Playroom

Dear Mom, 

Do you remember clearing out the playroom for the three of us when we were little and it was raining, so we could strap on those stupid metal roller skates and still have more fun even though it was raining? 

I remember. 

Love always, #3

Scarlet Fever and Eyeglasses

Scarlet Fever and Eyeglasses

I had previously mentioned that Mom had scarlet fever when around 6 years old, and how she nearly died….because an awful lot of people who had scarlet fever did die. Well, obviously she survived, but the fever affected her eyes far more than anyone guessed.

She nearly got run over when in the road at some point while still very small (grade school), because she didn’t see the car coming, and apparently this provided the impetus for her parents to have her eyes examined.  Naturally she needed glasses, and the prescription was pretty strong.

Shortly afterwards she went out into the backyard with her mother, and she made some sort of comment about being able to see the flowers or some such…and her mother cried, because she never realized how bad her daughter’s eyesight was before the eye exam. 

Manual Typewriter

Growing up in Churchville, my dad used a manual adding machine that required him to punch in the number and then pull the lever to get to the next line. It looked sort of like this one: 

(Anyone else remember these? LOL) 

…and my mother used a manual typewriter (long after electric typewriters had been introduced, but hey…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!).

Since she was secretary for several different women’s’ groups, she still used that typewriter quite a lot while I was growing up, even though at that point she didn’t work outside the home. And she typed at least 80-90 words per minute.

Honestly, sometimes it sounded like a machine gun was going off in the dining room. 

Meeting the Family

Mom told me that when she was a young woman, women still wore corsets for special occasions. They were married in 1958, so I’m guessing it was 1956 or 1957 that she boarded a train in New York, with her beau Richard Boyce Jr., to meet one of his relatives.

She was very nervous, of course.  And, since she grew up in a German Lutheran family, she had had virtually no experience with “standard” Italian dinners. Additionally, since her manners were (and are) impeccable, I’m sure she didn’t want to give the impression that the food wasn’t good. So she had a substantial helping of the first course, not realizing it was the first of many courses.

By the time the dinner was over, her corset was a private torment to her.

(can’t imagine why!!!)

And she remembers nearly getting sick on the train ride back, due to the combination of having eaten wayyyyyy too much and a corset that was now wayyyyyy too tight.

The "Waiting Room" in the Hospitals' Maternity Section

Since Father's Day is just around the corner, this one's about both Dad and Mom:

Dad is not a demonstrative person in the slightest. He's never been. 

So when Mom told me a story about the night their first-born was on the way, I had absolutely no trouble picturing him doing what she described!

Her water broke late in the evening, and of course Dad was very calm as he helped her get ready to go to the hospital. I’m sure he remained calm while he was in her room for the first part of her labor too. 

Then, of course, he had to go to the husbands’ waiting room (or whatever it was they called it) in the maternity section of the hospital, to wait for the news. And apparently he wasn’t calm in there.

When he was allowed to go back in and visit the new mom and the new daughter, Mom noticed that he kept his hands behind his back. She wondered if perhaps he had something for her, so she said, “Richard, what’s behind your back?”

It only made her more curious when he just mumbled something she couldn’t understand. So she said again, “Richard, what’s behind your back?”

When he brought his hands forward, she was both amused and touched to see his pipe…in pieces. 

He had bitten his pipe in half while pacing back and forth!

Lipstick

It's a very vivid memory, so it must have happened more than once.

In my mind's eye, I can "watch" Mom putting on lipstick.

Without a mirror.

Perfectly. 

It was generally the only makeup she wore. When I asked her one time how she did it so perfectly without a mirror, she laughed and said something along the lines of, "I've had this face for a loooong time!"

Because You Loved Me

To Mom:
In the words of the old song,

I'm everything I am because you loved me. 

With thanks and love from your most grateful youngest daughter,
Marianne