Conversations with My Mother Book Retrieved

            Yesterday we went to Pleasant Hill for our monthly Supporting KAST luncheon, and Kathy offered us Mom’s jewelry—mostly earrings. I love how colorful she was! 

  I also looked--just looked-- at her books and picked up Conversations with my Mother, which we had just begun filling out.

Was there anything unusual about your birth?

            "I was adopted."

Who named you?  Were you named after anyone or do your names have special meaning?

            "Two of my sisters that I never knew I had had the same names:  Nadine and Virginia."

Did your mother sing you a particular lullaby? 

         

            "Baby’s Boat’s the Silver Moon.”  (When I at the age of 9 in 1955 visited my grandparents, Mom’s parents, in LA, Grandmother Robison had me sing this at her church along with “It Is No Secret What God Can Do.”  Now I see that it was recorded before Mom’s 1921 birthday—in 1914—even before the First World War!  It was written in the 1800s.

   http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/3963/

 

Did you have a bedtime story?  A Special blanket or a teddy bear?

            “Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  God bless Mother, Daddy, Granddad & Gram."

 

            The oldest relative she knew was “My granddad, who was deaf—one reason we got along so well.” 

Who was the most famous or admired person in your family?

            "My father was my beacon—reserved but always giving & helping."

She acknowledged that her parents identified strongly with Methodism, but she didn’t.  

             “I wanted to be a Catholic or Episcopalian. 

The most interesting page is page 14.  When I read the question to her, “Do you have any object that belonged"--before I could finish “to an ancestor?” she said, “I thought you were going to say to anybody else, and I thought, ‘Oh, God!  Library books I haven’t returned.”  But she then said that the dining room table and chairs and buffet belonged to Grandmother Martin.

            Finally, she answered this question:

Did you have a family tradition, celebration, or a recipe that has been handed down for generations?

            “A Christmas tree,” Mom said.

            Then she said, “They tried patterns on me, and one time I wanted to be ready for my date, but my mom wanted me to try on my dress.  She won.”

I wonder whether she was confusing herself with me because on the night of school prom, she was still making my dress when my date arrived.  I wanted to be totally and beautifully dressed when I opened the door, but the dress wasn’t ready and I was in my bathrobe.  I begged Mother to go to the door, but she said, “I’m not your servant,” and I had to go.  Mother rarely let me down.  But that night she did.  (Never mind that she was already doing something phenomenal in making me the formal.)  I wonder whether, years later, she confused herself with her mother, herself with me.