Mom was an elderly lady living with us in our home when she died on Dec.26, 2009, and I loved her. She died aged 94, at home, in her bed. After 94 years, there is a lot of backstory, far beyond the immediate, frail trappings of old age.
In 1915, in Glasgow, Scotland the streets and tenements were still lit by gas, and most goods made part of their journey behind a team of horses. A young man, who’d mustered out of the Royal Army to work as a street car conductor, and his wife, had their third and last child, the only girl. She was born at 6:30 am, May 21, at home, under the care of a neighborhood midwife known as Nurse Gates.
Mom and her brothers grew up in Glasgow, a rough manufacturing and ship building town, not unlike Baltimore. They were poor kids growing up, but in an age with no TV or sound movies to portray luxury, they truly didn’t realize their poverty.
With two big brothers she had an entrée into pursuits beyond her age, helping them assemble radio kits, and tagging along for soccer and bicycling and hiking. Since the boys were Boy Scouts, she joined the Brownies, dreaming of adventures like her big brothers had. Once she realized that there’d be no camping, axes, or rappelling, she was done with Brownies.
She had a classic education in British public schools. By the end of secondary school, she’d had 6 years of French, 2-3 of German, and 2-3 of Spanish.
She was an active Scots girl, and she enjoyed hiking the highlands, bicycling, and traveling in Europe on foot and occasionally by train. From one of a number of letters and notebooks I found after her death:
A sight I shall never forget appeared before me when I was a late teenager.
After walking through the Luxembourg woods all day, we arrived at our destination, a medieval castle perched on top of a hill about 600 feet high, overlooking a deep valley.
Cleaned up, well fed, shoes discarded, we lay along the castle walls, a large stein of beer loosening our tongues and laughter and… imagination.
She briefly attended the University of Glasgow to major in Liberal Arts, but never got into a major before her dad died, and the resulting further impoverishment forced Mom to drop out to go to work, and augment her Mother’s meager income.
Their financial privations notwithstanding, Mom expanded her world in any interesting way she could. These included writing pen pals around the globe. In fact, her last penpals, immediately before World War II, were a young German fellow, and a Japanese military cadet.
At the outbreak of hostilities, Mom joined the Glasgow Fire Department as a dispatcher. What were you doing when you were 25? This what Mom was doing, again from old notes:
Another night, under a bomber’s moon, and God knows what to follow.
The sirens began their tremulous wailing, sending the adrenaline coursing through veins, shocking us into action. I jumped up from the dinner table, jammed a sweet roll in my pocket, shouldered my gas mask, plonked my steel helmet on and headed out.
Mother joined others in a central shelter, prepared for a long night. And it was.
As I ran towards the fire station, 100 yards away, a voice called out “Take shelter, there!” I recognized the voice and replied “It’s me, Uncle Bob, on my way!”
“OK. But take care! Hurry!” The steady throb of aircraft engines could be heard. Lots of them. My feet scarcely touched the ground.
For hours, dull thumps were heard as bombs landed and exploded near and far. We worked like demons, sending people and equipment out, calling for reinforcements, ‘til anyone who had any training at all was filling in.
Fires! Fires! Fires! Finally there was no one left to assign, the barrel was empty.
An urgent call came in. A big one had landed in the next sector. A bad one. No doctors were available. One of our doctors was at the station, and one last small truck.
I drove, the doctor at my side. My orders: get him there and get back as quickly as possible. It was difficult driving through some places, with rubble and wrecked homes.
We were stopped and had to say who, where, and why, then we were told it was impossible. A mine had knocked out the bridge, devastating buildings all around. They packed a terrific charge.
There was the wreckage of a house I knew where two doctors had lived and died. Across the road, a four story apartment building, built of red sandstone, was a shambles. Then I discovered something.
My stomach gripped me and turned over. It was a woman’s hand, sticking out of the teetering jumble of huge slabs of sandstone. I went over, bent, and touched it. Fearfully I grasped it and the fingers twitched in response. Laying flat on my stomach in the dirt, I called. No reply. I called again. Nothing. I cried out “I’ll stay with you.”
Feet ran in every direction. Noise all around. I held the hand. A policeman, half his uniform sucked off by the blast, stopped. Yes, I was OK. Then he asked himself: “What the hell can we do here?”
A voice across the road yelled “Clear out! Gas mains are ruptured!” There was no denying that voice. The policeman hauled me to my feet, grabbed me by the arm, and we ran. Soon after, the ground shuddered, and with a roar gas exploded into flames 50 feet in the air.
The truck was still there and untouched. I headed back, hot tears of anger filled my eyes and ran down my face. I had been so useless, so totally useless to a suffering person.
An hour or so later, it all stopped. The anti-aircraft guns were silent. The treacherous moon shone down indifferently. Finally, sirens wailed their steady “All clear!”. Some fresh faces arrived, and we went home. Rescue, ambulance, and soldiers were busy. What a night.
Mother was all night (in the shelter). I cleaned up, slept for a few hours, then got up for breakfast and to go to work.
Could I have done more for that woman? I had really done nothing. I thought about it for many days. I don’t think about it at all, now, unless I reach far back into my mind, and it disturbs me.
In my family, apparently, that’s what little girls were made of.
Soon, this wasn’t enough excitement, and so Mom enlisted in the RAF, trained in meteorology, and was stationed at various bases in England, Scotland, and Wales throughout the war. But on a little island under attack from the planet’s largest war machine, there were light moments, too.
From Mom’s notebooks:
Packages of seeds remind me of a time, years ago when I was stationed at an airfield on an island just off the coast of Wales. The area was sandy, which was not surprising since it overlooked the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The senior flight control officer was a natural gardener, who had to find an outlet for those feelings, even in the midst of war. The control tower was right out in the field beside the two runways, a mile from nowhere, and the Met office was on the first floor. That was my abode on duty.
Very carefully, one day the Senior Control Officer planted some precious flower seeds, which he had obtained from an unknown source. Now we, the two female meteorologists, did not care for him because he always gave us a hard time. Instead of precious flowers, we bought some seeds for carrots and onions, and the first chance when we were both on night shift, we dug up the flowers and planted the veggies.
He watered them faithfully and tended them as his first born. In fact, I was somewhat surprised at the display of feelings he showed for a small part of nature. Time took its course and we waited and waited. Happily, I was on duty when he suspected that the feathery carrot leaves and tops of onions were really not exotic flowers.
He pulled them up and stormed into the tower raging and cussing nonstop, his face contorted with anger.
“Who the hell did this?!” he yelled. “I’ll find out and they’ll go to Africa!”
I began wondering if (we’d) left any clues. Rumors and queries went around, but nothing surfaced. Everyone enjoyed the joke but our gardener. No one ever knew who the culprits were, but for the culprits themselves.
For some unknown reason, usually males are suspected of playing such practical jokes. I have found this quite helpful on several occasions.
Even in wartime, they tried to have a bit of fun, such as films, and concerts and dances. When a classical music program was to be given near her post, Mom invited a quiet, handsome Yank to join her and her friends.
Mom certainly had reflected on the verbally harsh man that was her father. She has alluded to some type of critical confrontation with her dad, over his treatment of her mother. She would never go into any detail, but to say that his behavior improved. Mom chose not to repeat those circumstances in her life.
On Dec.7, 1944, at St. George’s Episcopal in Glasgow, Mom and Dad were married. T/Sgt dad labradog was in his Army Air Corps uniform, and Mom wore a borrowed gown. A wedding cake, baked by an army cook traveled 20 miles overland, sitting on planks across the knees of four GIs in the back of a Jeep. Their Honeymoon was a few days in the Lakes District of northwest England. In a favorite picture, the young couple are out in a rowboat. One sits demurely in the stern, hands clasped on knees. The other exerts rhythmically at the oars with muscular ease.
Mom looked good rowing in those photos!
After the war, Mom labradog came to America in 1946. Mom in the new world lived in New York, Burlington, Philly, Pittsburgh, and Maryland, following Dad’s eventual career with the US Weather Bureau.
Mom all her life remained a British subject, thus she never voted again after coming over here. But she did find ways to do her civic duty, working for charities, and assisting at my schools. And she wasn’t above subversion.
Working at a major catalog store, Mom did office work, reviewing the applications for charge accounts. She learned something most people then didn’t know. People would apply for store charge accounts. Those taking the applications would put in a tiny code, a light mark in one corner, if the applicant was black. Those papers so marked then were destined for the trash.
Or they were, until a certain young woman went to work each day, with an eraser, quietly removing the coded marks in the corners. She was never discovered, and black families got a crack at building credit as they struggled for their American Dream.
Mom imbued me with the family history and common lore, and even though I didn’t really know these relatives, they became
very real in Mom’s stories. She and I went to Britain in 1955 and 1963; I was two and ten, respectively. At ten, it was a great trip for a kid; museums, the historical sites, even seeing a stage musical for the first time, My Fair Lady, at the theater.
I recall going to a gathering of some of her relatives - they’d all come to see Mom and her boy – a clamorous greeting, that dissolved into chattering, singing, laughing and eating and folk dancing and reminiscing. As the evening drew to a close, we had to bid farewell these friendly Scots. We were sent off by them all singing We're No' Awa' Tae Bide Awa', a traditional Scottish drinking song of parting and remembrance. To be celebrated in song by your relatives!
This was really the beginning of my understanding of how much
Mom gave up to pursue her life in America. She was a devoted correspondent with her friends and many relatives in Britain, all of her life.
I have many great memories of Mom in my childhood.
When she’d gotten me to master the rest of being a five year old, she decided to teach me to read. It felt like some puzzlement for days, and then it took off. She lit a fuse in me for reading that hasn’t burnt out yet.
Mom sat one afternoon on her porch when she noticed a little boy from down the street – not really a neighbor, nor anyone whose family Mom knew. But he was scuffing along, dragging a bookbag and sniffling. Mom called him over to chat. He was sad because it was report card day, and his stunk, especially reading. His mom would be mad. So Mom asked this boy if he’d like her to teach him to read. Mom sent him on home, with his disastrous report card in one hand, and a note in his other, saying she would, with his mom’s permission, like to teach him to read. This was a different time; his mom didn’t call the cops, she said yes. So this boy stopped by our porch, each day. She’d have a little something for him to read and some pencils and paper, and phonics games and patience. Next report card, the little guy came running first to Mom, to show her the miraculous grades he’d gotten, then on to home and his mom with the great news.
Mom loved reading the classics, and like a good British girl she read Shakespeare, Kipling, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, the classics. All of these she could quote at length from memory.
She didn’t mind seeing me learn the hard way. Once in second grade, Mom was accompanying me walking to school. I don’t remember why. But there was something special about this to me that day. I surely enjoyed having her undivided attention. As we neared school, we overtook Earl. Earl, the weird kid. He said “Hi, Mrs. labradog.”
Nobody liked Earl much, he was so odd. A head like an egg upholstered in blonde suede, and a very nasal, lisping, exaggerated way of speaking. He didn’t seem to enjoy the playtime pursuits most of us did; he’d just hang out and act odd along the margins. Today, I think he might be said to be suffering some gender confusion. To us kids in the neighborhood, he was was Earl the weird. And now Mom was not only distracted from me, it was by Earl, and she’s talking to him and all, just like he was a person! But, but, he’s Earl the weird kid!
So I grew fractious at sharing Mom’s attention, and with oddball Earl, yet. I let slip my whining complaint. Mom leaned over and told me, in no uncertain terms, That if one does not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings, one may speak to whomever they wish, whenever they wish to do so. And if Earl was a nice boy, and spoke to her nicely, she would certainly speak with him as she pleased!
She finished her word with Earl. She then gave me a kiss and a “Have a nice day”, and I was left to stew in what I learned.
It was nice, growing up around Mom and Dad, seeing a way that two people can get along, so well, for so long. Mom and Dad liked to travel, and did so every single year, camping, canoeing, in the mountains and going to the shore. At home they bicycled, an oddity in those days if you weren’t in cardiac rehab. And they walked all the time, to stores where the neighbors drove. The neighbors learned they didn’t need to stop and offer them a lift. Always hand in hand, they’d stroll to the nearby mall.
Those hand in hand strolls were part of an affectionate web of little gestures that were as reliable as sunrise. It may sound corny, but it worked. Always a kiss and a little embrace when one of them left the house. Again when they returned. Always, please and thank you. Always conversationally courteous. They made any decision of any significance together, and although they had lively and detailed discussion, there was never a raised voice, never a word to each other said in anger. This isn’t an
overburnished memory of a fond son - never a word in anger.
Why, how could you even be married to someone, if basic politeness was not as low as the bar would go? Civility was the very humble brick, from which they constructed a 48 year love story, every single day.
Another thing about Mom. Sometimes, I’d come in and find her sitting, having coffee with a neighbor. I’d have to scan for clues - is this just a visit, or one of those vent therapy sessions? I’d know not to stick around when Mom was trying to politely defuse somebody’s distress over their wayward kids, slack spouse or faithless relative. She was the original bootleg shrink.
Being part of my circle was all the recommendation she needed to think the best of you, and it got you that most valuable currency that adults dole out to teens, The Benefit of the Doubt. If I knew you, you got the backstage/all access pass from Mom.
Not only did knowing me get you acceptance from her, she may even like you better than me.
One time, after repeatedly catching myself and my girlfriend in
the clinch, so to speak, Mom offered her assessment that my girlfriend wasn’t really like that at all, and these repeated episodes were surely a product only of my rude inclinations and questionable influence. Since Mom’s chastisement of me was leading directly into her defense of my girlfriend, I left well enough alone!
She had an interesting way with chastisement. When in high school, it seems guys often find need to enter each other’s homes by window, usually long after midnight. One such night my friend Nick stopped by. Before he could waken me, in fact before he was all the way through the casement window, he looks up to see Mom looking right at him. And this is all she said: “If you are good enough to be in our house, you are good enough to use the door!”
When Nick headed to college, I often went up to visit him on weekends, for long sessions of screwing around in the city. Mom liked to collar me just before I’d leave, and hand off a grocery bag that she randomly stuffed from her pantry. Anything. Instant coffee, kippered herring, chocolate chips, dried fruit, whatever. She seemed to know nutritious shopping wasn’t on our agenda, nor in our wallets.
Mom liked to combine generosity with thrift. If she got a new freezer, that old one (looking like they day it was purchased) would not go to a dump, it would go to someone we knew. When the new lawnmower was bought, she’d ask me who among my friends had an energetic kid who wanted to make some money cutting grass, and that’s who’d get the old one. Waste not, want not.
An old friend gave her rememberance of Mom labradog:
Your mom will always be in my memory as that woman who loved you unconditionally with all her heart. I always thought, 'This is it, now he's really going to get it this time'. But nope, your mom was somehow able to suck in her breath, smile, and refrain from whacking you, each and every time. And you (of course I was totally innocent) certainly gave her daily opportunity to exhaust her patience.
She was always game for something new, and Mom socialized easily with my friends. In her late 60s, she went sailing with one of my pals on his old wreck of a Moth racing scow, held together by string and spit and force of habit. She never gave it a second thought, enjoying it all immensely. She studied auto mechanics in continuing education classes. Mom earned an A.A. in General Studies, at the age of 69.
She loved singing, and did so all the time. She sang to herself far more often than she listened to radio, records, or CDs. At home, while doing chores, and even in bed, singing herself to sleep. She performed with a chorus in Florida.
Over Mom’s time living with Mrs.labradog and me, she probably spent as much time in conversation with my friend John as she did with everyone else. They were the perfect match: loquacious John always has a story to tell, and Mom always had time to listen. They were a lovely contrasting pair, too: John, a prototypical mountain man freak, just off work, shedding wood chips or gravel and multilayers of work clothes, the final layer being gleaming wirerimmed eyes and wild hair and beard; in rapt conversation with the genteel little old British lady, not a white hair out of place, brooch on her sweater, leaning on her cane. She was a game little old lady in a new place, and one of my craziest pals became her favored and frequent visiting neighbor.
My old friend Jimmy was long a favorite of Mom’s, but not just for his easygoing manner. Jimmy was always a reminder to Mom that there was at least one other guy in the world who views life in as idiosyncratic a way as I do. And Jimmy was not starving in the streets, so I likely wouldn’t, either. In this way, he was a comfort to Mom for many years.
Beth, an old landlady/roommate, always impressed Mom with the active life she built for herself. Beth got her education (big points with Mom), delves into science for a career (big bonus points with Mom, who much admired science and engineering), maintains her home herself, and pursues the kind of active life Mom pursued. Had Mom been 35 or 40 years younger, she and Beth would be playing seniors field hockey.
Mom was fascinated by Mark and Linda, and their life on their organic farm, at the end of our road, and enjoyed a description of any visit I made there, and what they were doing in the field and greenhouse. She was especially tickled at Mark’s extensive interest in meteorology.
A connection Mom very much enjoyed was with Allison (Jim’s wife). Though they were of very different ages, from disparate corners of the world, speaking very different versions of the same language, Mom looked at Alli and saw one thing: A fellow tomboy. One who likes to do what needs to be done, with minimum fuss and no bullshit. They both like being a mom and wife, but just because they can be nurturing doesn’t mean they’re saps. No pearls when these girls vacuum. They shared the same favorite source for recipes: The I Hate to Cook Book!
Finally, of course, there is my own Mrs.labradog. Mom couldn’t have been more delighted unless my wife had been her own daughter. In her, Mom saw some sliver of hope of redemption for me.
Mom admired my wife, who graduated into a medical field in her 40s, for her determination to acquire education regardless of her age; plus, my wife is a reader! In my Mrs.labradog, Mom saw a girl who’s far more invested in anticipating a good time, than anticipating what she’ll wear to it; an action girl, whose elaborate cosmetic and beauty equipment consists of a hair brush, sunscreen, Deep Woods Off, and chapstick.
And in my Mrs.labradog (who is, like me, a volunteer EMT) Mom saw a girl who can answer a siren in the middle of the night, knowing there could be, as Mom said in 1940, “God knows what to follow.” I guess what Mom saw when she looked at Mrs.labradog, was a type of reflection. What a coinkydink, huh?
What did I learn from Mom? The basics, of course.
Do it yourself.
Make it yourself.
Make yourself useful.
Keep in touch with people who matter to you.
Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
No situation is so bad that you can’t make it better, and then carry on.
When you stand on the shore, looking over the vastness of the ocean, don’t be afraid of what’s on the other side.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom labradog, wherever you are!