Living is giving and the rest works itself out. —Janet Hagberg
Preface
One of the best gifts a parent can give to their child is to model a positive life. I’ve sought to approach my life in a positive way, and I owe this to my mother’s example. During one of our visits a few years before she died, we looked through a collection of photographs from earlier in her life. As we went one-by-one she recalled the circumstances around which the photos were taken. After some time she turned to me and said simply, “You know, I’ve had a charmed life.” It was one in a line of positive comments I’d heard her say about her life. And being aware of some of the disappointments and hardships she’d faced during her eighty-something years to that point, I regarded it as a sterling example of her positive outlook.
As I’ve undertaken my personal essay writing projects, I’ve learned they can’t be rushed. For several years I’ve aspired to compose an essay about my mother’s life while drawing on quotes and texts from some of my earlier essays. I trust that it does justice to my mother’s full and positive life. May she be an example for us all.
Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words. –Arthur Brisbane (1911)
And then there are the photographs… I’ve uncovered several of her that are just too precious not to be shared. So whether one reads the texts, I hope you might at least take time to be with these photos. It’s true that each is worth at least a thousand words.
********
When John and Christine’s first child, Margaret Wilson, was still a baby, they hosted a New Year’s Eve party for a few guests. It being cold, a big fire was built in the furnace and the house caught fire. Since it was night and without fire-fighting equipment, the house burned to the ground. Christine carried Margaret out into a field where neighbors had carried some of the rescued furniture and laid her in a dresser drawer where she was safe. —Matilda Lebline from Second Verse (1987)
Since childhood I’d heard the story of the Rapp family’s house fire on New Year’s Eve in 1918. It was told that Christine and John’s baby, Margaret, was carried from the burning house and laid in a dresser drawer for safety. After the fire, John, Christine and Margaret moved to a nearby farmhouse where they lived for four years while getting together the resources to rebuild their house on the same site as the former one.
During their time living at the “Short Farm,” Christine bore twins (Julia and John) on the first day of 1922. Another daughter, Ingleby, came in June 1923. After moving into their newly-built house, Christine took on more responsibility for managing the farm while John devoted his time to running a sand and gravel business he’d begun using materials obtained from a sandbar in the White River bordering their farm.
Margaret’s childhood is difficult to describe. At one level it was idyllic–lots of fresh air and country living, abundant fields and woodlands to roam, three siblings as playmates, and parents and extended family who loved her dearly. Yet all was not well. Soon after moving into their new house, strains appeared in Christine’s and John’s marriage. Five years older than Christine, John’s interest in farming had waned and mid-life adjustments were in full motion. His sand and gravel business suffered as the quality of materials available from the river’s sandbar diminished over time. Christine objected to John’s carefree approach to life, as well as to some of the friends with whom he associated. After John’s mother Ella passed on in 1924 (his father had died earlier) John’s behavior became more objectionable to Christine. She informed him she would be seeking a divorce.
John’s sister Clara, who was one of Christine’s best friends, tried to mediate a reconciliation. During the winter of 1928, Christine and John made one more effort to work out their differences by taking the children on a three-week road trip to Florida. Margaret and her siblings remembered it as a stressful time, and upon returning to their home in Indiana the marriage continued to deteriorate. Later that same year Christine initiated final divorce proceedings. Margaret was just nine years old.
*******
Then there was the divorce and Dad gave the farm to Mother, which was no gift really—it was like, “Who’s going to take this?!” It was heavily mortgaged; the ‘Short Place’ was the collateral, and no way to raise money—none. But she raised fattening cattle; we certainly didn’t lack for food because we raised chickens all over… —John Rapp from “I Could Tell You Stories” (2005)
As part of the divorce settlement, Christine received the farm and John moved to Indianapolis where he subsequently remarried and worked for a department of the city. The years after the divorce were difficult ones for Christine and her children as she managed the farm as a single parent during the Depression. The children occasionally took the interurban train to Indianapolis to be with their dad, but he seldom came to the farm at Rockford. At first Christine hired a local man to help her do field work and care for the cattle. However, he began refusing to take instructions from her. At one point he even padlocked the gate leading into the barn lot so only he could enter it. Eventually another man from Rockford intervened on Christine’s behalf and the hired hand left. She subsequently brought on her cousin George “Grizz” Lebline as her helper. He faithfully served in this capacity through the remainder of her life.
Christine took a special interest in raising Hereford cattle and eventually built a respectable herd. As a boy in the 1950s I remember sometimes going with her to feed hay and grain to the cattle in the barn, as well as transferring them from one pasture to another. She’d pat their brown backs with her gloved hand. “What sweet white faces they have,” she’d say to me.
*******
Since the [Rockford] school building was half-way between the Rapp and Lebline homes, the Rapp children often ran over to my house after school. When I came home from work I would find that, even with the doors locked, food I had prepared for supper would be gone! Even though I hid such things as oranges and bananas, they too would disappear. Not until many years later did John confess that one of the children would crawl down into the basement through the coal chute and let the other children in through the door… —Matilda Lebline from Second Verse (1987)
Margaret attended the local Rockford School. One aspect of her school days that fascinated–and impressed–me was that she skipped third grade; she went directly from second grade to fourth! I myself was a good student in elementary school, but I never entertained the idea that I might by-pass an entire grade. It just never happened in the schools I attended.
Skipping a grade might have boosted Margaret’s academic reputation, but it came back to haunt her later. As a consequence of being a year ahead of her peers she entered high school as, in her opinion, the shortest person in the school. Yet for me, just knowing that my mother had skipped third grade was all I needed to be convinced that my mother was one “very smart cookie.”
After her parents’ divorce Margaret, as the oldest child, became “mother” to her siblings. Christine had her hands full running the farm so she put Margaret in charge of domestic chores and child care. She later recalled that her mother also made sure that Margaret wasn’t idle. She exhorted her to “do something constructive” whenever she had a free moment. For example, she might say to Margaret: “While you’re just sitting there resting, please shell these peas.” Margaret always obeyed–but she never forgot it.
As an adult, Margaret had little good to say about growing up on a farm during the Great Depression. It was hard and dirty work, and as eldest child she wasn’t encouraged to play or have adventures like her younger siblings. She also resented the two-mile distance between the farm and the nearby town of Seymour where most of her friends lived. She never developed much interest in nature or agriculture–except for a lifelong fondness for flowers and dogs.
Christine wasn’t ever mean to her children and she didn’t treat Margaret badly. She just had high expectations for her, and later as my grandmother she also told me how important it was that I “make something of myself.” Christine aspired for Margaret to be exposed to as many cultural and educational opportunities as possible within the context of their rural setting and difficult economic times. For example, Margaret began taking piano lessons at an early age and played well into adulthood.
Christine took her children during their childhoods to spend time at a rustic log cabin she owned in nearby Brown County. She had acquired the cabin before she was married. I’ve earlier written about it in the essay Your Sincere Friend. Margaret’s younger sister, Julia, later recalled: “Brown County and that cabin have very fond memories for me. Mother let us run wild over there!”
Christine met and got to know some of the artists who were part of the original arts community in Brown County during the early 1900s. For example, in 1921 her artist friend Ada Shulz did a portrait of young Margaret. This painting was passed on to her after she married and had moved into her own home. It’s still in our family and belongs now to my daughter Dawn. I’ve previously written about this artwork in my essay titled Biography of a Portrait.
Margaret was fortunate as a child and adolescent to have her aunt Matilda Lebline (Christine’s sister) in her life. She lived a short distance from the Rapp family and Margaret could easily walk to her house. “Aunt Tilda,” as she was known to Margaret, served then as the public health nurse for Jackson County; she was not married. Margaret became the object of her affection and she later accompanied Aunt Tilda on extensive trips to places like Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City!
On Saturdays (I worked until noon) the Rapp girls would come to my office in the City Hall in time to go to a restaurant with me for lunch. What a treat those Saturday lunches were! At Christmas time we would go to the Bee Hive and Rocket stores to shop for presents with money I gave them. What bargain hunting went on to make their money hold out until all their gifts were bought. —Matilda Lebline from her Second Verse memoir
One quality that characterized Margaret was her capacity to be available to others in times of need. I expect it came, in part, from the example that Aunt Tilda modeled for her through the tough times they experienced together during those post-divorce and Great Depression years of Margaret’s childhood and adolescence. As a child she sometimes met her aunt in the town of Seymour to go to a restaurant or shopping. These were extravagances she seldom experienced with her mother because of the hard times. Aunt Tilda would also transport Margaret to and from town in her Hudson Terraplane automobile so she could spend time with with her friends without having to walk two-miles each way.
*******
And now the purple dusk of twilight time / Steals across the meadows of my heart / High up in the sky the little stars climb / Always reminding me that we’re apart / You wander down the lane and far away / Leaving me a song that will not die / Love is now the stardust of yesterday / The music of the years gone by. —from Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael
Margaret graduated from Seymour’s Shields High School in 1935. Her mother had been the first college graduate in her family so there was little doubt that excellent-student Margaret would also attend the university. Again Aunt Tilda stepped up to soften the blow of the Depression and collaborated with Christine to offer finances needed for Margaret to enroll at Indiana University (IU) in the fall of 1935. Her goal was to complete the two-year elementary teacher certification program.
When I was later a university student, I preferred to study in public places with other people around, such as in the university library’s “reading room” with its newspapers and periodicals suitable for browsing. Margaret shared such study habits too during her time at IU. For example, she preferred to study in places such as “The Book Nook,” which was located near campus. It was a popular soda shop where songwriter Hoagy Carmichael had earlier composed his popular 1920s song “Stardust.”
Margaret met Bob by kibitzing over a crossword puzzle. It was at an Indiana-Purdue basketball game. They had both come early to get good seats. While waiting for the game to start, he began working the puzzle and she just couldn’t keep quiet…That was 1937. —Roul Tunley from “Here Is the Typical American Family” (1951)
In 1937, during the spring semester of her second year at IU, Margaret and a few friends attended a school basketball game. It was an occasion that changed her life because she met Robert Simmons there. After completing her two years of study at IU in 1937, Margaret received her teaching certificate and moved back to her home in Rockford. She began teaching at Kasting school near Seymour. She continued to have dates with Robert who was still pursuing his studies in business at IU.
I don’t know much about the progression of their relationship, although I do have photos and mementos from a few of their dates. One especially memorable one was to the Indiana University Junior Prom in 1939. Margaret saved the program from that event and it is signed by the jazz trumpeter, Louis Armstrong, who was on the program that evening.
*******
The lovely country home of Mrs. Christine Rapp, north of the city, was the scene of one of the prettiest weddings of the year late Saturday afternoon when her oldest daughter, Margaret, gave her marriage vows to Robert Lee Simmons, son of Mrs. Windom W. Goss, of Brownstown….The bride’s gown was a becoming Princess model of Crater blue…Her only ornament was a rose pendant of carved ivory on a slender chain which her mother brought from Switzerland a number of years ago on a trip abroad and which was among her wedding gifts to her daughter. –from Seymour Tribune account of the wedding (May 1941)
Robert and Margaret became engaged in 1940 at about the time he graduated from IU. He took an accounting position at The Quaker Maid Company in Terre Haute, Indiana, which was 120 miles from Rockford. They subsequently married in a ceremony at her mother’s house in May 1941.
They pooled their resources, got an apartment, picked up a few pieces of furniture. There was little money, but they managed. During the war, they were separated for two years while Bob served in the Navy in Trinidad. It was a chance to save money. —Roul Tunley from “Here Is the Typical American Family”
After the wedding and a honeymoon to the Smoky Mountains, Margaret moved with Robert to Terre Haute where she worked as a secretary while he continued his job at the Quaker Maid. Seven months after their marriage came the attack on Pearl Harbor and war was declared. Although Bob didn’t enter the Armed Forces until 1944, their lives were greatly altered by the war. Yet they still shared social times with friends and attended movies, one of their favorite pastimes.
After Robert went into the Navy in January 1944, Margaret moved back to live with her mother at the farm in Rockford. She took a job teaching reading to Army draftees at a nearby Army post. Before he left, Robert gave her a black Labrador dog to be her companion while he was gone. She named the dog Duke.
…between them they put aside enough to finish furnishing their apartment and have something toward starting a family. —Roul Tunley from Here Is the Typical American Family
Although being separated for two years wasn’t easy, Margaret considered herself fortunate that Robert hadn’t received a more dangerous assignment. He served as a storekeeper at a large U.S. Naval base on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. After his discharge in February 1946, Margaret returned to Terre Haute and they began the process of establishing their home and starting a family. I made my appearance in late-November of that year.
I noted earlier that my mother and father met at an Indiana-Purdue basketball game in 1937 during college. By coincidence I was born during the Indiana-Purdue football game in 1946! In fact, my mother’s physician was attending the game and could not attend to my birth; another doctor took his place. These and other circumstances associated with my birth are detailed in the essay titled A Time To Be Born.
For the first two years of my life, our family lived in a small apartment building near downtown Terre Haute. The apartment across-the-hallway from my parents was occupied by Don and Marge Lange whose son Mark was born two years after me. The Lange family became especially good friends–and Mark and I remain close.
As my father gained experience with his job–and his salary increased–he and Margaret decided to rent a modest house on Barbour Avenue in the northern area of the city. It wasn’t fancy, but at least the house was a stand-alone dwelling with a bit more room to move around without falling over Margie and Don–plus it had a yard, a porch and a sidewalk. Finally my parents were beginning to live the American dream.
One of the most-interesting photos from our family’s time living on Barbour Avenue in Terre Haute doesn’t have my mother in it at all because she took it. It shows a childhood friend of mine, Janet, and me sitting on a walkway in front of our house. It appears that Janet and I had stopped playing with my tricycle and were “watching the world go by.” My mother labeled the photo “A Long Talk,” and I appreciate that she considered this moment worthy of remembering. It gives me a sense of how she regarded me so long ago. It’s a treasured photo to me.
********
…[They] bought their first house with the help of a GI loan. It cost $10,500 and the payments are $65 a month…It wasn’t their dream house, they agreed, but they’d had a long, hard time finding anything they could afford. They considered themselves lucky. —Roul Tunley from “Here Is the Typical American Family”
It wasn’t long before “house fever” came upon my father and mother, as it did for many returning veterans in the late 1940s. In 1950, they finally had the means to purchase their first house in Terre Haute. The influx of returning veterans from the war had driven up the cost of houses and the $10,500 they paid for this one was all they could afford. To illustrate how inflated real estate values had become in Terre Haute right after the war, they barely recovered the original price of the house when they sold it fourteen years later!
Although I was only four years old at the time, I remember when journalist Roul Tunley and a photographer from The American Magazine came to Terre Haute in early 1951 to interview my parents and to take pictures for an upcoming article about our family. It was subsequently published in the July 1951 issue of the magazine.
Today that article’s language and attitudes are dated. Its emphasis on my father’s career and on Margaret as a stay-at-home housewife and mother seems antiquated. However, it’s clear reading the article that Mr. Tunley was impressed by my mother’s intelligence and independent spirit. My brother Philip had been born in September 1950, and our family had settled into its “new” twenty year-old house and a lifestyle described by the magazine as “typical American.”
Margaret Simmons met me at the door. She was wearing a cotton house dress over which was a big white apron. A slender, attractive brunette of medium height and regular features, she had brown eyes that were warm and friendly and had glints of humor in them…—Roul Tunley from “Here Is the Typical American Family”
Despite its shortcomings, the magazine article does offer insights into some of my mother’s perspectives at that point in her life. And the “out-take” photos that were not published by the magazine (and subsequently sent to my parents by Mr. Tunley) are insightful–and sometimes humorous.
Within a decade after the magazine article was published, this “typical” housewife had completed her Bachelor’s degree at Indiana State Teachers College (in Terre Haute) and had begun pursuing a Master’s degree in education. She also returned to teaching elementary school on a full-time basis.
“Funny, but success is something you work for and you don’t always know when you have it. Take us, for example. In a lot of ways we have it right now. Nothing very great ever happens to us and nothing very bad. Yes, I guess we’re a success right now!” —Margaret quoted in “Here Is the Typical American Family”
My mother was a wise soul in her youth. In the “Typical American Family” article (at the age of 33) she defined the meaning of “success” in terms of one’s state of mind rather than in material terms. “In a lot of ways we have it [success] right now,” she said. She recognized that success sometimes can be overlooked as one strives to get ahead. Associated with this definition of success was her underlying positivity.
If I could go back and live through a period of my mother’s life to better understand her, it would be the decade from 1953 to 1963. She went from ages thirty-five to forty-five during that time and found her way. Before then she had mostly tried to satisfy the expectations of others whether taking care of her siblings and the house for her mother during the Depression or becoming the “typical” American homemaker during the late 1940s and early-’50s.
My mother’s best friend during this time was Marge Lange. She had been an Army nurse during the war and had returned to Terre Haute to work part-time at the local hospital. I expect Marge and my mother supported and encouraged each other in their respective efforts to break out of their early-1950s homemaker roles. Marge’s husband, Don, was also one of my father’s best friends and our families spent many hours together. Marge and Don grew up in the same Indiana hometown as my mother so they had that common link too.
My mother had many talents during my childhood, but most memorable for me now was her ability to stage and host amazing birthday parties for my brother and me. We had a glassed-in front porch that spanned the full width of the house; it provided a wonderful venue for such occasions. After our coal-burning furnace was converted to natural gas in the early-1950s (and the old-fashioned coal bin was removed) the basement became an excellent recreation room for us children. My friends and I played ping-pong there, as well as experiencing other activities such as home movies associated with my seventh birthday party.
My parents also hosted other events at our home such as an annual July 4th party for their friends. These occasions became legendary and always concluded with a grand municipal fireworks display at the local baseball stadium across the street from our house.
I don’t know exactly when my mother began to assert her independence as a woman, wife and mother. There are hints of it as early as 1952 via a studio portrait taken of her and me a year after the “typical American family” magazine article was published. My mother took me to a neighborhood church for a few months during that time, although my dad didn’t go. Perhaps this picture was made in conjunction with that church’s photo directory. Whatever its origin, this photo is one of my favorites of us. Our expressions are so similar; we certainly are related.
My father’s career hit full-stride during the late 1950s and early ’60s. His efforts to climb the corporate ladder within the Quaker Maid company had gone well and he had been promoted to Production Manager, which was among the highest positions in the factory. Most of the child-rearing fell to my mother, although I don’t recall her complaining about that. That was just the way it was when you were wife of a “corporate climber.” Yet I also sense a quiet determination in my mother’s face in that 1952 portrait saying: “It’s not always going to be like this”–and it wasn’t.
My father’s career advancement moved our family solidly into the “middle class.” My mother was determined to complete her undergraduate studies in education at the Indiana State Teachers College in Terre Haute. After my younger brother started school in 1956, she began work as a substitute teacher in the city’s schools while still completing her Bachelor’s degree. While I was in high school in the early 1960s, she began a Master’s degree program at Indiana State. She also accepted a full-time teaching position at Greenwood School on the south side of Terre Haute–and she hired a local woman to work with her on Saturdays to help keep the house in order.
My mother had the idea of using the insurance money she’d gotten when her father died in 1959 to fulfill a lifelong aspiration to travel to Europe–and she dovetailed it with her graduate studies. She enrolled in a travel-study course on European art and history that counted towards fulfillment of her Master’s requirements. Plus she arranged for Phil and me to accompany her! So in mid-June 1962, my father drove Mother, Phil and me to Montreal from where we set sail down the St. Lawrence River aboard an ocean liner. After it left the river, the ship sailed across the North Atlantic and landed in Liverpool, England. From there we began almost six weeks of touring that took us to fourteen western-European countries. We visited museums, cathedrals, palaces, castles and many other cultural sites. Our group was made up mostly of undergraduate and graduate students from Indiana State and Indiana University, as well as a few other Terre Haute locals who were acquainted with our tour’s leader, Dr. Betty Foster. At the time she was a member of the art department at Indiana State. My mother was just 44 years old then and she readily connected with the students and other members of our group.
Most importantly for me then–and now–is that our mother gave Phil and me the latitude to engage many of the places we went on our own terms. For example, Phil and I spent one entire day in Brussels, Belgium on our own by using the public transportation to explore the city by ourselves. We visited the Atomium, a popular attraction dating to the 1958 World’s Fair there. It gave me opportunity to practice my French language that I’d been learning in my high school classes back in Indiana. I felt so grown up that day. And speaking of feeling grown-up, our mother also took us with the group to see a performance of the Folies Bergere in Paris. Now that was an education for two boys at such tender ages of ten and fourteen!
Our tour through Europe was by both bus and train. It offered me an exceptional opportunity to view some of the best-known art and other cultural treasures in Europe–and at a young age! I’ve returned to Europe several times since then, but this 1962 trip with my mother stands out as the most impactful of all.
In 1965, my father accepted a job transfer to New York State. I was enrolled at Purdue University by that time so I stayed behind in Indiana. I did spend my summers during college with my parents and Phil in New York. The summer of 1965 was especially memorable since my parents had rented a bungalow in the beach community of Breezy Point on the Atlantic Ocean near New York City. That was also the summer of the New York World’s Fair and it included many family times at the beach and exploring “the Big Apple.”
I’ve since learned that the summers of 1966 and ’67 were especially difficult times for my parents and their marriage. This was after they’d moved to my dad’s new position as manager of a large food factory in upstate New York. Mother did not find a suitable school-teaching position there so she worked as assistant to the Dean at a local womens college. By 1968 my dad’s career had begun to flounder, and although he continued to work with the same company, his professional life became much less fulfilling. He took early retirement (at age 55) and never held another professional position of comparable responsibility.
Another consequential event during this period was the death of my mother’s mother Christine at age 78 in 1967. She happened to be living with my parents at that time. My mother remained close to her siblings after their mother’s death, although this loss left a large void in their lives–and in mine too.
My dad was eventually transferred from upstate New York back to the head office in New York City. My parents bought a small house in Wyckoff, New Jersey, in 1970 from which my father planned to commute into New York City. But then he was unexpectedly transferred by his company back to his former upstate New York factory location.
By this time my mother had accepted an excellent teaching position in Wyckoff, which paid a higher salary than Robert was receiving from his company at this point of his career. So he “commuted” between upstate New York and New Jersey–five hours each way! This continued until he retired in 1973. After his retirement my mother continued to teach for ten more years in Wyckoff.
Shortly after my mother’s retirement, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. One lung was removed and then the waiting began to see if the disease had spread. For a couple of years all appeared to be well and my parents enjoyed their retirement life together. We visited them each summer at their New Jersey home and my mother occasionally came by herself to Minnesota to look after our children when Mary Ann and I were traveling. I’d say these few years after my father’s initial cancer diagnosis may have been their best together in the time I knew them. However, in spring 1986 cancer was rediscovered in my dad’s liver and back and his prognosis was poor. Our family traveled from Minnesota to New Jersey to be with him in June 1986. We arrived a few days before he died.
********
I’m sure my mother grieved for my dad, although I never saw her cry after he was gone. It was similar to how she’d responded after her mother died twenty years earlier. It was as if she accepted it as simply the conclusion of one segment of her life and the beginning of another. One of my mother’s most-treasured keepsakes was a chambered nautilus she’d acquired from a shell collector. She displayed it on the mantle of the fireplace in her New Jersey home. My daughter, Lara, reasons that her grandmother considered a chambered nautilus to be symbolic of her life. Its entire spiral shell represented the whole of her life. Yet it also consisted of distinct chambers each separate from the others. When one segment ended, a new segment simply began.
I don’t know whether my mother actually thought of her life in this way, although her responses to major events–like the deaths of loved ones– are consistent with this philosophy. She accepted her husband’s death as an opportunity to make some changes in her life–and the one that influenced my family most was the reawakening of an interest in travel. Over the subsequent twenty years, she accompanied Mary Ann and me (and our daughters) on numerous traveling adventures to national parks and other sites of interest in almost every part of the U.S. For example, just a year after my father’s death she came to spend time with our family while I was doing a leave at Oregon State University. That was an idyllic time for us, and the opportunity it offered for our daughters to share experiences with their “Granny” made it more special.
Over the subsequent years we made multiple excursions with her to places like New England, Florida, Wyoming, Montana, Washington DC, Indiana, New Mexico, California and Washington State. In addition, I arranged to meet her at various places when I traveled on university business during this time. She (and my brother Phil) also spent nearly every Christmas with our family over the period from 1986 through 2004.
My mother’s penchant for automobile road trips never waned. She, Mary Ann and I did a number of trips together even after our daughters were no longer with us. Our traveling habit was for me to occasionally ask her how things were going for her as she rode along in the “catbird seat,” as she called it. Her response was always the same: “Everything’s fine.”
These excursions also included a road trip together to Seattle for daughter Dawn’s wedding in 2009. And our last such journey with her was in 2014 when we drove her back from New Mexico to her home in New Jersey after the death of my brother Phil. His dog, Pouncer, came with us too on this journey seated right beside my mother in the back seat. I guess you might say, Pouncer had her own special place. She eventually came to live with us at our home in Minnesota; she was one of the best gifts I ever received from my brother.
*******
Our purpose in life is to grow in wisdom and in love. –Rachel Naomi Remen
The most-significant aspect of getting older for me has been living the process of becoming–and being–a grandparent. I regard my mother as a superb example of how this can be done well. During her forty-two years of being a grandmother to my children, she formed a deep and trusting relationship with each of them. Author Rachel Remen has written one of the best books I know about the meaning of grandparenting. In it, she drew attention to the importance of grandparents as a source of “wisdom”–and unconditional love–in the lives of their grandchildren. My mother brought these to Jill, Lara and Dawn in abundance.
Wisdom and unconditional love were what I remember my mother for in my life too. Her wisdom was a practical, folksy kind that was sometimes dispensed in the form of a colloquial expression. “It’s later than you think,” is one such expression I still use to remind myself–and others–that time is passing quickly. Plus she had an extraordinary capacity to project a “you mean much to me” persona to her many friends. It began with her inherent interest in others–and her ability to listen intently to them. If she had chosen to become a professional therapist or counselor, I’m sure she would have been top notch.
My mother also modeled for us a commitment to family that was unsurpassed. Phil and I–and later Mary Ann and our daughters–always came first for her. Even though she lived 1700 miles away during the time my daughters were growing up, she made it a point to come to each of their high school graduations and other special occasions in their lives. And a highlight for me personally was when she and our whole family gathered together for the occasion of my retirement from the university in May 2008. This was followed by my mother’s 90th birthday celebration in June 2008 in New Jersey; each of the daughters participated in that. There were no great-grandchildren yet then, but these two occasions were significant milestones for us all.
After my brother Phil died in 2014, my mother came to the decision that it was time to move closer to our family. Mary Ann and I were considering moving to Seattle to be closer to our daughters, so my mother chose to go there too. It turned out to be a good decision for her and offered an opportunity to become a more integral part of her granddaughter’s lives. Two of her great-grandchildren (Sam and Linnea) had been born by then so it also gave her a chance to become better acquainted with them–and she made the most of it!
*******
My mother lived almost 98 years; she was two months shy of that milestone when she died. And I was two minutes away from her when she reached the end of her life’s path.
She’d been in hospice care in her room at her residence for a week; we knew it was just a matter of time. My cell phone rang and I answered; it was Mary Ann. “I think Mere’s gone,” she said, “She just stopped breathing.”
Through the final decade of my mother’s life I’d played out various scenarios in my mind as to how the end might come—a stroke or pneumonia seemed most likely. And living at a distance from her during much of this time, Mary Ann and I fretted about whether we would be able to adequately respond when the time came. It turned out to be a stroke—and we were 2500 miles away. We rushed to Seattle and had a week with her before she died.
I walked quickly down the hallway and went into my mother’s room. She was lying in bed in the same position as she had been when I left her the previous evening. Mary Ann was at her right side and a hospice worker was to her left. I moved past the worker and bent over to kiss her. I touched her still-warm forehead and made the shape of a cross. I whispered a prayer—and then I cried.
Later that day our family chose to have its own memorial yet that evening. We agreed that it should be on the shore of Puget Sound, which is where my mother had often gone with us during the year she lived in Seattle. We planned a meal of fried chicken, potato salad and other picnic foods—my mother’s favorites. Daughter Lara picked up some yellow roses to grace the table–my mother’s favorite flower.
After supper we each found a place to sit on some drift logs along the water’s edge. Sunset was approaching and the Vashon Island ferry was making its way back and forth across Puget Sound in front of us. Grandson Sam led off our time of remembrance by performing some magic tricks he’d just learned from his Uncle Kirk. Mother would have been charmed. Then daughter Lara read Oliver Wendell Holmes’ The Chambered Nautilus, which as noted earlier was symbolic of how she had lived her life. And finally each of us took turns recalling how this grand woman had been a significant person in our lives.
After our time of sharing each of us, including the children, took a yellow rose blossom from the vase on the picnic table and carried it down to the water’s edge. As the sun set behind the distant Olympic Mountain range we pulled off petals and tossed them into the Sound. They drifted out into the deep just as the Vashon Island ferry departed from the dock.
EPILOGUE
My mother’s ashes are interred in our family’s cemetery plot at Riverview Cemetery in Indiana, about a mile from the house where she grew up in Rockford. My wife Mary Ann’s and my stone is adjacent to her’s. Ours is inscribed with a quote from a favorite verse in the 16th Psalm. I believe it applies to my mother as well:
The lines have fallen for us in pleasant places. Indeed we have a beautiful heritage.
Pleasant places……………..a beautiful heritage……………..and a charmed life…….
You nailed it, mother!
__________________________________
This essay was written by Steve Robert Simmons in 2024. All rights reserved.
Double Agent 