale, Champagne seemed the most appropriate choice to match my festive mood, so I informed the waitress that I needed the “Bubbly Flight.”  To which she responded, without missing a beat, “Of course you do.”

By the time we settled in for dinner at Salty’s, the power of the tiara seemed to be waning a bit.  Maybe it didn’t sparkle quite enough in the dim restaurant lights, or maybe the waiters had just seen it all.  Or maybe we were having such a good time with family and friends that the tiara had nothing further to add.  But twelve hours of wearing a birthday tiara had taught me a quite a bit.  First, wearing a headpiece designed for an eight-year-old can give you a bit of a headache.  But more importantly, it gave a lot of other people an excuse to smile and to be a little more warm and friendly than they might otherwise have been, and gave me an excuse to be warm and friendly in return.  And, at the end of the day, it had just been plain fun!

Grab yourself a tiara and give it a try.

Boxing Day Princesses

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In British countries, the 26th of December traditionally is a legal holiday and the day that you are supposed to give gifts to service people in your life. We in “egalitarian” America don’t celebrate this holiday, and tend to give our gifts prior to Christmas to our hairdressers and doormen. The day after Christmas in America is celebrated by returning unwanted gifts and buying stuff on sale with the gift cards you received. Kind of anticlimactic.

Thankfully, December 26 in my world is marked by the birthdays of two of my favorite people, my sister-in-law, and one of the sisters of my heart. As a person who didn’t know anyone who shared my birthday until well into my adult years, what are the odds of two of my best friends sharing the same birthday?

Tonight we enjoyed a birthday meal in an amazing setting at Salty’s on Alki Beach, looking east toward downtown Seattle. It was a fitting end to a wonderful day.

4 Days of Christmas

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We’re getting close now. As I wind up my shopping and my preparations for Christmas parties and celebrations, I start to forget about the secularity and downright crassness of what I’ve been encountering at the mall and on television. I begin to focus on what’s important, my relationships with my family and friends. The miracle of the birth of Jesus starts to feel real about the 22nd of December. To me, the birth of a baby is a symbol of the renewing power of life’s cycles. Jesus’ birth  serves as a reflector for Christians of the smaller miracles that happen every day all around us.

Today I feel blessed by a couple of other babies. My niece gave birth to her second child on Monday. There was plenty of room for their little family in the hospital. She wrapped him in a fleece onesie and brought him home in their car to a warm house where her mother and sister waited, ready to assist her and her husband with infant care. He’s not the Messiah, but he’s a flesh-and-blood miracle whose December 20 birthday will forever be linked to Christmas. Given the pain and sadness our family has experienced over the last couple of years with the death of my father and the ongoing decline of my mother, little David is a message to us that life does go on.

And then there’s little Clare. Born in the midst of her young mother’s heart problems, she’s a healthy, happy little three-month-old charmer surrounded by a flock of adoring parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. She’s turned her grandmother, a highly erudite college professor,  into a cooing slave to her every need, and that’s how it should be. Seeing Clare lying in her “transportation system” cradle entranced by the lights of the Christmas tree spoke to me in ways that Christmas shopping mania will never do.

I believe that Christmas brings us face to face with our personal miracles. Let’s celebrate all the reasons for the season rather than focusing on the pagan beginnings of Christmas or our secular traditions. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish my Christmas cards…

Julia and Joann Revisited

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This post was originally published on Journeys with Jennie on January 9, 2010. I revisit it today because I so wish Joann were here to share my excitement about going to France. I’ve fear I’ve read too much about the Parisians, however, — my usually stalwart soul has been a little intimidated by all the negative comments about the rudeness of Paris citizens in the memoirs I have read. I figured I needed some positive vibes about Paris,  so I watched Julie and Julia again to buoy up my spirits. Despite all of the times I have watched the movie, I never listened to the commentary by Nora Ephron. If you have not done so, DO IT NOW! It is illuminating and gives a fresh perspective on a lovely movie. And thank you to Suzanne, Terri, Michele, Lisa, Tim, Martha, and Dorothy, who all said that I was crazy to worry about being in Paris. I love you and I will eat multiple pastries in your honor.

January 9, 2010: Julia and Joann

On Monday it will be eleven years since my beloved mother-in-law passed away. Joann was a child of the Depression, raised on a farm in Ohio, and was a part of a close-knit Mennonite family. Her trajectory from a stunningly beautiful young woman at Goshen College, through her years as a respected and beloved teacher in Rye, New York, and finally to her retirement in Arizona as the “hostess with the mostest” is one to be admired. She was kind, generous, and although she was not without her mistakes, she welcomed me and my son into her family with open arms. I miss her every day. Since we inherited some of Joann’s prized possessions, including her cookbook collection, I am surrounded by memories of her. This is how I came to have a 1961 copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my bookshelf.

At some point in her mature adult years Joann became enamored of all things “Country French.” Although she and my father-in-law traveled extensively in the United States when their sons were young, they turned their sights farther afield when the boys left the nest. They traveled all over Europe and went to Russia, Egypt, and India. They were on one of the first tourist groups into China and regaled us with the stories of the “luxurious” dormitory-style accommodations those early groups encountered. She tracked down her Mennonite relatives in France and visited the ancestral farm. Joann and Art hoped to instill their love of travel in their grandchildren and took each of them on a trip of his or her choosing for a graduation present. But, Joann wasn’t just cruising through these countries. Among her books are photo essays on the culture, furniture, ceramics, glassware, and art of the places she visited and wanted to visit. Joann’s amazing intellectual curiosity and love of beautiful things kept her vibrant right up until her last days.

It was always France that drew her back, though. She collected French pottery and furniture, and redecorated her houses around her collections. She scoured antique stores looking for just the right piece and it seemed like she bought every piece of Quimper that she ever encountered. As I have studied Quimper faience pottery, however, I find that she did actually specialize, and it is interesting that Joann mostly bought pieces from the Henriot factory that were made in the early 1900s during war times in France. Maybe it was the relatively inexpensive price, but I’d like to think that the earthy Breton peasant people who inhabit these plates reminded Joann of her farm roots, even though she moved far away from them as an adult.

The other thing that Joann collected and educated herself about was cookbooks and cooking. She found that when she moved to suburban New York she needed to upgrade her expertise and staple recipes in order to participate appropriately in her new social circles. In her cookbook, she would write the date and a list of the guests next to the recipe that she served them so that she would not repeat it the next time, and this is something my husband and I still do today. Joann’s cookbooks are a treasure trove of information about the life she and Art lived and how they entertained, and they bring back memories of meals that she cooked for us. I can remember being picked up at the airport after a trip through O’Hare and La Guardia airports with two small children at Christmas time, and arriving in Rye to find an amazing meal almost ready for us. She purchased jumbo shrimp through a seafood buyer — they really were jumbo, that’s not an oxymoron! — and we always looked forward to her cooking.

So, that brings us back to Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There are parallels to be found between Joann and Julia. Both were women who reinvented themselves as their lives demanded. Although Julia was not blessed with children, her life-long love affair with her husband is similar to the more than fifty happy years of marriage Joann and Art enjoyed. One of the reasons that Julia learned to cook was that she needed to entertain Paul Child’s business associates, and by the time Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published in 1961, Joann was also trying to be an executive wife to her upwardly mobile husband.

It is disappointing to me to find out that apparently she did not use this cookbook because it is almost pristinely clean. You can see from my photo that it still has its original dust jacket with just a small tear in it. I wonder where she got it; did she buy the cookbook herself or did someone give it to her? It is a Book Club edition; did she get it because it was the most popular cookbook of its day and it just came automatically? I wish I could ask her, but both she and Art are now gone and the minutiae of their daily lives is gone with them. Since, thanks to Joann and Art, I live with beautiful antiques all of the time, I refuse to feel guilty about using my 49 year old copy of Julia. I intend to read it, to cook from it, and that will probably include getting it dirty. We will write in it just as Joann taught us, and I can’t help but think that both she and Julia would be proud. Je t’aime, Joann.

Grandma Lill’s Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

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I didn’t know my grandparents very well. My father’s parents were both gone by the time I was old enough to remember them, and my mother’s parents were pretty remote in their interactions with the rambunctious children of their youngest daughter. They were retired and moved back to their hometown by the time I spent any time with them, and I would not say it was quality time. My grandfather came to live with my mother and father when he was no longer able to live alone, but I was out of the house and long gone by then. So, when I see my friends grandparenting their own grandbabies, it makes me happy to see how involved they are with these precious children.

Recipes passed down from my grandparents? I don’t remember any, but I’m pretty good at appropriating other people’s family recipes . Over the years I have gathered together other families’ recipes and made them my own. We have only one “family recipe” that I know of, our famous Scalloped Oysters, but I don’t know where this came from.

Today’s recipe was not stolen, however. I’m lucky enough to be friends with Linda, whose mother we remembered on June 24. Everyone knew her as Grandma Lill, and although she’s not actually my grandma (she’s not even in the right generation to be my grandma), her recipe was freely given to us.

As I reread my niece Jessie’s post on Vanderbilt Wife which honors my father and her grandfather, it seems totally fitting that I honor Grandma Lill today. We paid tribute to Grandma Lill  at her memorial service and Jessie wrote her post on the eve of my dad’s memorial service just a year ago. At both events, there were new great-grandchildren who will not remember their great-grandparent, but life renews itself through the cycles of birth and death. We are also renewed through the memories we share with our children and grandchildren and that includes our recipes.

Grandma Lill embraced Italian cooking and passed her recipes down to her children. Her meatballs are famous — and I hope you will enjoy them yourself in her memory.

Lill’s Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

Meatballs
2 pounds ground beef
1/2 medium onion — chopped fine
2 eggs beaten
1 cup Progresso Italian style bread crumbs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Small amount of oil for browning meatballs
Mix all ingredients together and form into “golf ball” size meatballs. Carefully brown meatballs in oil on both sides in a Dutch oven. Remove meatballs.
Add to pot:
1 medium chopped onion
1 sliced garlic clove
Sauté until tender.
Then add:
3  12 oz. cans Contadina tomato paste
1 14 oz. can Hunt’s basil and garlic diced tomatoes
5 cans water
2 tablespoons each of dried parsley, basil, and oregano
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add meatballs. Cook uncovered 2 hours — stirring occasionally.

While you’re at it, try the scalloped oysters. It may seem weird, but for those of you who love oysters, this recipe will just melt in your mouth.
MANGIA!

Linky Love: Life With the Campbells

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What do you do when you find a blog you really like? You share it, of course! Molly Campbell, of Life with the Campbells, recently started writing for one of my favorite blogs, Moms Who Need Wine — just for its name it’s worth reading — and I would love to share her with you.

The post I have linked really hit home because lately it has come to my attention that my daughter, her friends, and my nieces are amazing women, and I’m very proud of them. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say that better, but really… it’s just true.

I’ve always loved the girls but now I see them as women to be respected as well as loved. You know how one day they are little girls wearing their Disney Princess costumes and then suddenly they are chemical engineers, teachers, college recruiters, artists, psychologists, writers, and mothers and wives? It just seems like yesterday that I was sewing tutus (wait — it was just seven months ago that I was sewing Jem and the Holograms costumes for the same 25-year-old daughter and friend, but I digress) and now they are all grown up and wonderful.

Molly says it better than I have. Enjoy Molly Campbell @ Life With the Campbells.

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