My Life in Words, Part Twelve: Gender roles

My mom's story continues, this is one of my favorite stories of my Me-maw lighting her brother on fire, The memoirs began here, last installment here. 

when Janie was born, so was her chore list

The relationship between my grandmother and her mother had a very  profound impact on her interactions with her daughters.  My grandmother’s birth was seen as the birth of household help for Lizzie.  That is not to say that she did not love her daughter, but in the early part of the 1900s, gender roles were very strictly defined.  If Lizzie had had only sons, she would have had many beds to make and meals to cook.  Sons would not have been seen as a help for their mother unless it was doing physical labor such as bringing in wood, or carrying heavy burdens.  They would not cook and they would not have made beds, washed clothes, or ironed.  It just was not done.  But when Janie was born, so was her chore list. 

She would seethe with anger

  She often told of cooking when she had to stand on a stool to do so.  That act of standing on the stool at the stove was seen differently by me and my grandmother.  She saw it as a child being forced to do something before she had the maturity to do it.  She often told of making beds.  And it was NOT the bed making we know today of slipping on a fitted sheet, then snapping open a flat sheet so it could float down to cover the bed.  It was anything but a happy activity.  The mattresses were made of feathers and any depression upon the bed meant that the making of it had to be restarted.  Janie would complain about fighting to make the beds in the time frame her mother expected – no, demanded.  The only problem with this time frame was that it occurred when her brothers, or “the boys” as she called them, were out hunting.  They would then come home from the hunt, or from their morning masculine chores, and do what came naturally – they flopped down on their beds.  The feather beds.  The beds that their slim sister had fought to make perfect enough to avoid her mother’s wrath.  She would seethe with anger.  

blazingly clear

This went on for a few years until the time came when the man courting her, my future grandfather, heard her complaints about bed making.  He merely thought of a way to possibly  change the behavior of her brothers, by suggesting she take a cigarette paper, slipping it between a brother’s toes, and setting fire to it.  Sounds good in theory and would probably even work in practice.  If the brother in question, Audrey, weren’t such a sound sleeper.   So my grandmother, being a young 15 year old who had never been out of 20 mile radius, and in the absence of her suitor, made a decision without thinking it through to its inevitable consequences.  She took newspapers, wrapped them around her brother’s foot, tied them on, and then set the match to her innovation.  Yes, it woke him up.  His screams also woke the other brothers up.    While it made for a funny story years later, he ended up in a hospital, which was indicative of a serious injury in the 1920s.   Later, I chose to believe that it wasn’t as serious as it was described because as is the case in most stories passed down through the generations, the acts become bigger, the results more astounding, and the aftereffects more unsettling.  But there were no permanent injuries that I am aware of and yes, my grandmother’s true feelings about bedmaking became blazingly clear!

My Life in Words, Part Eleven: Biscuits from scratch.

My Mom's story continues, Part One here, Part ten here. 

And as the day progressed, I learned how to drop the dumplings into the chicken broth, how to fry a chicken, and how to make biscuits from scratch. 

Lizzie, on the other hand, was a strong woman who faced the world unflinchingly.  Kind was not a word used to describe her.  I never saw the mean side, but I have heard that others did.  She was less than soft spoken when it came to her children’s spouses.  But her opinions also changed.  If she didn’t like you on one visit, she may love you on the next.  She didn’t care about your opinions of what she did.  I only knew that she loved me.  She had patience that was in direct contradiction to her reputation.  She allowed me to have so many experiences that I wouldn’t have had if I had spent all my time in the suburbs.  Instead, I know what it is like to walk out to the chicken coop with an apron on to hold the eggs that you were going to steal from the hens.  I thought she was magic because she could walk through the chicken yard without looking at her footsteps, unworried about all the chicken poop she was trudging through.  It was a long while before I realized that she changed her shoes before going inside!  I was too busy delicately holding eggs in the cradle of a cotton apron, dodging poop, and eyeing hens wanting to attack those responsible for making off with their eggs.  After harvesting the eggs, it was time for breakfast.  I was the assistant cook, which meant that I stood on a stool at the stove and assisted.  I learned how to flip an egg so that it was over easy.  I learned how to make toast when there is no toaster.  And as the day progressed, I learned how to drop the dumplings into the chicken broth, how to fry a chicken, and how to make biscuits from scratch.   I would doubt that many of today's foodies would be able to define a biscuit board, much less be able to point one out.  I’m proud to say that Lizzie’s biscuit board has stayed in our family, finding a home with her great great granddaughter.

The story of Lizzie and Ben is another story, and would have been better told by one of their children, but that opportunity has passed.  They had seven children.  Three sons were born first, and I am sure they were despairing of having a daughter.  Audrey came first around 1912.  Then Raleigh Pat in 1914, and Harold Benjamin in 1916.  Finally in 1918, the daughter was born who would one day become my grandmother, my beloved Me-Maw.  They named her Janie Orean Watters and she was born on September 1, 1918.   Four years later, Frank Benjamin was born, and then there was a long spell without the birth of a baby.  Finally Mary Winona came along when Frank was eight, and Margie Faye followed two years later.  That mean that Janie’s two sisters were 12 and 14 years younger than she, but they were close.  In their adult years, Margie and Janie were as inseparable as two women could be.  I doubt that three days went without a long distance phone call.  As the years passed, the closeness of the siblings waxed and waned.  But I grew up close to all my great aunts and uncles, and as it was with great grandparents, my great aunts and uncles were truly more like aunts and uncles.  Three of the siblings – Janie, Frank, and Harold, lived in one block in the suburbs as I grew up.  So for many of my formative years, those uncles were very real masculine role models when my grandfather was working offshore  for a good part of my childhood.  These uncles exhibited the macho stuff – the camping, the boating, the horse riding, the hard drinking.  My grandfather was almost the personal opposite. Never hunted, never drove a boat, and for sure never drank.  More about his horse riding to come, as it plays a very real part in the beginning of my family.

to be continued... 

My Life in Words, Part Eight: Mama was a paradox

“Are you okay?  Do you love me?  Are you mad at me?” 

My mom

It was much later in my life before I realized that  my mom was a weapon.  She did quite a bit of damage.  Some was by her words, some by her actions, and some by simple selfishness.  Mama was a paradox.  While she often gave lavish gifts, she was just as likely to push others aside to get her own way.  It was years before I realized that she used things as anesthesia.  She could believe she was good – and she could make you believe she was good – if she gave you a nice gift, or took you somewhere you wanted to go, or did something you wanted to do.  As long as it cost her something.  And that something was always cash.  Sacrifice wasn’t her currency.  It’s hard for me to look back and try to understand why I didn’t see things accurately back then.  I imagine it was my childish heart.  A child always wants to believe in love.  Maybe we are even programmed genetically, or instinctively, to believe that our mother is good, that our mother loves us, and that our mother always has our best interest in the forefront.  I am not the only child to grow up and learn in hindsight that that wasn’t true.  But not knowing protected my heart and it needed protecting in those days.  I had been given the heavy obligation of making too many people happy.   If people were angry, if people were sad, it had to be my fault.  Why did no one try to take that from me?  Surely they noticed.  Surely to God they noticed.  The refrain that I repeated way too often was, “Are you okay?  Do you love me?  Are you mad at me?”  Of course, there was usually a response to that refrain.  But it wasn’t from my mother, the one I most wanted it to be from.  Her answer was too practical, too annoyed.  “I’m not mad.  Quit asking me that.  You know I love you.  I’m okay.”  Answers, but not the answers I wanted.  I wanted sweetness and caresses, and kisses that said I was the most important thing in her life.  But that probably wouldn’t have worked.  It is a law of life that for words to be seen as sincere, they have to match the actions of the speaker.   And my mother’s actions were far from saying, “You are the most important thing in my life.”

(Evelyn on the left)

I have to remember that my mother had me as the result of an accident.  I wasn’t born the lovingly wished for offspring of a fresh young couple.  I wasn’t the infant of an older couple who had prayed for a baby for over a decade, perhaps.  I was the result of two young kids fumbling around in some furtive encounter when neither of them had any thought that a life would start. Instead of joy at the realization that a baby was coming, I am sure there was anger.  If messages cross that placental membrane as easily as nutrients do, then I am sure I was bombarded with hate, rage, but mostly, fear.  When I realize that, it is easier to understand how quickly my mother was able to slide her parental responsibilities off to my grandmother.  Later in life, she tried to blame my grandmother for “stealing” me.  I presume she meant stealing my affection.  But anyone with any sense knows that it would be very hard to kidnap a child’s affection from a mother whose love was the most integral part of the child’s life.  I couldn’t have been very old before even I realized that I was an afterthought.  My mother was a working mother from my earliest memory.  She worked as a waitress, then for a caterer, and finally for most of my childhood she was a cashier for Winn-Dixie in our neighborhood.  

fire burns everything in its path, both good and bad

I am sure that she was a good worker.  If my grandfather imparted anything to the three women he raised it was to be a good employee.  One of the worse things that could be said of someone was that they were a lazy worker, or that they did not give an honest day’s work for their honest day’s pay.  That lesson led each of us to work far beyond what was expected.  We would arrive early and we would stay late, as needed.  We were a friend to all our co-workers.  However, in my mom’s case, she was perhaps too friendly to some of her co-workers.  The male ones, that is.  I can’t remember a time in my life after memories begin to stick, that my mother did not have a man in her life.  And at least one memory remains from a time when most children don’t have memories.  We had gone to her boss’s house for a holiday.  I loved going there.  He lived out near the Mississippi River levee, just as we did.  But his house was upriver from us, closer toward LaPlace and Destrehan.  And he had kids – lots of kids.  There is nothing an only child likes more than visiting families who have lots of children.  It’s like going to another country, or maybe even another planet.  Someplace so alien that it was unimaginable that people lived like that.    I wanted to go back, and maybe that is why I was so excited when I figured out  by my grandmother’s phone conversation that she was talking to Mr. Bud’s wife.  But that same understanding of who was on the phone couldn’t fathom what was happening on the phone.  But I knew enough to know my grandmother was upset and my inner demons kicked in and I began to ask if she was mad at me and whether she loved me.  After her reassurances, my little girl’s mind kicked back to that phone conversation and I peppered her with questions, “Are we going to Mr. Bud’s house again? Can some of his daughters come over to our house?”  The answer was no to all questions.  Had I been a little older, or perhaps a little more sophisticated, I could have put together the understanding that Mr. Bud’s wife had gotten to the bottom of my mom’s “friendship” with her boss.  I would have also known that the friendship, and my mom’s employment, was over.  And as surely as fire burns everything in its path, both good and bad, my friendship with all those children of one household was over as well.  I was way too little to understand everything about that whole debacle, but I knew it caused a scream fest in our house when my grandfather got home but that imaginary fire wasn’t done with its damage yet.  My mom took off in the car without permission and just like what would happen in the plot of a movie, she wrecked the car, destroying it.  When I got old enough to realize what had really happened, I wondered if that fire of passion had destroyed Mr. Bud’s marriage as well.  And I prayed it had not.  I did not want to feel that my  mother was responsible for all those little kids having to live apart from their father.  It was too sad for me to contemplate. 

The story began here, Part seven is here

My Life in Words, Part Seven: Ba Sister got tired of it all

My Mom's life story continues, Part six here, It all started here. 

Sibling Rivalry

Me-Maw and her daughters: Evelyn and Beth        

While there were only two girls in the family, they were not close.  They were rivals for affection, rivals for compliments, and rivals for any good words which were to be spoken of them.  From childhood, my aunt had been given a name by her older sister.  She was called Bay Sister.  Probably it was actually “Ba” Sister, meaning Baby Sister.  But that was the name she carried until death.  And I think she grew tired of being the baby sister who had to carry the older sister’s reputation on her back.  When they left the house, it was the baby sister who was reminded to watch out for the older one.  Because the older one, my mother, was a daredevil.  She would do anything on a dare, from crossing a canal that runs through the urban areas of New Orleans, to jumping off a second story roof.  She had a quick temper that matched the old wives tale of redheads being hotheads. 

She made a decision to get out

Mae Beth aka Bay Sister

Ba Sister got tired of it all.  She got tired of neighbors complaining.  She got tired of family hysteria.  She got tired of her mother making excuses for what Big Sister had done.  She made a decision to get out, and to get out as quickly as she could.  So she enrolled at Soule College, which was a business college and she excelled at everything young women are supposed to do well.  She took Gregg Shorthand.  She did bookkeeping (accounting was for the men).  She typed close to 90 words per minute and her spelling was exceptional.  She almost finished the complete program at Soule, but she was offered a job at Humble Oil, probably as a result of her father’s good reputation with the same company.  So she made the calculated decision that what she had left to learn in her program was not worth the delay in the start of her career.  At her age, she couldn’t yet realize how much she would grow to regret that decision.  It was one of the few things in her life which she didn’t see to the end.  But what she did do was take those first baby steps that would lead her to the rest of her life.  She had no idea at the time what would come from the decision to take that job.  It would truly be the yellow brick road taking her to her own wonderland, her own Oz.

She was the New Woman.  She would support herself, travel alone or with girlfriends, and rebel against every southern rule for women she had been taught.

A new Beth. 

Ba Sister’s first job for Humble Oil was in Grand Isle Louisiana.  What a tiny dot on the map of Louisiana!  It was barely even in Louisiana, but instead it was a collection of houses and offices built on pilings hanging on to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico.  From a distance, it looked like a circus scene, with all the houses on stilts, and one would expect to see clowns emerge from them, also walking tall balancing on ten feet poles of wood.  If you are not from Louisiana, or another town that lives on the edge of water that routinely rises without mercy, you wouldn’t be used to the stair climb you would make every morning as you reported to work.  The “girls” in the steno pool would live together in what would appear to be a summer cottage to the uninitiated eye.  They had a chance to see many men in Grand Isle.  But what you really saw was the men arriving to work and then leaving work seven days later.  Grand Isle was the hub of men who climbed aboard helicopters which flew them out to platforms which consisted of oil wells, a heliport, and living quarters.  It was quite an unnatural situation.  Instead of men climbing on the city bus after slogging through a hard day’s work, these workers would walk across a metal catwalk, looking down at water that may be 100 feet or more  deep until they reached their living quarters, which was also the living quarters of 50 or more other men.  While that job was an excellent training ground for a future executive assistant, it was far from excellent as a hunting ground for a husband.  Of course, Ba Sister would have never been guilty of hunting for a husband.  She was the New Woman.  She would support herself, travel alone or with girlfriends, and rebel against every southern rule for women she had been taught.

She didn’t feel the sand of Grand Isle, Louisiana between her toes for long.  Her skills did not go unnoticed, and she was soon working in the Central Business District of New Orleans in the Humble Oil Building.  Even there, everyone knew her father, Red Honeycutt.  His was a hard reputation to ignore.  From his first job of driving a truck, he soon became a roustabout, then a drill pusher on one of those dots in the Gulf of Mexico.  It was the job of those men to pull  oil from under the earth’s surface to sate the thirst of a growing America.  His fellow employees respected and trusted him.  Within a very few years he was an important member of the Employees Federation, the pre-union organization which worked with the management of the future Exxon.  The election to President of the Federation was not a surprise to any who knew him.  His honesty and integrity was known and respected by the rank and file, and even more amazingly, by management – even the highest level of management in the company.  All this was to say that Red’s daughter didn’t go unnoticed by that same management.  She spent enough time in the pool of young workers to make good friends.  Earning good money for the first time in her life, she treated herself well.  The first big purchase was a 1953 Chevy.  It took her for weekend trips to places she had only heard about.  She went away to visit the families of friends she met at work.  But she also went to places her car could not take her.  She was the first one in the extended families of her mother and her father who had ever left the country – on purpose.  She had had uncles who had seen Europe, but that was on a trip paid for by everyone’s uncle – Sam.

The whole time Ba Sister was taking the world by storm (a little storm, but a storm nonetheless) the Big Sister, my mother , was attacking the world with her hammer. 

My Life in Words, Part Six: Tomato aspic, caviar and college?

My mom's life story goes on, Part Five here. It all began here. 

My aunt lived in the house with my grandparents, my mom and me until I was nearly eight years old.  And even when she moved, she was a large part of my rearing.  She was the family member who was committed to seeing that I grew up with class.  Mae Beth, “good”  Sister made it her job to take me to places where the last thing in the world they would serve was anything with a gravy or a black eyed pea.  With her, I dined on things like tomato aspic and caviar.  We went to Commander’s Palace and dined in the courtyard.  We traveled away for the weekend to Gulf Hills Dude Ranch on the Mississippi Coast.  Every interaction she had with me was designed to teach me that there was something beyond my southern upbringing.  She was the first to talk to me of colleges.  Not just encouraging me to go to college, but talking about which college.  She positively beamed when I spoke of going to Sophie Newcomb, which was the women’s college associated with Tulane University.  I, of course, was too young to know anything about Newcomb, or admission requirements.  I just knew that it had a nice entry and it was in the Garden District.  My mind couldn’t grasp the idea of actually going away to any college and living in a dorm.  Didn’t know what  a dorm was. 

 she was very much past ready to move out and start her life. 

To understand my ignorance, you would have to understand that of all my extended family on either side, only one individual I knew had gone to college.  He was a much older cousin and he came to our house one Christmas with three of his rowdy college friends.  My grandmother did what every aunt does for college boys – she cooked for them.  And what did they do for me?  Broke one of my brand new toys.  I had been given a pogo stick and a miniature pinball game made out of plastic.  Well, one of the guys jumped up on the pogo stick and immediately jumped onto the pinball machine.  Which reacted by breaking into a million pieces.  At least it felt like a million.  To match the million pieces my heart had broken into at the same time.  I wanted to scream out in a rage, but I didn’t.  He was a GUEST.  And even at my young age, I had learned that one never ever made a GUEST feel anything but welcome.

I never quite understood why my aunt didn’t go to college.  She was very smart.  While the family was not rich, I think that my grandfather would have found the money to help her go.  Maybe it would have been to a state school, and maybe she would have had to live at home while she attended, but she could have gone.  But instead, she knew that the only way she would be able to move out of the house was to get a job.  And she was very much past ready to move out and start her life. 

My Life in Words, Part Five: The words I never heard said were “eating disorder.”

My mom's life story continues, Part Four here, it all began here. 

I would assume that we settled into a few years of normalcy, or what we knew as normalcy.  I was eager to learn.  I knew which adult to go to when I wanted something.  Me-Maw was my source of all things good to eat.  Now, to most people that sentence would end there.  But like most things in my existence, it didn’t end there.  Let’s repeat the sentence above :  Me-Maw was my source of all things good to eat.  Now, the corollary to that was that I was the receptacle of all good things Me-Maw prepared to eat.  Well, of course, the remainder of the family ate her good food.  The trick was that SHE didn’t eat her good food.  You see, she had what was described as an “irritable colon”.  That meant she didn’t eat anything.  Well, most people would describe her diet as not eating anything, but she did eat some things – just not very many things.  Let’s describe her diet, shall we?  For breakfast, my Me-Maw had a delicious breakfast of a soft boiled egg, two pieces of dry toast, milk and water.  That was it.  For lunch, she branched out to enjoy a jar of strained carrot baby food, two pieces of that same dry toast, and milk.  And for dinner, she had to limit those eggs.  Heaven forbid if she ate too many egg yolks.  Dinner would consist of egg whites, dry toast, and milk.  Oh, and water.  That was it.  From the time I was old enough to notice  someone’s food and how it was different from my own, it was all I saw my grandmother eat.  I wish I could say that it was for a limited time, but the reality is that that same diet was in effect for over 50 years.  Over the years she added a teaspoon of apple jelly for breakfast, and strained peas baby food for lunch, but basically the menu items didn’t change.  Oh, she continued to feed her family every southern delicacy known to man.  But she didn’t let any of it touch her lips.  As I grew, I begged.  I cajoled.  I threatened.  All because I wanted to see her eat something.  But she never wavered.  People admired her for her will power.  People felt sorry for her because of what she had to endure.  People whispered about how serious her pain must have been to cause her to stick to such limited offerings.  The words I never heard said were “eating disorder.”  Yet those were the two words that I diagnosed once I was an adult and realized what an eating disorder was.  She used her battle with food to control her family, and even more importantly, to control her husband.  She couldn’t go out to eat with that diet.  We couldn’t go on a long vacation because of her diet.  Of course, some arrangements ended up being made, but those arrangements never included her eating something that wasn’t on THE LIST.

I think her food was the ribbon that tied the family together. 

As much as food was my grandmother’s enemy, she did everything she could to make it my friend.  Are you sad?  Let’s see what we have to eat.   Do you feel bad?  You need some grits.  You can’t sleep?  I think you need a piece of pie cause you are probably hungry.  She was the world’s biggest pusher of southern comfort foods.  Given the fact that she never tasted what she was cooking, she was certainly known as a great cook.  I grew up with specialties that my mouth still can taste – fried apple pies, pound cake, Swiss steak, meatloaf, stewed potatoes, black eyed peas and corn bread. You haven’t had chicken and dumplings till you have had her chicken and dumplings.  I think her food was the ribbon that tied the family together.  At least our version of the family.  It was certainly an odd assortment of people.  All related, but all so profoundly different, even in the way they approached life.

Nola's Blessing Day

On a sunny day we went to the park as a family to bless our sweet Nola with our thoughts and hopes for her. While we have had a major change in our life, abandoning all tradition is not something we were ready for, and this was very special because we could all participate in a way we couldn't in a traditional LDS baby blessing. 

We all said what we hoped for Nola's future, every single family member. Grandma talked about the bond with her even before her birth. Popa Tony expressed how very cool her name is. Nana spoke of her never ending smile and hope for that joy to continue. Brothers and Sisters all said "I love you" in their way and we are so glad you are in our family. Aunt Meg talked about how we need each other as a family and each other's help. Kyle and I expressed deep deep love for her, our baby. 

Since this was a first for me, I wrote mine down, and after all was said we released the balloons to celebrate her future.

Nola Anne this is a different blessing than the one I thought about for you, but you are way too loved to let this moment pass without welcoming your life and blessing you with our hopes for the future

You own no one any thing but being good natured to others and pursuing the happiness this world has to offer.

Go where you heart leads you while knowing there are all of us here around you now that love you more than you can comprehend

Happy Father's Day

Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit. - Bill Cosby

You are one amazing Dad. We love you TONS and TONS!

Happenings & On my bookshelf

 26 weeks and I can finally, finally say I am no longer nauseous. 

 Summer is here!

 Kyle surprised me with tickets to the 25th anniversary performance of Phantom of the Opera at Prince Albert Hall broadcast at cinemark - Amazing - and the movie theater experience was cool views you couldn't even get from first row and great acoustics

 Started "carding" aka leaving information about not circumcising in places where new mothers might find it: pregnancy tests, expectant mom parking, in pregnancy books, stuffed in layette items, near prenatal vitamins - can you think of any other good places?

 Been going through room by room and purging/cleaning/painting/shampooing carpets or some combo thereof 

 Best Buds said goodbye, Houston bound, many tears shed!

Saw Baby Boo - DID NOT find out gender, didn't even peek. 

_________________________________________________________

What I've been reading:

 A book of LOCAL birth stories that benefits the Tarrant County Birth Network. It was fabulous. I go this Saturday to a start up meeting for the Dallas County Birth Network... Maybe one day I'll spear-head a Collin County Birth Network? We shall see...

 This is about circumcision, of course, and is fascinating. Did you know ancient circumcision was NOTHING like what we do today. It was much more conservative from ritual bloodletting to just a nick in the foreskin or removal of what extended beyond the glans. Then in the Hellenic period when Jewish men wanted to get into the Olympics (it was naked remember and considered indecent for your glans to be exposed) they would "restore" their foreskin by either manipulating it down or stretching it with weights. This upset the Jewish leaders so they started removing ALL of the foreskin from there on out. A practice John Kellogg (yes the cereal guy - he was a certifiable nutcase) pushed in America from a medical standpoint to reduce masturbation addictions.  And now you know the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say.

Got this to inspire me to try all sorts of homemade bread making feats. It looks hard and my motivation has waned.

 A fun read. I think my husband has every single book Stephen King has ever written and every once in a while I pick up and try the ones I haven't already read myself.

 I could have TOTALLY wrote this. Meaning I didn't learn tons of new stuff but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it - she has a great sense of humor. Something every parent of a big family MUST have.

This book has been utterly fascinating. It uses the massive information gathered through eight decades of the Terman study and provides easy to read user friendly 'advice' I guess you would say.  I love that each chapter basically tells you what can shorten your life span then ends with a paragraph on why you shouldn't be too concerned about it. 

Loved the chapter on exercise. I won't spoil it but I bet it won't be what you are expecting to hear.

And the number one predictor of shorter lifespan?

Parental divorce in childhood.

see? like I said - 

interesting.