Happy Birthday, momma

December 15, 1922 - February 5, 2002

This is my darling momma when she was high school aged. Sweet. Today she would have been 88. She is missed by friends and family alike and her daughters especially. She loved Christmas, she was "the Elf Herself" and decorated every inch of her small apartment.

Thanks to my sister for posting this great photo of her as I took it from her blog. She loved to laugh and cook and help others. Her frail health did not keep her down or keep her from helping others.

While shopping she found a new store that sold baked goods and candy. The owner was a young woman eager to make her business a success. When Lorna needed to give a gift, usually cookies, she'd make a "fancy" box to put them in. She told the young store owner she'd give her some boxes, no cost, because she enjoyed making them and they'd be a big hit with the customers. The woman loved the idea and Lorna even made a few envelopes to put with gift certificates. When momma died I was calling her list of friends and saw a name I didn't recognize. Calling it I explained who I was and was pleased to find out it was the owner of the small shop. She was very sad to hear of her death and assured me she'd not sell the last box because she'd love to keep it as a reminder of her.

You are missed.

When parents die

So many times when adversity visits a friend I can't say, yes I know what you are going through because I don't. I don't have Cancer. I've not lost my job. My child is alive. I can only be a witness to the pain and hold a hand or lend an ear. I guess you could call me lucky in that respect. Sure, I've had adversities but none so powerful as the loss of your mother and this is the journey a good friend is experiencing right now.

Both my parents lived to an age where you wouldn't say they died young but any age is difficult to lose your parents. The title daughter isn't something you earn it is bestowed on you by your parents and, eventually, it is them that takes it away.

Death steals from the living and hopefully, gives peace to the dying. So to all my dear friends who've lost that title I wish peace as well.

Di, Ingrid, Sandi, my darling sister, and now Kathleen your memory will never replace their presence but it will soothe your heart.

Happy Mother's Day

Remember Yom Hashoah

Last week was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Because it follows the Hebrew calendar it falls on different days. Next year it will be April 11. I'm posting this because I have a number of Jewish friends and like them, I don't want anyone to forget the horrors.

To augment the family income, my mom was a dressmaker in her spare time and she made an acquaintance with the owners of the local fabric store, Joe and Pauline Meyerhoff. I understood their thick accents meant they weren't from the United States but I'd never asked where they were from.

A trip to this yard goods store, for a nine-year-old, was fun so I never minded tagging along. The deep shelves lining the walls were stacked with long rolls of fabric with the smaller bolts sitting on tables. They were neatly arranged by the type of fabric and then into similar hues. I was fascinated by the color and can even remember the smells which, as an adult I know now, were from the dyes.

In the front of the store, near the windows, was a wide low table was used to measure and cut the fabric. Pauline would roll out the fabric, lay it flat then slice it off with the sharp long handled shears. If it were near the end Pauline would measure the remaining fabric and always say, "Only a few inches I'll give you a good price." I think she always did, I never heard my mom say anything bad about Pauline. After she was done Joe would quickly re-roll the bolts and place them back on the shelves. I think Joe was the neat one. They worked well together.

In the back of the store were racks of buttons, zippers and thread and I never tired runny my fingers over myriad of colors. I was convinced, if you tried hard enough, you could tell colors by touch and would experiment every time I was there. My successes only reinforced my theory; my failures meant I need more practice.

Pauline was a sweet woman though always seemed a bit sad to me while Joe was outgoing and gregarious. He would talk to me, not as a child but, as an adult and it made me feel special. Of course the of candy he had for me didn't hurt. My mom would buy her fabric but chat as well and what they talked about I have no idea. The Meyerhoffs learned momma was a dressmaker and would give out her phone number to customers needing her service. She got a lot of jobs from their store.

One afternoon while watching Pauline cut fabric, I noticed something on her forearm and, as children would do, was caught staring. At first she pulled her cardigan sleeve down to cover it and my mom admonished me for staring but she then called me closer. "Did you notice my tattoo, she asked?" I said yes and she then, after asking my mother's permission, proceeded to quietly tell me why she had the tattoo.

When Joe and I were younger we lived in Germany. We knew each others families and when we were old enough, we got married. From across the table Joe added, "She stole my heart when I was your age." Pauline waved him off and with her usual quite voice went on. There were some wicked people who hated all the Jews and put us in prison just for what we believed. Young and old, brothers and sister and husbands and wives; we all went to the prison camps. They made us work hard and every day some of our friends or neighbors or family died. They fed us horrible food and many starved.

By this time Joe had come to stand next to Pauline and wrapping his arms around his wife he added he would eat no matter how bad the food because he knew they would survive somehow and get out. Pauline smiled softly and said this was true and Joe would often force her to eat something. She turned to him, gently touched his hand, and said he did save my life.

We were some of the lucky ones and when released we learned Joe and I were the only ones left from both our families so with nothing to keep us in Germany, we left and came to the United States to start over. Now we have lovely American friends who have made us feel very welcome even if we are Jews. The wicked people put a number on our arms that would never come off. Now it just reminds all of us never to forget.

Even at such a young age I understood the pain these two people went through and regretfully, had a million questions I did not ask. I did ask my parents about what Pauline had told me and they said it was all true. I think that is when I realized there were evil people in the world.

There are very few survivors from the prison camps these days and I would love to find out what happen to these two dear people. There was a famous survivor names Joe Meyerhoff but he was a professor on the East coast. I might not even have the correct spelling of their last name but I do remember they kindness and could never understand why someone would want to kill them.

Kitchen stories: Those poor Colvin children

Around 1928 my mother's family lived in Greenville, Michigan and her father Thomas worked for Gibson Refrigerator Company. He had a management position and they had more money than when they lived in Indiana. They weren't rich but they did live comfortably. Comfortable enough to send the two older girls to a Saturday matinee once in a while.

Greenville was a very small town and like all towns they had their share of financial hard times. A citizens committee thought it a good idea to identify children of the families in need and treat them to an afternoon at the local movie theater. The newspaper also took pictures of this philanthropic event and when my mom and her sister showed up in front row of that picture printed in the Sunday paper, there was hell to pay. Needless to say, that was the last Saturday free matinee they attended.

Kitchen stories: The Great Depression

My mother Lorna was the first of five children in her family. Three girls then two boys. Before the boys were born her Emily and Thomas had a grocery store in Southern Indiana, Jeffersonville. I don't think it was very large and they lived above the store. I do know they had a wood stove for heat and cooking and Emily said she could cook anything on that stove. You didn't dare let the coals die during the winter or you'd freeze to death and even the children, at an early age, learned to keep the fire going. There was always a pot of coffee at the back of the stove for anyone coming by.

In the late twenties they moved to Greenville, Michigan and Thomas went to work for the Gibson Refrigerator Company and, as a family history states, had something to do with the design of the gas refrigerator. I've done a small bit of investigation but found nothing to substantiate this claim.

What I do remember is momma telling of the Christmas they were in Michigan and how much money they had. Everyone had lots of gifts to open and each package her mother opened had luxuries like electric toasters and waffle irons with an added bonus; there were $100 bills slipped inside. It wasn't long after that the Great Depression hit and they ended up back in Indiana on a farm outside of Ft Wayne, in Monroeville. Thomas told the children he wanted them to know the joys of growing up on a farm as he and Emily did but my Aunt Marci confided it was was cheaper to live there and grow some of your own food. From time to time different relatives would move in with them and on Sunday Emily always cooked enough for a visitor or two.

Once Emily, knowing they were having a difficult time, told a city relative to come by and she'd give her a chicken. Grandma asked the husband if he knew how to kill it and he assured her he did. The woman took the chicken then invited them to dinner that Sunday. When they walked it the house it stunk to "high heavens." She didn't gut the chicken and cooked it with the "innards." The chicken was inedible. Emily had her come back to the farm where she gave them both a lesson on butchering a chicken.

The Depression was pretty hard on most city people but on the farm they raised chickens and and had a little truck farm; they even had a calf, they called him Popeye. When Popeye got bigger the three girls loved riding him but one day he was gone and they suspected he was served the next Sunday. When a baby chick would die, which would happen often, they would bury it in a matchbox in the yard complete with good Catholic burial to send it off to the great beyond. She said for a while you couldn't walk through the yard without stepping on a chicky grave.

The youngest, Uncle Joe was six-weeks-old when his father died but somehow Emily Pricella, now called "Pruce", carried on. She tried starting a beauty shop in her house for a while but ended up working at the Perfection Bakery in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. One of the benefits of working there was once a month she could buy a big box of "day old" bread and pastries for a quarter. She'd drag a huge box home on the street car just for the sheer joy it brought her kids. She'd also share with family members that always seemed to show up on that day. She'd also never let the kids eat the Ginger Snaps because she said the swept the floor and put it in the cookies.

Kitchen stories: Mom's birth

For Grandma Emily Pricella to get off the farm all she had to do was marry a man ten years older than herself. Her future husband, Thomas Perry Colvin, came into her life when she was almost fifteen. He'd worked on their farm as hired help and wanted to marry her. Now her father James didn't want to lose her, she could work in the fields and could even drive a buckboard so I'm sure that's why she wasn't married until she turned sixteen. She was sixteen on January 1, 1922 and one month later married. I believe they ran away since they were married across the Ohio river in La Grange, Kentucky

Le Grange, in Oldham county Kentucky, is an odd little town. The train tracks go right down the center of the small street. Literally, everything stops while the train moves through. It was on the trip to locate our family cemetery in New Albany that my sister, aunt and I wandered over the river into Kentucky to find the birthplace of our mother. She was the only sibling of five to be born in Kentucky and it was a small town with an odd name; Pewee Valley. Mom was always teased with the name of her birthplace but I found later the town is named for a local bird, the Pewee, and had nothing to do with the size of the the quite small city.

Since she wasn't born in a hospital and we had no clue to where they lived, so we drove on through this very small town and ended up in Le Grange. The older section of town had some antique shops as well as some touristy places so we parked and started poking around. Standing in a gift shop I felt the rumble before I heard it and thought we were having an earthquake. Nothing major mind you, I'm quite the expert on the ground moving but I did look up, check to see what was shaking and when I then heard the rumble, glanced outside. I was quite amazed to see a towering locomotive with dozens of cars lumbering up the street just inches from our rental car. We stepped outside to see this sight as did a few other strangers in town; the locals just go about their business.

It's hard to imagine my grandmother at sixteen, newly married and pregnant with her first child. Yes, I've done the math and there was no "happiness ahead." She did come early and grandma tells this story.

It was mid-December and though cold, no snow. They had no car but did have a buckboard and Emily, no stranger to driving one, used it to go to town. God only knows where her husband was but on the 14th, as she was coming back from town, the horse spooked and threw her down on her knees. All alone she got the horse and wagon under control and drove home. It was still a few weeks until her due date but the next day she went into labor. The mid-wife was called and momma, Lorna Georgiana Colvin was born later than night.

I never asked grandma if she were frightened because I don't think she ever was. If she was she never showed that side of herself. Anyone knowing her knew she was a tough old bird and this could be the result of a lifetime of pain and disappointment. She was 25, had five children, one only six-weeks-old, and in the midst of the depression her husband died.