All My Ancestors

I’m writing this as a response to Bill West’s invitation to a Geneablogger’s Picnic.  Bill blogs at West in New England. 

He provided these questions as starters:

• *What food does your family serve at picnics?
• *Are there traditional foods or family recipes?
• *Is there one particular relative’s specialty you wish you could taste again or one perfect picnic day you wish you could go back and relive?

At the risk of being as welcome as a herd of ants at the picnic, I have to say there really weren’t any picnics in my family. 

I passed up writing on Miriam’s AnceStories2 prompt about summer because I didn’t want to be too negative.  Summer is my least favorite season because I don’t like being hot.  As my brother says, “We come from a family that doesn’t like to sweat.” 

I think the root of this “problem” derives from the part of the country we’re from and the fact that our livelihood came from working outdoors.  It is just too hot in the Texas panhandle to enjoy a meal out of doors.  Most years, it gets hot in April and stays hot through October.  Here’s picture I have of some of my family making the attempt–doesn’t it look like fun? 

NOT.

The woman in the white dress on the right is my grandmother Rachel Cooper Osborne.  I believe the man just behind her whose face is hidden may be my grandfather–I’m basing my guess on the way he’s wearing his hat.  It looks familiar.  The women are her sisters-in-law–married to my granddad’s brothers, some of whom are in the background nearer the cars. 

I just don’t think this looks like a good time.  I don’t know the circumstances of this gathering–my guess is that it’s near Pampa since that’s where these couples lived at this time in their marriages.  It looks like they’re maybe getting ready to roast some marshmallows–can’t believe this crew would roast weiners.  I don’t know, but you can see how the surroundings just aren’t conducive to picnicking.

My dad wasn’t really a grouch, and he didn’t insist on many things, but he was adamant about not eating out of doors.  His view was that he worked outside all day and when he came home for a meal, he did not want to go back outside.  And don’t get me started on what he thought about picnic fare such as wieners or bologna.  He was a farmer to the core–he didn’t mind being outside dawn to dusk to do that work, but he certainly didn’t want to have a meal out of doors.  And his view of meat definitely didn’t include anything other than the standard cuts of beef he’d learned from his stock-raising relatives and his own experience.  We always had beef in the freezer and that’s what we ate.  (Those were the days before we were aware of the health and social consequences of raising and eating so much beef.)  My mom, with her German roots, occasionally sneaked some bologna into the house but trust me, it never appeared on my dad’s plate.

So my theory is that this is an important piece of info to record about my family.  I think we didn’t picnic because we didn’t live in a part of the country where picnicking was a part of the culture–the outdoors were part of our work life but not a big part of our recreational life. 

We had long hot summers–the closest to a picnic we had was when my mom and I would take dinner to the field during wheat harvest.  That was usually early June and it was often 100 degrees–we had the hot meal we’d spent the morning cooking loaded into the trunk of the car, we parked into the wind so the car wouldn’t overheat, and the men came in on their combines and trucks and used the shade the vehicles cast to eat.  (My mom had on gloves and wore long sleeves because she was so fair-skinned.)  My Uncle Pete always requested my mom’s smothered steak and there was always a lot of iced tea.  We served it unsweetened though nearly everyone put in varyig degrees of sugar.  There was always dessert–usually a cake or a cobbler.  It was too hot for ice cream–it wouldn’t have lasted a minute under those circumstances.  The men were grateful for the break and the meal and they put their dirty dishes back into the trunk and we were off, back to the house to clean up.  No paper plates or plastic utensils for us.  :-)  And, in response to Bill’s prompts, I’d only like to repeat this experience if I could be with my family for the event. 

In South Dakota, my grandmother usually fixed lunch at home for Granddad to come in for–which he didn’t need much of because Gran had fixed eggs, fried potatoes and pork chops for breakfast.  His fields were closer to the house than my dad’s were back in Texas.  The one thing I remember, too, about my South Dakota grandmother is that she had sewed some layers of fabric around some quart jars that she used for a “thermos” when she took tea or water out to Granddad in the field.  I don’t remember any of us ever having any official ice chests or picnic baskets. 

It really was a different world. 

Here’s my response to Miriam’s AnceStories2 prompt for this session, “The Doctor”  

*Who was your doctor or health practitioner when you were growing up?

When I was a child, my doctor was “Dr. Roy.” At that time, there were only 2 doctors in town, I think.  Dr. Kengle had his own hospital and had delivered me, but I found in the county history that he started practicing in 1929, so I think he was probably retired shortly after my birth.  I rdo emember being in that hospital as a child–one of my aunt’s worked there.  I don’t remember why I was there, I don’t think it was for an appointment.  But I remember that it was built more like house.  It had wooden floors.  The building was later the local USDA office–pretty appropriate for the small rural town I grew up in.

Dr. Roy’s hospital was on Main Street and was a 3-story building.  I can still smell what it was like.  One of my brothers now has an office in the basement of that building–a few weeks ago we went up to the first floor.  It really still looked the same–the pharmacy, the waiting room, the two halls that the receptionist sat in front of.  It was all office space now but I could still see the hospital there.  We rode up to the first floor on the elevator–probably the first one I’d ever seen as a child.  I remember going to visit my dad in that hospital–he’d had to have an appendectomy.  Hospital rules prevented me from visiting him, but for some reason, they brought him down on the elevator and I got to see him.  He was in a hospital bed and I don’t remember getting to be very close, but somehow just getting to see him and have him speak to me made me feel better.  It was amazing being in that space again–somewhere in the late 1960s the county built a new hospital on the outskirts of town–probably about the time Dr. Roy retired.

So with that move to a new hospital, we could no longer tell by driving down Main Street whether someone was having a baby.  On the top floor on the north end of the building was the labor and delivery room, according to my mom, who ought to have known.  If the lights were on, we knew there would soon be another citizen of our area.  It was one of those rituals we always went through when we drove down Main Street.

*How often did you go to the doctor? Every year for a check-up, or just when you were ill?

I remember going only when I was sick, which wasn’t very often, and when I had to get vaccinations for school.

*Did you have a lot of illnesses as a child? Or were you fairly healthy?

I must have been fairly healthy.  The only childhood illness I can remember having is the mumps in the second grade–I still have the “get well” cards my class made, drawn on that thick now-crumbling paper we used for art in our classrooms in those days.  Earlier, I know I also had the chickenpox and have the scars to prove it, but I don’t remember having them.  The family story is that I got them from my brother who’d been hospitalized with the croup–he came home with chickenpox.

*Did you have any injuries (broken bones) or surgeries? Have you ever had to be hospitalized?

Not as a child, and it’s a miracle, really.  My brother built tree houses and I would help him and then sort of take them over for my own purposes–usually reading.  And we would walk the top of the corrall fence, which was essentially a 2″ x 4″ several feet in the air.  Grandad’s barn was always fun, too–despite dire warnings, we climbed to the top of the hay bales stacked to the top of the barn.  And if he was in the field for the day, we ventured onto the roof of the barn.  I only had brothers and there were only boys in my neighborhood so playing rough was part of my growing up.  My brothers ended up with stitches but I managed to escape with neither stitches nor broken bones.

*What specialists did you have to see?

I never saw a specialist of any type and I don’t remember anyone else having to see one.  Except maybe my cousins might have seen one because they had to wear special shoes.  I’m not sure that as a child I was aware of specialists.

*Did you have to see an optometrist and/or wear glasses?

We always had health screenings at school.  I remember the year I couldn’t read the eye chart–I was in the fifth grade.  So off to Dr. Nowlin’s.  His son was in my class and the last time I checked, he was the town optometrist, following in his father’s footsteps.  My first glasses were pink cat frames.  So cool.

*Was going to the doctor a pleasant or unpleasant experience? Share both your most unpleasant and your favorite medical memories.

I was always scared when I had to go to the doctor.  Probably because it wasn’t any sort of regular event.  My most unpleasant childhood medical memory is getting my diphtheria vaccination.  Those were the years when they stuck your arm repeatedly and then an awful scab almost the size of a dime appeared.  I still remember thinking the nurse wasn’t ever going to stop sticking me and I find myself checking the upper arms of people about my age for a similar scar.

I don’t remember any particularly pleasant experiences, except I do have this vivid image of sitting in the waiting room at Dr. Roy’s hospital, reading magazines.  I think the floor was those green tiles of linoleum and the chairs were red vinyl–it was the 1950s after all.  In my mind, I think I remember reading an article about Twiggy, but she was hot in 1966 and that was kind of late for me to have been at that hospital.  I don’t know–I just remember there were always lots of interesting reads in the waiting room.  We always had the newspaper at home and we went to the library, but there weren’t the glossy magazines that were in the waiting room.  It was a peek into a world I didn’t have much access to.

*As an adult, how do your current medical experiences compare with those of your childhood?

Probably the biggest difference is that I try to do “preventative maintenance” with fairly regular visits to the doctor.  I’ve had surgeries, including knee replacements and a couple of C-sections, with two healthy sons to show for it.  I use health insurance which is not something my parents dealt with until I insisted.

*Do you still see the same doctor?

Dr. Roy is long deceased and I am long gone from my home town.  About 8 years ago, my physician of 30 years retired–much to my distress.  :-)  He certainly deserved some time with his family without the stress of his practice, but I felt pretty abandoned.  I shopped around until I found a good replacement–I was careful to look for one younger than me (easier and easier to do these days) so I don’t have to go through the retirement trauma again.  

*What kinds of health problems are prevalent in your family? Are there any genetic diseases of which your relatives should be made aware? How have you attempted to avoid these risks or diseases?

The two diseases I know of that may be genetic are arthritis and heart disease.  I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at a fairly young age (35) when I weighed what I should.  I had to have my first knee replacement 20 years later–again, a bit young for such an intervention.  My weight is more than it should be, but I also know that my dad and many of his cousins had knee and/or hip replacements.  Both of their grandmothers were in wheel chairs because of arthritis.  When I first visited him for my knees, the osteopath asked me if there was some sort of cartilege disease in my family–there very well could be but as far as I know, it has never been diagnosed.

My paternal grandmother’s family has strokes and my paternal grandfather’s family has heart disease.  That said, my grandmother lived to be 83 (she did have a stroke a few years before her death) and my grandfather lived to be 93.  And my grandfather smoked unfiltered Old Gold cigarettes until his late 80s. 

And then there’s my mother who had breast cancer despite there being none in the family.  Her mother lived to be 92!

So I eat healthy and attempt to be active.  I’m not as active as I should be but I’m doing better since my knees no longer hurt.  My weight is more than it should be, but my “numbers” are good–no high blood pressure and decent cholesterol.  I cannot discount fate’s role in my health.

*Are there any doctors, surgeons, specialists, nurses or other health practitioners in your family, or in your ancestry?

I have a sister-in-law and a niece who are nurses–they do not currently practice, but it’s nice to have them available as “resources.”

My fourth great-grandfather was evidently a country doctor.  William Greene Ball was born about 1808 in New York City, trained for his medical career in Clark County, Indiana, and practiced for many years in Warren County, Iowa until his death in 1881.  He’s referred to in the family as “Dr. Ball.”  :-)  I have a couple of his “recipes” for various ailments.

*Are there any stories about certain medical problems or injuries, or about interactions with medical practitioners that have been handed down through the generations?

My dad was always proud to have had Dr. Denton Cooley (whom his staff called “LJ” for “Little Jesus”) do a valve replacement on his heart.  My mother’s family didn’t have much use for “doctoring.”  My grandad on that side had a pacemaker implanted and never went back to the doctor–until about 25 years later when the battery was apparently run down.  And the other family story is of “Ol Doc Smith” who came to the family home in Beaver County, Oklahoma, in the early 1930s when my great-grandmother drank carbolic acid.  He left a signed death certificate there because he didn’t think she’d live until morning but left instructions to try feeding her raw eggs to cause her to throw up the acid.  She lived through that episode but was untimately successful in taking her life.  I don’t know where Doc Smith was based, but I do know my grandparents lived several miles out in the middle of nowhere, so he must have truly been a country doctor who made house calls on those dusty roads.

Thank you again to Miriam Midkiff for her prompt down another memory lane.

This is my great Uncle Lloyd. I feel so fortunate to have gotten to get acquainted with him in the last years of his life. I’d always heard about Uncle Lloyd who’d done a stint in a prison camp during the war. But he and Aunt Marge lived in Houston and then retired to Oregon so I didn’t get to see them all that much when I was growing up. Aunt Marge was my (paternal) Grandmother Osborne’s youngest sister, and she was married to Uncle Lloyd.

Uncle Lloyd was the only survivor of his B-17 bomber group. They were on their 4th mission, flying over Holland when they were shot down.

Recently, Footnote.com put up Missing Crew Reports as part of their holdings. I searched on Uncle Lloyd’s name, not knowing what to expect, but up came the report for his crew. All the names are there as well as Uncle Lloyd’s account of the 11 January 1944 incident. Perhaps the most poignant portion of this packet of materials is the “Individual Casualty Questionnaire” that Uncle Lloyd had to complete for each of his crew. He had to write “I think he was killed by enemy gunfire in ship” 9 times, once on each form for each crew member. Once it is crossed out and replaced by “He probably was killed when ship crashed.” This last was about the navigator who had opened his chute by mistake in the nose of the plane and couldn’t be persuaded to jump when it was time to go.

This packet of materials was evidently sent to him about 2 years after he returned home. His letter is dated 15 March 1946 from Blanco, Texas. He and Aunt Marge went to the Hill Country of Texas to a sheep ranch for some recovery time. Aunt Marge has written about the healing time they spent there in her own memoirs.

In 1979, Uncle Lloyd responded to another grand-niece’s request for an interview of a combat veteran. It was the impetus that let Uncle Lloyd finally talk to us about his war experiences. He eventually wrote Every Twenty-Nine Seconds which tells of his experiences during World War II. He said one of the first things he recalled was being in the nose of the B-17 before daylight. There were about 6 of the big birds ahead of his on the runway awaiting take off, and they were supposed to clear the runway every twenty-nine seconds. He tells about seeing the Zuider Zee as he was floating down out of his “ship,” and the Dutch woman whose thatched roof he landed on giving him gingerbread and milk before some of Goering’s Youths took him into custody.

He included some correspondence he had with some of the crew members’ family members and with a Dutch researcher. The researcher asked Uncle Lloyd if he would go again. Here’s his reply:

As terrible as it was, it was the price that we had to pay to keep America free. Yes, I would go again. If we had not gone, this present generation would probably not be allowed to ask questions to search for the truth.

The freedom to ask those questions was really really important to Uncle Lloyd. He was a gentle, funny, loving man. This Memorial Day I’ve been thinking about him a lot.

It was a 1963 Chevrolet Impala SuperSport convertible, with a 409 engine. It was navy blue with a baby blue interior. I think the top was white.

I suppose as a female I shouldn’t have cared much about cars. But I did. I had a girlfriend whose brothers were proud of their mechanical skills and their restored antique cars, and I picked up some car knowledge from them. Plus this was the era of the original Mustang and the GTO, so there was a lot of car talk going around.

Additionally, I grew up in the Texas panhandle, where the highways are seemingly never-ending, disappearing off into those unreachable horizons, and vehicles are important. It goes without saying that the cars had to be powerful because things aren’t close together out there, and when you had to go to the neighboring town, like maybe sneaking off to see your boyfriend, you wanted to get there and back home in a reasonable amount of time. Amarillo, the nearest town of any size, was 2 hours away–we didn’t measure in miles, it was too depressing. Rather, we used time.

My grandad bought that car for my brother and I. I asked my brother once why he thought Grandad took us squirmy, loud kids fishing–understand that our grandad wasn’t the stereotypical warm, fuzzy grandpa–he swore like a sailor and he was probably more than a little bipolar. My brother said, “I think he liked us.” Leave it to my brother–a man of few words. So I guess Grandad bought us the car for the same reason.

I’ll never forget walking across the big round gravel driveway, out to the granary, and around to the back to see the car. There it sat out in the middle of the South Dakota prairie, a sort of enigmatic picture. The granary was ancient and held my great-grandfather’s carpentry tools. And then there was this gorgeous car. I still wasn’t clear on how I got so lucky, but I was willing to deal with the ambiguity.

I don’t remember how we got the car home to Texas. I guess we must have driven it all 640 miles home, but I don’t remember that as well as driving it back and forth to college. You couldn’t have a more impractical car than that one in this part of the world–it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Riding with the top down was almost an impossibility because you risked baking. Anytime it rained, of course, if you were driving at any speed, it leaked. But who cared? We were young and the car was fast.

My brother and I were driving home from college one night–actually early morning– through the back roads in rural Texas. From nowhere, there was a sheriff or a highway patrol–my brother got a ticket for going 121 mph! The thought of that gives me cold chills now, but at the time, we were pumped about beating our time driving home from school. That car could fly.

There are other special cars in my memory–the 1959 Bel Aire sedan I drove when I first got my drivers license at 14! And used it to break a guy’s ladder that was sticking out the back of his pickup the first time I drove it to the grocery store. I think this was the car that we had air-conditioning put in–it was a unit under the dash in the middle–it froze your shins if you were riding in the middle, but what a luxury we thought that was.

About 3 months after I went to college, Dad bought me a used Chevy of some sort–one time having to come pick me up at school and get me back somehow impressed on him that he needed me to have a car. When I graduated from college in 1973, he bought me a new car–the first new car I’d ever owned. I think he was a little disappointed that I wanted a Toyota Celica, but he got it for me since that’s what I wanted. My high school boy friend’s 1956 Olds 88 (the tales that car could tell!), my Grandad’s ‘48 Ford pickup I learned to drive in, with an in-the-floor shift, my brother’s first car that was a really a pick-up, a family Buick that kept catching on fire, my Uncle Larry’s’57 Chevy with Hank Williams songs on the radio, my grandmother’s circa 1954 purple Pontiac–all cars that are strong in my memory.

But they can’t top the Chevy SS convertible–I loved that car.

Today is the birth date of both of my grandmothers and my father-in-law.

As a kid, I always thought it was kind of neat that my grandmothers had the same birthday. They were not born the same year–Grandmother Osborne, my paternal grandmother, was born in 1894 near Cleburne, in Johnson County, Texas. Granny Unruh, my maternal grandmother, was born in 1906 in Oklahoma Territory in Beckham County, 1 year before Oklahoma became a state. January 19 is also the birth date of Robert E. Lee, and with a couple of grandfathers who were Confederate soldiers, her middle name was declared to be Lee in his honor. (Today was his 200th, and Gran always called him “Bobby Lee.”) Both of Grandmother Osborne’s grandfathers were Confederate soldiers as well. Her paternal grandfather and 3 of his brothers all died in the Civil War–it’s a heartbreaking story. I hoped to name a daughter Rachel after her but alas, 2 boys.

And, as it happens, the man who is my father-in-law, though I never got to meet him, was born the same day as my maternal grandmother–January 19, 1906. He was born in Texas on the same day Granny Unruh was born in Oklahoma Territory. My mother-in-law, who is now 90, used to refer to my grandparents as the “old folks.” His name was Thomas Jeptha, though he always went by T.J., and when he had to give a full name, he used Thomas Jefferson. Pick a name, any name. I think he was a bit of a character.

Guess it’s all relative.

I keep thinking about this picture in conjunction with the one of my maternal grandmother’s sisters on the horse at Knott’s Berry Farm.

I believe this picture was taken about 1951 when many of the Cooper family gathered in Lubbock for what must have been my great-grandmother’s 80th birthday.

Or, it might have been taken Easter 1950 because I have this picture of my great-grandmother and my grandmother, her daughter, has written on the back “Mother Cooper, Easter 1950.”

The recurring theme in the two pics seems to be the corsages and the taking of pictures in the backyard in a straight-backed chair.

I’ve been thinking about my 4th great-grandfather–Merriman Landrum.

I’ve blogged about him before–he’s the one with the 3 sentence will. The engraving on his tombstone is longer.

Maybe more telling is the inventory of his estate. My genealogical studies tell me that you can tell a lot by what a person leaves as well as how that estate gets inventoried. I haven’t fully decided what the listing of Merriman’s property tells me, but I know that he’s my only relative whose inventory includes a bookcase and a list of books by title.
I have found no official direct record of this, but he was supposedly a teacher and a minister. Well, I guess if you count his tombstone and the biography of his son, and the listing of the titles in his book case, you could count those as records. A preponderence of evidence, as they say, does indeed point to his being a minister and a teacher.

Tradition is that he was a Presbyterian minister. I don’t think so because I’m fairly certain that he didn’t go to seminary or attend college. And the Presbyterians, even at that time, had rigid requirements about their ministers having certain degrees–see Princeton. He was born in up country South Carolina and lived most of his short life in Tennessee–on the frontier. He may have been affiliated in some way with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which came into being about 1810. As I understand it, the name of the church came from a Kentucky Synod that decided to ordain some young men who did not strictly meet the educational requirements.

More likely he was some sort of lay minister. I don’t know if I’ll every know for sure–I do know that his descendants were Presbyterians, not Cumberlands. His son-in-law Job Cooper and granddaughters are in the records of the Presbyterian Church in San Augustine, Texas, before statehood. And in the 1950s, his great great granddaughter, my Grandmother Osborne, was ordained an elder in a Presbyterian Church in Texas that she’d helped establish.

Back to Merriman. Below are the 3 versions of the books enumerated in his estate–there may be others inventories, but these are the ones I found, conducted for the January 1827, the January 1829, and the January 1831 Court Sessions in Williamson County, Tennessee. The spelling is creative in some cases, but when I looked up these titles in World-Cat, a sort of uber electronic card-catalog, it was clear that several of these titles were written specifically for teachers.

It looks like some of the titles disappeared between the first and the second inventory. I’ve read that the oldest son, John Gill Landrum, was sent, or at least went, back to South Carolina to study with some of his Ray family who were ministers. He would have been about 16 or 17 when his father died in 1826, so maybe he took some of them for his own study. And he taught school himself for a while, so perhaps he dipped into his father’s library for his start. And it can’t escape notice that the son was undoubtedly named for the author of the commentaries–John Gill.

I haven’t been able to ferret out the subject of the Life of Merriam or Marian or however it’s spelled. My own family was a bit schizophrenic on the spelling of this name–I think my great Uncle George Cooper’s middle name was spelled Merimon. And I understand that The Life of George Washington was standard fare for early pupils. It was written just 8 years after his death and would have been one of the best sellers of the day. I wonder where Merriman got his copy?

Sometime I’ll post more about the other items in the inventories. He obviously wasn’t a wealthy man, but neither was he poor by the day’s standards. But I still think it’s telling that the book titles are listed in each year’s inventory.

About a month ago, Brenda Dayne, of Cast-On:A Podcast for Knitters had a wonderful essay about knitting memory. I had a fleeting moment of thinking this might be about stretchy yarn, but Brenda didn’t disappoint. She talked about the memories that come when she knits–whether it’s what she was doing the last time she picked up the piece or the memories of the person who taught her to knit–the connectedness she feels as she creates. [Note: This doesn't begin to do justice to Brenda's elegant essay on the creative process and memories. Be sure to listen to it for yourself on her website.]

Today I was sewing and, as usual, my mind went to my mother and her old Sears sewing machine in the back bedroom in our house after we moved to the “big house” (not that big house–just one that more than doubled the 800 sq. footer we’d been living in). My mom and I didn’t get along all that well–what a surprise. Her trying to teach me wasn’t a smooth process–she came from a father who drilled holes in wood before he drove in nails, and I thought I already knew everything and certainly didn’t need her perfectionistic approach. Anyway, I thought I wanted to learn to sew and I proposed starting on doll clothes. She said doll clothes were too small and too hard so she thought I should start on an apron. An apron?!! Looking back on it, that’s probably her first sewing project in home ec in the late 1940s. I turned my nose up at taking home-ec–after all, I could already cook better than my mom and she could teach me to sew. Besides, it wasn’t quite cool to take home-ec, at least as far as I was concerned. But I still know how to gather a skirt and do a blind stitch and a hem stitch from that first project. Don’t know that I ever wore it. I also have an unfinished doll coat I “designed” in those beginner days–solid red on one side and reversible to red polka dots on white. Too small for any of my dolls, of course. So much for proving that point.

She learned to sew from her mother-in-law. She always said she was grateful for the teaching. My grandmother was an excellent seamstress–she bought good fabric and made beautifully tailored clothes–everything from her housedresses to her winter coats to her Sunday best as well as some of her hats and belts. I remember accompanying her on a couple of shopping trips to Amarillo, the big “city,” to shop for accessories–hats and jewelry, as I recall. I don’t remember seeing her wear any shoes other than her black tie-up, mid-heel oxfords, so I don’t think we shopped for shoes. I had no sense of style then–it was the 1960’s, man–what did I know?

My mom went with my grandmother to what was called Home Demonstration Club. They met in the member’s homes and I can remember being served some pretty yummy food. It was sort of like home-ec for grownups, I guess. They would sing the Texas state song (”largest and grandest” in those days), say the pledge to both the US and the Texas flags and probably called the roll. I just remember going into immaculate living rooms that had the shades drawn against the summer heat and listening to the “lesson.” It was usually a lesson on a particular sewing technique or some updated cooking method–I remember Mom and I trying out the hobo-meals one day after a club meeting–and then there was the time we used ham and pineapple rather than hamburger and potatoes. It was pretty good, as I recall, and a welcome change of pace from all the beef we ate.

Anyway, when I sew, I think about those two women. Memories of garments my mom made me through the years float through my mind–I remember opening a box when I was at college and pulling out a wonderful blue and green dress–even the buttons were blue with smaller green ones set inside. I loved that dress. Of course, it was double-knit–no more ravelly seams or dry cleaning or ironing. It’s probably still extant in a land fill somewhere. But I think of my sewing as a way to connect with those women–my maternal grandmother sewed a little but her skills weren’t up to those of my mom and my grandmother. It was a very proud moment one day when, as an adult, I asked my mom to sew something for me and she said, “Oh, honey, you sew better than I do now.” She may have just been trying to wriggle out of making whatever it was I wanted at the time, but I still like to replay that one.

She graduated to a much better sewing machine–I think she actually bought her Bernina after I did. I was married and we were moving, and I took out the $800 some dollars that were in my teacher retirement account and bought myself a Bernina based on the recommendation of a woman in our church. (It was probably a much better investment than leaving the money in that still struggling system.) I loved it from the beginning and I still have that machine. When my mom died, I wanted her machine for sentimental reasons, but that would have made 3 for me and that seemed a little excessive. My niece has it and I hope she gets to participate in the memory chain of the women in her life who have sewed–Mom certainly made her lots of clothes on that machine. And when my dad’s sister told my mom I couldn’t have my grandmother’s machine because I already had one, it really left a void for me. That was the one I really wanted–it might have had a motor on it, but the treadle was still there. The bobbin cases were smaller than a pencil and only about 1/4 as long. I didn’t want that machine to sew on, though I’m sure it still worked perfectly–as I said, my grandmother had cranked out some gorgeous garments on it–it was just the thought that this had been such a part of her life, and through my mother, one of her 6 daughters-in-law, part of mine. I did get a quilt top and I have her sleeve board. Oh, well. When my mom died about 8 years ago, it was a needle and a spool of thread that my dad chose to add to her side of the monument as an homage to that important part of her life.

So what am I to make of the fact that the garment I’ve been working on for a couple of weeks now doesn’t even come close to fitting? crap! [see doll coat above]