St. Patrick’s Day

Twenty-six years ago my father celebrated St. Patrick’s Day at a dinner and party hosted by the local women’s club in the little town where I grew up, Pewee Valley.  My mother had died, after an extended illness, just two months before, in January of that year.  Mom’s college sorority sister and our family friend, Betty Stoess called Dad and invited him to that community event.  Betty likely saw it as a good opportunity to get Dad out and around old friends for an evening of fun.  I’m sure that when she called, she made her invitation sound to Dad like he would be doing her the favor.  Betty’s husband, Clayton, could not go and she had two tickets that shouldn’t go to waste.  Small places are often like that, with people looking out for each other, and Betty Stoess had certainly been a perfect example of that kind of hospitality in our community.  In my family, just the mention of the name Betty Stoess evokes images of casseroles (called “hot dishes” by my North Dakota in-laws).  This was because Betty always kept us supplied with various casseroles during my mother’s illnesses over the years.  

I imagine that my father was looking forward to this outing.  He would have known everyone in attendance, as my parents had lived in and been active volunteers in this little community for many years.  I suspect that he searched through his closet to find something green to wear and I know that wore a special St. Patrick’s Day button pinned to his shirt pocket that night.  Later, that button would be the topic of much discussion, speculation and wonderment.

The Pewee Valley Women’s Club “clubhouse” and meeting place was small stone building on the north side of the railroad tracks.  Originally the building was a bank and if you saw it you wouldn’t be surprised at that, because it looks like a bank, solid and strong, with an entrance framed by white columns.  My mother had been a member of this club for many years.  I remember the year she was appointed or elected vice president of foreign affairs, largely because of the fact that she had taken me on a whirlwind tour of Europe the previous year.  There weren’t many “world travelers” back then in our little town.  I can’t imagine what that position was supposed to encompass, but it brought her much amusement, as she joked about her “important” role as the foreign affairs (wink, wink) officer for the club.

Anyway, that evening would be my father’s last evening, because sometime that night, after returning from the party, he died at home and alone.  He was 57 years old.  And, although my siblings and I would have given anything for more time with him, I think we would all agree that it seemed fitting that he spent his last evening in the way that he did, surround by the community, which he loved.  

Science, medicine, and the death certificate would tell you that my father died of congestive heart failure, a deteriorating condition that he’d had for several years.  His heart was weak, causing fluid built up in his lungs, eventually leading to death.  But everyone who knew him believed with certainty that was not the reason he died.  Some truths are like that; they go against logic, science and reason.  If you ask anyone who knew my father, they would likely tell you that he died of a broken heart.  It is a phrase we have heard before and you might wonder if it is a mythical concept.  An extensive scientific study from Finland tells us that it isn’t a myth.  That study showed that those most vulnerable to die, after the death of a spouse, were men, under the age of 65, whose spouse had died during the previous six months.  My father fit the profile completely.  He had been married to my mother for 35 years and they had known each other since their high school days.  I can’t say that my parents had a flawless marriage, if such a thing exists.  They had their difficult moments, misunderstandings, and occasional fights.  But, anyone who knew them had no doubts that they were completely devoted to each other.  Their bond went far beyond the surface, and had that kind of deepness that others sense but can’t really describe.

A few days before that St. Patrick’s Day my father sent me a funny St. Patty’s Day card.  He had tucked into the card a small white piece of note paper with letters “YDLY” written in the center, an acronym he used that stood for “your daddy loves you.”  I still have that card and the piece of note paper.  I also have the button that he wore to the St. Patrick’s party that night, the one that caused such an interest following his death.  Many had laughed about it at the party that night and all would remember it afterward.  The button has a cartoonish picture of a dancing leprechaun and says simply, “March the 17th, Rest the 18th.”  He did just that.  And somehow I know that my mother was there to take his hand as he moved from one realm to the next, another of my “unscientific” but certain “truths” that gives me great comfort.

-Mary

See: “Mortality after the Death of a Spouse: Rates and Causes of Death in a Large Finnish Cohort”, Pekka Martikainen and Tapani Valkonen.  American Journal of Public Health, August 1996, Vol. 86, No.8

  

Am I My Grandmother?

My daughter has just started to reach the age when she can begin to see me in herself.  You might remember this as a scary time when you find yourself saying, thinking or doing something just in the way you remember your mother or father would have.  Often it is something that as a child or teen you found particularly annoying about your parent.  Then, at some point, usually when you have children of your own, you hear your parents words coming out of your own mouth.  You are shocked and surprised at you own utterance or behavior.

When my mother used to say something that sounded just like her own mother (my grandmother Emmy) my father would simply say “#2 Maple Crest Court”, which was my grandmother’s address.  Often my mother fell silent and I’m sure felt “caught” at behaving exactly like her mother.  You have to know about my grandmother, Emmy, to understand her influence.  I’ll simply say that she was a very “proper” lady and good manners (especially table manners) were next to godliness in her book.  She was often overwhelmed by a meal at our home, five children being just too much for her system to handle.  Once she was asked partway into a meal why she wasn’t eating, and she replied that it was because one of my brothers didn’t have his napkin in his lap.  The next time she came to our home for a dinner, my three brothers tested her by purposely not putting their napkins in their laps, just to see if she again refused to eat under such circumstances.

My mother wasn’t quite as much a stickler for perfect table manners but she did set fairly high standards.  Most of the rules were standard things like, no elbows on the table, no “shoveling” of food into your mouth, no slouching, and no smacking of food while you chewed.  If you were seen to be eating before grace was said, you would suffer the embarrassment of being pointedly asked to say the blessing and everyone had to wait while you quickly chewed and swallowed before you began, so that you could do so without breaking the “talking with your mouth full” rule.  I don’t remember any stipulations about clothing except that the boys were not allowed to eat with their shirts off, even though in the summer they might have run around all day without a shirt.  One brother, who was a teen at the time, tested this rule by sitting down to dinner shirtless. My mother’s response was to take her own shirt off and sit down to eat, covered on top only with her brassier.  He was embarrassed and quickly went to put on a shirt. She had made her point.

Every Sunday evening for the past ten years or so my father in law has come over for “Sunday Dinner.”  I wouldn’t say it’s exactly formal but we do eat in the dining room, not the kitchen, and I try to make it nice and somewhat special for him.  But, lately, I find my grandmother Emmy popping up in myself at these meals.  In my husband’s family tradition, for instance, toothpicks used at the table after dinner, are perfectly acceptable and seen as promoting good oral hygiene.  But, inside my head Emmy and my mother are screaming foul.  Another of my “issues” is that serving forks and spoons are often unused in favor of one’s own fork or spoon when retrieving food from a platter or dish.  I politely and softly discourage this behavior, mostly with “Emmy like” looks across the table at my husband. When I express my dislike and discomfort with these behaviors, Doug calls it the “Emmy gene” kicking in.  And, like my brothers response to my grandmother I believe that he enjoys testing my limits slightly, just for fun.  This Sunday, I even threatened to brush my hair at the table after dinner, and announced that it was no different than grooming one’s teeth with a toothpick.  Doug and his dad were appalled at the idea of a hairbrush at the table.  Mind you this talk was all in jest, but I began to realize that it might be something that my own mother might have uttered.  And, a comment like that would have embarrassed a younger and less bold me.  

Now here is the thing, when I think about it, I am being just plain silly to be concerned with such things.  There are no children at home to guide and instruct. It’s just the three of us and it’s not really a formal dinner. My father in law especially should be forgiven for any “Emmy violations” since he is elderly, frail, and his memory has pretty much slipped away.  He didn’t grow up with the Emmy rules.  I know that there were different social rules on the farm he grew up on in North Dakota, and I’ve certainly violated some of those.  Instead I should just be grateful to have him for another Sunday dinner. He is almost 86, in poor health and there probably won’t be many more Sunday dinners with him.  I’ve concluded that the ONLY reason that these things bother me is that they seemed to have been especially drilled into my psyche as a child.  What is it about these things that come back to haunt you?  Twenty years ago I probably would not have been bothered by less than “Emmy perfect” table manners.  Am I turning into my strict grandmother, or my mother?  It is interesting to me that this tendency to take on some of the annoying characteristics of our elders seems to become more apparent as we age.  It is frightening at times.  Do you agree?  How have you "become" like your parent or grandparent?

-Mary    

Villains

On Friday night Doug got home early and we headed downtown to one of Sacramento's brewpubs for an early dinner, so we could catch a 6pm movie at the old Tower Theater.  Surely you've heard of the now defunct Tower Records.  Well, that business started right down there by the old Tower Theater in Sacramento.  Anyway, the movie we went to see was, "There Will Be Blood."  Daniel Day-Lewis won the Best Actor award for playing the villain, Daniel Plainview in this film, and yes he is a pretty despicable villain!  So, since I've been busy with my jury duty service, I decided to post this article that Doug wrote about a villain in his family history.  I'll be on jury service for another three weeks.

George Barlow- My Favorite Family Villain

So where are all the black sheep, the villains, in the family tree?  Surely we have them.  But with the hundreds of wonderful or at least solid and stolid ancestors, why don’t we hear more about the bad ones.  Is it because we are afraid to admit we are associated with them and we edit them out?  Is it because we want to forget about evil? Probably the records of the bad are erased from the record book more often than not. But it’s not a bad idea to remember that evil is present, may be nearby, and that it takes the will of people to oppose and defeat it.  In genealogy, we are rarely treated to a story of a truly bad person. Here’s one from my genealogy, preserved because the New England Puritans were such good record keepers.  In this story, my direct ancestors, including George Barlow, are in italics.  Don’t worry, it’s PG rated.

The Puritan migration to Massachusetts went full force from 1630 to 1640, and then stopped.  New England was filling up, and a new heresy had arrived from England—Quakerism, converting many.  The Puritans of Boston hated the Quakers who, like themselves, were outsiders and non-conformists, just newer ones.  The Puritans persecuted them viciously, including the hanging of Mary Dyer and three others in 1660.  But that’s another story.

Quakers settled in the Plymouth Colony towns of Sandwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth, and Dartmouth and of the early Quaker settlers was Daniel Wing, an original member of the Spring Hill Friends Meeting, in 1659, the first in New England. Because Quakers did not believe in taking the mandatory government loyalty oath, Daniel resisted, and the authorities fined him 5 pounds. They later fined him 10 pounds for refusing to inform on other Quakers (“refusing to aid the marshall”) in Sandwich.  Given that 5 pounds was a year’s wages, these were staggering fines. Daniel protected his property from government liquidation by having his brother administer his estate, thereby effectively declaring himself legally dead in his own lifetime.

The Sandwich marshall that Daniel resisted could only have been George Barlow, who appeared in Sandwich in 1657.  There is no record of his origins.  One observer wrote that Barlow had “not a single good trait.”  He had no wife but several children when he came to town and within a year was made constable, jailer, and special marshall for Sandwich, Barnstable, and Yarmouth.

Colony records show that George Barlow was ordered as constable in 1659 to search the homes of Ralph Allen and two others for evidence that they were associated with the Quakers, because “they may have in their possession papers and writings which are considered scandalous and dangerous to the colony.”

As constable and fine collector, Barlow received a ten percent commission of any fines or property he collected. In addition to taking their belongings, Barlow liked to taunt his victims by confiscating items in a way that hurt the most. Barlow  drove Ralph Allen’s Quaker brother out of town, then took the cow, all the corn in the house, a bag of meal, and the family’s only cooking kettle from Ralph’s sister-in-law, Priscilla, leaving her with no means to cook the food she no longer had.  

But George Barlow’s own house was in disarray.  Three of his daughters-in-law were punished for “cruel and unusual practice” towards George.  He was ordered to return a cow named Daisy that he had taken from his grown daughter Jane Besse in 1662. George’s will bequeaths his land and possessions to the children of his second wife, but only 5 shillings each to the two surviving sons of his first wife (name unknown), Aaron and Moses.  George Barlow clearly did not have the Puritan signs of grace, and was a drunk, to boot.

How did George Barlow  and Daniel Wing end up forever joined on the same family tree?  Barlow’s disinherited son Aaron Barlow married Beulah Wing, the seventh of Daniel Wing and Hannah Swift Wing’s ten children, and became a Quaker himself.  Aaron and Beulah had 6 children and moved down the road to Rochester.  Aaron later served as the town's Deputy to the General Court (the colony’s legislature).  Aaron’s other disinherited brother Moses, married Beulah Wing’s cousin.

As the anti-Quaker hysteria started to recede, by the 1670's, the Quaker pioneers began to reenter the mainstream of colonial life.  King Charles ordered persecutions of the Quakers to stop in 1662.  The Court restored Daniel Wing’s citizenship in 1669 and appointed him to a minor public office (surveyor of highways).

-Doug