AUNT MIL
No one who ever met Mildred Almond Hacela could ever say she wasn’t her own person! Aunt Mil was a woman full of an appreciation of life, with an ability to find humor in the small things that make up our every day lives. To get a letter from Aunt Mil was to know a joke would be included, something to make one laugh and lighten one’s problems. She could get right to the heart of things, no beating around the bush.
Aunt Mil was a generous person, never forgetting a Christmas, surprising one with a ‘little gift’ throughout the year. I recall one time when money was tight and I was struggling to find even grocery money. My son, Taylor Ford, whom Aunt Mil affectionately called “Model T.”, was about ten at that time. One of her letters arrived and inside was a small check and the admonition to buy my boy some ice cream. So I told T., “we’re having ice cream for supper and you can pick out the flavor.” We feasted on Breyers Coffee Ice Cream and felt like royalty! It was in later years that I learned my father, Aunt Mil’s brother, had a favorite ice cream that had been a treat even when the Almond siblings were young back in the Depression days – coffee ice cream! There is something to be said for DNA....
I always appreciated the fact that Aunt Mil and her husband, Paul, came down to my parents’ wedding in the hills of WV. Of course I wasn’t around then, but I have poured over pictures of their time helping my folks pick daisies along the roadsides so there would be flowers in the church. And I always loved the postcards the Hacela family would send from their vacations. It seemed so exotic to go on cruises and other such adventures. When I was still a young child, I went to NJ to spend several days with Cousin Kay, Aunt Mil, and Uncle Paul in their home on Lafayette Street in Newark. It was a different world from my small rural town in WV....I was terribly homesick at first, I recall, but they were all so kind to me and I soon was having fun playing ball in the street, intrigued with the sounds and treats from the Good Humor Man, learning about life in a multi-cultural city neighborhood.
Thank you, Aunt Mil, for being you. For being a free spirit who knew just exactly who you were and how to live life as it came to you – with humor, with acceptance, with respect – and with strength. We will miss you.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
A RED LOBELIA EVENING
A RED LOBELIA EVENING
“What you got a jacket on for?” my landlord asked as he slowed down in his car to say hello to Dango and me on our evening walk. “Well”, I said, “it is 62 degrees and this windbreaker feels just about right.” He laughed and went on down the lane and I went back to pondering. Some evenings are just made for pondering and wandering, I do believe.
After a long, but good, day down at the Reynolds Homestead, I stopped to drop some political material off at the home of some of my friends from church. There’s not too many of ‘our persuasion’ up here on the mountain, but I certainly really like all of us who are! They were busy making salsa from all their fresh garden produce and the smells were intoxicating with that comforting aroma of home. I would have liked to have taken them up on their offer to sit and chat and have a glass of wine, but I knew Dangie would be waiting for me. After twenty minutes of saying I needed to go but each of us bringing up another thing to chew or chuckle over, I finally headed on home, feeling blessed in knowing such folks.
The blessings continued. Sitting on the little round table that belonged to Grandma, just inside my front door (frankly, I don’t even know if I have a key to my house…..), was a big bag of roasting ears (as my mom called corn on the cob). Another dear friend was sharing his bounty and I had supper ready in a few moments flat. How many times growing up was supper a platter of roasting ears and sliced tomatoes? Ambrosia -- the food of the gods.
“Dango”, I said, and he looked up at me with that look of ‘is this one of those evenings when you talk the whole time we’re walking?’ “Yes, hear me out. I had the most interesting of small world happenings over the weekend. Where shall I begin? My mom had a best friend back in Greenbrier County, WV, when they were both college aged and grandpa was the minister at Louise’s family church. Mom graduated from Wesleyan, got married and headed to Chicago and Louise went to Berea College and met Tom, whom she married. Over the years, then decades, Tom and Louise would send a postcard to mom and our family about once a month or so. The friendship was deepened through postcards, which, as you know, Dango, warms my heart. Tom and Louise lived in Winston-Salem and I really can only remember meeting them a time or two, though I knew them intimately through their cards and letters. Louise was especially diligent to send Grandma Flanagan postcards after her stroke and subsequent blindness, and the teen-aged Bethie (that’s me, Dangie) would read them to her. One time, about 1974 or so, Louise sent a postcard of a place called the Reynolds Homestead, down in Patrick County, Virginia. She told the story of how No Business Mountain, a range surrounding one side of the plantation, most likely got its wonderful name – there were so many moonshine stills up there that the revenuers had “no business’ going up there! It was about 20 years later that I unknowingly followed the brown history signs on the highway and stumbled across this incredible 1840s House, beautiful grounds….it all looking vaguely familiar though I knew I had never been there in this lifetime anyway. As a tour guide took me through the House and told me the story of how the mountain got its name, I snapped my fingers – Louise and her postcard!”
“But, Dango, the tale doesn’t end here,” I said (by this time he was actually a little bit captivated). “You know when I drive off to work most mornings and wave at you from Bonnie Blues’ window, I’m heading down to my work as an “historical” something or other at the Reynolds Homestead. Well, one day a week or so ago, I had an email from a professor at Wake Forest University asking me some questions about the history of the House and the Reynolds family. I enjoyed delving into some books and asking questions of more learned souls, researching and doing some history detective work. After I had sent her answers, I noticed she wanted a calendar of our events and she had sent her mailing address – Royall Drive, Winston-Salem. Hmmmm…Louise lives on Royall Drive, but surely that was the city and not like here in Patrick County or back home in West Virginia where people tend to know their neighbors. But what the heck, I would ask. I received a reply that brings warm tears to my eyes. “Oh, yes, “writes the professor, “Louise is my favorite person in all of Winston-Salem. My teen-age son visits her often because he says she is the most interesting person he has ever met. Our cat must feel the same way because about 5 years ago he started going over to Louise’s and spends all day and then comes home to spend the night with us.” My, oh my, Dango, is mom looking down and having a good laugh right now or what? Life is so full of ‘coincidences’ – in fact so full of them that I wouldn’t even call them that, eh?”
For the past couple weeks, Dango and I had been admiring the red lobelia in a neighbor’s lower swampy field. I had no trouble hearing dad’s voice urging me to “go and pick just one – the most beautiful flower in the world”, he’d say as I accompanied him on a housecall in the rural parts of our county in WV, and I’d hesitantly crawl through a fence to get my dad ‘just one’ of these cardinal flowers. He’d practically purr and murmur, “Wont Mother just love this?” (“Oh, yea”, I would think in my 8 year old mind, “only if she doesn’t know you sent me into some farmer’s field and I could have been shot or eaten up by a swamp cow or something!!”). I’d thought about asking the nice neighbor woman who lives there if I could pick one, but she has an abundance of cats and Dango has a much too strong interest in cats, so we’d been content to look over the bank. But tonight, for the first time, I saw one growing beside the bridge, the spot where Dango takes his daily splash in the creek. With my heart beating and a very guilty conscience for picking something only ¼ mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway, a national park at that, I plucked that flower and held it like a tiny baby on the one mile walk back up the hill to home, smiling all the way. The only time I loosened my hold was to take down the big bag of tomatoes hanging from my next door neighbor’s tree. He always leaves his garden sharings there for me to find. A red lobelia evening indeed.
“What you got a jacket on for?” my landlord asked as he slowed down in his car to say hello to Dango and me on our evening walk. “Well”, I said, “it is 62 degrees and this windbreaker feels just about right.” He laughed and went on down the lane and I went back to pondering. Some evenings are just made for pondering and wandering, I do believe.
After a long, but good, day down at the Reynolds Homestead, I stopped to drop some political material off at the home of some of my friends from church. There’s not too many of ‘our persuasion’ up here on the mountain, but I certainly really like all of us who are! They were busy making salsa from all their fresh garden produce and the smells were intoxicating with that comforting aroma of home. I would have liked to have taken them up on their offer to sit and chat and have a glass of wine, but I knew Dangie would be waiting for me. After twenty minutes of saying I needed to go but each of us bringing up another thing to chew or chuckle over, I finally headed on home, feeling blessed in knowing such folks.
The blessings continued. Sitting on the little round table that belonged to Grandma, just inside my front door (frankly, I don’t even know if I have a key to my house…..), was a big bag of roasting ears (as my mom called corn on the cob). Another dear friend was sharing his bounty and I had supper ready in a few moments flat. How many times growing up was supper a platter of roasting ears and sliced tomatoes? Ambrosia -- the food of the gods.
“Dango”, I said, and he looked up at me with that look of ‘is this one of those evenings when you talk the whole time we’re walking?’ “Yes, hear me out. I had the most interesting of small world happenings over the weekend. Where shall I begin? My mom had a best friend back in Greenbrier County, WV, when they were both college aged and grandpa was the minister at Louise’s family church. Mom graduated from Wesleyan, got married and headed to Chicago and Louise went to Berea College and met Tom, whom she married. Over the years, then decades, Tom and Louise would send a postcard to mom and our family about once a month or so. The friendship was deepened through postcards, which, as you know, Dango, warms my heart. Tom and Louise lived in Winston-Salem and I really can only remember meeting them a time or two, though I knew them intimately through their cards and letters. Louise was especially diligent to send Grandma Flanagan postcards after her stroke and subsequent blindness, and the teen-aged Bethie (that’s me, Dangie) would read them to her. One time, about 1974 or so, Louise sent a postcard of a place called the Reynolds Homestead, down in Patrick County, Virginia. She told the story of how No Business Mountain, a range surrounding one side of the plantation, most likely got its wonderful name – there were so many moonshine stills up there that the revenuers had “no business’ going up there! It was about 20 years later that I unknowingly followed the brown history signs on the highway and stumbled across this incredible 1840s House, beautiful grounds….it all looking vaguely familiar though I knew I had never been there in this lifetime anyway. As a tour guide took me through the House and told me the story of how the mountain got its name, I snapped my fingers – Louise and her postcard!”
“But, Dango, the tale doesn’t end here,” I said (by this time he was actually a little bit captivated). “You know when I drive off to work most mornings and wave at you from Bonnie Blues’ window, I’m heading down to my work as an “historical” something or other at the Reynolds Homestead. Well, one day a week or so ago, I had an email from a professor at Wake Forest University asking me some questions about the history of the House and the Reynolds family. I enjoyed delving into some books and asking questions of more learned souls, researching and doing some history detective work. After I had sent her answers, I noticed she wanted a calendar of our events and she had sent her mailing address – Royall Drive, Winston-Salem. Hmmmm…Louise lives on Royall Drive, but surely that was the city and not like here in Patrick County or back home in West Virginia where people tend to know their neighbors. But what the heck, I would ask. I received a reply that brings warm tears to my eyes. “Oh, yes, “writes the professor, “Louise is my favorite person in all of Winston-Salem. My teen-age son visits her often because he says she is the most interesting person he has ever met. Our cat must feel the same way because about 5 years ago he started going over to Louise’s and spends all day and then comes home to spend the night with us.” My, oh my, Dango, is mom looking down and having a good laugh right now or what? Life is so full of ‘coincidences’ – in fact so full of them that I wouldn’t even call them that, eh?”
For the past couple weeks, Dango and I had been admiring the red lobelia in a neighbor’s lower swampy field. I had no trouble hearing dad’s voice urging me to “go and pick just one – the most beautiful flower in the world”, he’d say as I accompanied him on a housecall in the rural parts of our county in WV, and I’d hesitantly crawl through a fence to get my dad ‘just one’ of these cardinal flowers. He’d practically purr and murmur, “Wont Mother just love this?” (“Oh, yea”, I would think in my 8 year old mind, “only if she doesn’t know you sent me into some farmer’s field and I could have been shot or eaten up by a swamp cow or something!!”). I’d thought about asking the nice neighbor woman who lives there if I could pick one, but she has an abundance of cats and Dango has a much too strong interest in cats, so we’d been content to look over the bank. But tonight, for the first time, I saw one growing beside the bridge, the spot where Dango takes his daily splash in the creek. With my heart beating and a very guilty conscience for picking something only ¼ mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway, a national park at that, I plucked that flower and held it like a tiny baby on the one mile walk back up the hill to home, smiling all the way. The only time I loosened my hold was to take down the big bag of tomatoes hanging from my next door neighbor’s tree. He always leaves his garden sharings there for me to find. A red lobelia evening indeed.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
GRANDMA SAID TO MARRY A PREACHER
Grandma Said to Marry a Preacher
“Bethy, if you want to be happy in this life, marry a minister.” At the age of 92, Grandma Flanagan was a beautiful woman. She was blind and bedridden, her long hair wound in a braid up on top of her head, a beatific smile always on her face. Her mind was as sharp as it had been on her graduation day from the Lucy Webb Hayes Deaconess School in Washington, D.C., in 1910. Yes, that was the same Lemonade Lucy known to the country as the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the woman who refused to serve alcohol in the White House. She was a hero to my Grandmother.
I was devoted to Grandma and fiercely protective of her, especially when it came to my own inadequacies. I had to keep her from being disappointed in me. Marry a minister, sign the temperance pledge, take time for daily devotions, visit the homebound, tithe one’s money, and pursue education? I was a teenager, a wild free spirit, an adventurer who knew few bounds. Thankfully a love of learning and a yearning to spend time in spiritual discussions with Grandma kept us close. Her gnarled hand gliding across the quilt, reaching for mine, was a signal to sit down and hear a story.
“Yes, Beth, I married your grandfather when I was 39 years old and never intending to marry. He was a widower, a minister with six children, and I felt it was my calling to leave my work in the immigrant lumber and coal camps and join with him. My own father married us in his church at Rosby’s Rock. Someday I hope you can travel to that little town and see where the B&O Railroad tracks were joined on Christmas Eve, right in the middle of the Civil War. Now where was I? Ah, yes, your mother’s birth a year later was a gift from God, surely as much a miracle as Elizabeth giving birth to her son, John, who became John the Baptist. And now you are here with me.” She squeezed my hand. “It wasn’t long after I took on that role, that Reverend Flanagan was put in the TB Sanatarium up in Terra Alta. Yes, I had my hands full with the children and the church near Wheeling, but everyone helped. The church folks were my family. Of course, Grandpa was soon well enough and we were moved down to Salem, in Harrison County, where we were commissioned to help them build a new church building. But that’s a story I’ll keep for another day. I’d surely like to hear you sing a hymn right now. Could it be “How Great Thou Art” - you do that one so...robustly.”
Why is it, almost 40 years later, on a sunny winter’s day, hiking down a lane in the Blue Ridge Mountains, that my Grandmother’s words come back to me? “Bethy, if you want to be happy in this life, marry a minister.” I ponder my life of adventure, of love and divorce, of working many jobs, of relationships that have come and gone, and I realize what she meant by those words. Although she may have been literal in her intent, she knew as well as I, that ministers are simply human, with the same fallacies as each of us. I have known ministers as family members, as friends, as mentors. I spent a few months getting acquainted with Reverend Jim Bakker, much humbled as he left prison, Tammy Faye remarried, no money, and an indomitable spirit to write a book and get his life back on course. As a broken man, he was a true minister. And as I thought about Jim and others, I realized Grandmother was saying that to marry a life of ministry is the key. We are called to contribute, to care for others, to grow as a person, to learn to listen, to humble ourselves, to exalt in this gift of living. And to reach our sometimes bruised and gnarled hands out to others and tell them the story that never ends.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Mundaring Rotary Club Memories
Greetings to the Mundaring Rotarians - Western Australia,
How blessed I was to come and live among such fine Rotarians and their Rotary Anns, as they were known at that time, so long ago - 1975! The club was young then, but active and welcoming and dynamic. I was your first Exchange Student and couldn’t have wished for a more perfect fit than with the 28 men who each became my friend, my ‘uncle’, or even my father. I lived with 4 families over the course of that year and loved every one of them - the Chappells, the Trevillians, the Hills, and the Richmonds. Their homes were in Parkerville, Glen Forrest, and Chidlow. Our lives, my life, revolved around what was then the ‘small’ community of Mundaring and the trip ‘down the hill’ to Midland, where I attended Governor Sterling High School. Heather and Brian Hunt became my ‘counselors’ and dear friends. With the fear of forgetting names and leaving out special times with so many of the other fellows and their families, I must point out the generosity of several of the Rotarians who took me on family trips: The Lambs, The Marshalls, Henk Westoff and Pip Colburn. Someone from the club arranged for me to ride in a huge sheep carrying truck up to Moora, where the Rotary Club there took me to the ocean and fishing (see picture above!). The owner of MMA (the airlines at that time) was a Rotarian in Perth, who gave free flights to several of us exchange students around the state during that year, and I especially remember spending some time at Exmouth and Port Hedland. Frankly, I had more adventures than I did ‘schooling’ – and the better education for it, I do believe! I was lucky to cross the Nullabor by car (before it was completely paved) with Doug Hill and his son, Geoff (in picture above). Ted Marshall and his family took me down to the southern part of WA where I saw the amazing rock formations and climbed the Gloucester Tree (see above photo). Where better to turn 18 and celebrate one’s birthday than on Rottenest Island, an amazing week spent with the Trevillians and their darling Christy. My stay with the Richmonds on their goat farm and experiencing a vegetarian lifestyle was another fine lesson in the diversity of Australian home-life. I remember going to a big Rotary Conference in Geraldton, with Pip and Henk as my drivers, stopping at monasteries and other sites in the middle of ‘nowhere’ and being thrilled by the history (and if you were fortunate enough to have known those two men, you know it was quite the trip with much laughing, joking, and singing!). One final act of supreme kindness was the Mundaring Rotary Club arranging a train trip across Australia with two other exchange students during our last weeks in Australia. We were met at the train or bus stations by Rotarians and their families in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney – treated like royalty in their homes and states at every stop!
My year as an Exchange Student had a profound effect on shaping my life. I have family in Australia whom I consider as much ‘kin’ as my own family. I have made friends that have lasted a life time. Some of them have come to visit me here in the United States (Heather and Brian can tell you about their adventure staying in our little house on Lake Champlain in Vermont - what a fine time!). The Hill family brought me back to Australia for one of Doug and Olivia’s grandchild’s wedding a few years ago. Wow – it was real life deja-vu! The memories of 28 years ago came to life once again. In the recent picture above, I am beaming. I knew that I had come home again and was amongst true friends who had welcomed me into their lives and into their hearts all those years ago.... a shy West Virginia girl who had come waltzing to Australia and found the dance divine!
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