My mother had a disturbance in the freckles on her arm, from falling against a wood burning stove as a child. She told me of cold water apartments, no tub, but water heated pail by pail to fill a galvanized tub. Just a toilet down the hall. Of moving a lot, having to do with paying less rent - never fully explained. Her father was on the pokey, or was the on the dole? during the depression, and the Canadian government had him spreading ashes on streets in the winter, hauling trash in the summer. Aunt Evelyn told me of how he drank, a pleasant enough sot. Evelyn hired out as a nanny and housekeeper, glad to get away.
For granny, of her ten children born, five survived to adulthood. Michael, the oldest, drowned at 17, caught in the undertow so the story goes. Granny outlived all but two, Walt died the day I started college, his wife Peggy lives on. Evelyn of pancreatic cancer, after a decade caring for Ernest who fell off a roof and survived brain injured. Grace of breast cancer after clearing her house of the hoarding after her husband Elmer died. Only the youngest, Jerry (without his wife) and Mary (with her bastard of a husband) live on. Well, I think Uncle Jerry is still going, I'm not sure. He and mom were not close. And I'm not close to any of them. And this was the side of the family I liked.
Lots of cousins, Jerry had eight, Grace had two, Walt, two, Evelyn one. And they pretty much all reproduced. Liked my cousins, met them at funerals, mostly. The great aunts and uncles, then... well. I did go to a lot of funerals, said a lot of rosaries at funeral homes. Might be part of why I don't mind heavy, ornate furniture, but don't want to live with it. Funerals are good, because no one expects anything but sadness and solemnity, and usually people start telling stories and having a laugh. Weddings are just the opposite - everyone expects them to be so much fun, and they have always disappointed me. Strained, fraught, and dismal.
Not all the cousins survive, either. Brian and Larry are gone, probably more of Jerry's offspring. More will come.
Not that I'm feeling morbid, I just remembered stoking the coal furnace as a kid, and mom's stove injury, and the rest just unraveled.
6 comments:
Great insight about funerals and weddings.
Not a lot of death in my family. My paternal grandfather died when I was a baby, so I have no recollection of him. My maternal grandfather died of ALS when I was 11 or 12. My two grand mothers died when I was in my twenties, both having suffered alzheimers or dementia of some sort. My parents and my wife's parents still going strong.
It is surprising how little things bring back memories.
I'm looking forward to the Rixon annual get together .It isn't formal atall. Great Uncle Arthur is 90 this year! Not many of the nine left (his wife Iris is one of them) out of the survivors from thirteen babies. It wasn't easy to survive being a twin then, although one pair did
More life - big families in difficult times - meant more death I suppose. My grandparents on both sides survived one or more of their children. We've been pretty lucky in our generation, thinking about it.
This is very evocative. The strong sense of a family that remains and can surface and surprise when many are gone, when all are dead to us (as mine are to me, too, as you know). I so agree with you about funerals and weddings :-)
(o)
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