When Gladys wrote about her life as she remembered it between 1896 and 1953, she said, “I hope it may in some way help someone to press on and not give up as I am now 57 years of age and still striving to make something of my life.” Well, she was spot on, and I am grateful for her words. Nearly every line of her memoir has something to say to me specifically.
Gladys was fifty-seven and could still vividly remember being very young and having a bad dream while staying with her grandparents: “There were so many tigers in the room they could hardly move about…” At fifty-two I, too, can still remember bad dreams I had when I was very young, and thinking of them still inspires the same horrifying thoughts I had about them then. A few nightmares I had over and over as a child and even into my teen years. There was the one in which my mom was talking over the fence to the neighbor who was clearly a witch, and I kept trying to get her attention to explain to her that she had to stop talking to the witch, and she kept telling me not to interrupt. Something bad happening to my mom was a common theme; another bad dream I had repeatedly was the one where my mom would walk into our neighbor’s grassy field in her nightgown, and the wind would blow up the nightgown like a balloon and blow Mom far away. I also had one terrible one over and over when I was a little older; the whole family was trapped in a burning house and finally everyone else was out, but my dad was sitting staring straight ahead on the couch and would not respond to my cries or me trying to pull him up and out of the house. It was never even our own house. The witch dream seems to have been related to watching The Wizard of Oz movie on TV; the nightgown blowing up to seeing Mary Poppins for the first time; and all dreams of fire I know now can be put down to getting too hot while sleeping. I’m fifty-two, and now I’m always too hot while sleeping. Fortunately, these days the hot flashes wake me up long before the heat becomes a fire in my subconscious.
Gladys also wrote, “I had heard of rattlesnakes and as I grew a little older… I used to walk backwards sometimes thinking there were snakes coming after me…” I have always had the same kinds of fear about creepy crawlies. My family and even our neighbors while I was growing up sometimes exploited my fear, thrusting worms or toads or snakes at me out of nowhere, just to watch me scream and run. It got to the point where my brother or sister could come toward me with their hands cupped together around nothing, and I would run for the house. I did my best to raise my children so they wouldn’t be afraid of such things, and I have fortunately succeeded. Now they sometimes come at me with reptiles or bugs, but I do my best not to react these days. I do my own yard work and just today while weeding a tree ring I encountered an earthworm…which I left to get on with its burrowing, though I did try not to touch it.
Gladys referred to her “Aunt May” many times in her memoir. “After I was married and had two children of my own Aunt May had her eleventh child and passed away leaving her family that needed her so badly, including the tiny baby. Again, I felt I had lost a good old pal for it was through her I learned many things. She didn’t have much of worldly goods but had a heart of gold. She taught me patience, sacrifice and endurance.” Aunt May was Gladys’ mother’s sister, Edith May (Bunger) Ary, and she was only about twelve years older than Gladys. The tiny baby, the eleventh child to whom Aunt May gave birth on the same day she died, was named Edith Mae for her mother. May was only forty-four years old when she died in childbirth. I, too, have always been closer to my most of my aunts than to most of my cousins.
My Aunt Wanda, who passed away in 2015 at the age of seventy-four years, was my mom’s oldest sister. Her children are all older than me, her youngest daughter Mindy only about six months older than me. Despite our growing up more than two hundred miles apart, Mindy and I were inseparable when we could be together as young children. We spent our summer hours playing outside, riding bikes, wandering the yards between her house and our grandma’s house, making up stories with dolls, burning our fingers on sparklers and reading books or coloring Fashion Plates. They had all the cool toys. Even cutting coupons was fun at Mindy’s house. Wanda ran the fabric and notions store in their small town and more than one summer Mindy and I were recruited to do store inventory together. Six months apart in age can sometimes seem like oceans apart, however, and in our early teens something went awry. Mindy and I didn’t really get along much together after that. But Wanda was always there for me. She helped me and my mom find massive amounts of ivory shantung silk for my wedding dress and made my veil herself. She hosted the family baby shower after my son was born. My husband and I stayed with her several times when we visited.
My aunt Juanita, mom’s second sister, never had children of her own, and so she has always showered attention on her nieces and nephews. She always had some “crazy scheme” – something fun to do – that we were always thrilled to get into. She taught us all to do oil paintings – canvases, paintbrushes, all the supplies by the dozen. She was always up for baking when our parents would have preferred not to have the mess. She bought full sets of band music and encouraged everyone to bring their instruments. Children too small to have or play instruments? That’s okay, she had a collection of tambourines, rhythm sticks, and even nose flutes. She bought a full set of hand chimes and taught all of us to play. She loved to go places and experience them with us – Turkey Run State Park, Ann Arbor Art Fair, Greenfield Village, the Fort Wayne Zoo. When our kids were little, she was into stained glass, so all the grandnieces and grandnephews made stained glass projects. When Juanita had a stroke in 2018, I was not only willing to help out with caring for her and her husband (who also had some health emergencies during that time), I was proud I had the time and the skill to dedicate to them – so much because all the things they have done for us our whole lives have shown us that is how family takes care of each other. I have been lucky enough to have had special relationships with all my aunties.
The brown sugar cookies Gladys mentions at her grandparents’ home, “…at the bottom of the steps and a few feet inside was a large stone jar with a lid on and inside that jar were brown sugar cookies. They always looked the same, tasted the same and one could always depend on them being there and no one watched to see how often the doors opened and closed.” She made sure that her own grandchildren experienced the same pleasure – my mom remembers always having some of those cookies at her grandma’s house. The recipe was passed on to the family and while I don’t think I’ve ever gotten them quite right – they’re always so soft that they could never be stored in a stone jar – they are delicious and a special treat even though sugar is no longer quite the luxury Gladys considered it.
Here I am, way over 1000 words, and I’ve not even written half of what I think about when I read Gladys’ memoir. More next week.
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