Three Mothers

There's a noise in my head.  It's the soft push of a thigh on a knee peddle and the slow tick, tick, tick speeding up into a faster tick, tick, tick, tick, tick of a sewing machine.  It's the soft murmuring of women's voices gathered around a table and the clip, clip of their scissors.


But let's start here.  My mother's doctor told her she is suffering from TMB.  Her children have never heard of this syndrome and we were wondering what it could be.  My mother's doctor has a good sense of humor and Mom likes him.  TMB apparently means "too many birthdays"!

Mom was moved to assisted living on Sunday.  She is eighty-eight years young and has lived independently, with little assistance, all her life.  She is now small, weak and frail; her body bent with osteoporosis.  She is stricken with diabetes and must have insulin injections two times a day.  She is unsteady on her feet and her doctor says she is only running on a couple of cylinders from her weak heart.  She needs to live with someone and despite my brother Paul and his wife Marcia's offer to share their home with her, she's choosing to go into assisted living.


My mother is the fourth child of six children in the Stewart family, three boys and three girls.  My mother's name is India Irene but she prefers Rene.  My Mom and her younger brother Carl are the only surviving children.  They were raised in North Carolina and mom finished high school with a GED.  Her father suffered a stroke as a younger man and all the children of working age had to get jobs immediately to help out.  Mom's older sister,  Robbie Elaine, was in her late 20's when her father had a stroke and she stayed home to help care for him and the younger children so their mother (we grand-kids called her Ma) could go to work to support the family.

THE BARTON STREET HOUSE

Mom and Dad married just before he was deployed to France with the Air Force during World War 2.  When he returned they lived in apartments in South Arlington and my older brother and sister and I were born there.  When we moved to Barton Street Mom had a husband, three children, a big house and a huge yard to care for.  She was a domestic Goddess;  the cook, the cleaner, the gardener, the laundress, the child minder, the giver of baths and groomer of braids.  After all, it was the 50's.  She must have been exhausted when she laid her head on her pillow at night.

MOM IN THE LIVING ROOM ON BARTON

As I look back I confess I never felt particularly close with my mother.  She was always so busy and after Shirley was born four years after me, she really didn't have time to do much of anything except work from sun-up to sun-down.  She didn't read with us or help with homework.  She wasn't into playing with us I suppose because there was no time though I think she lacked imagination for game playing.  We weren't allowed to have friends over or go to other friends houses. I think she thought it was enough that we had siblings and easier not to transport kids or take care of someone else.  We also only had one car.  Some 1950's car and then the "woodie" stationwagon.  Mom excelled at taking care of her family and providing for us but she wasn't the kind of mom who taught us anything other than the basics.  I could set a table and do the dishes.  I could rake leaves and make my bed. The time and patience for teaching me how to cook and do the laundry just wasn't there.  And to be honest, I don't remember asking for those lessons.  I did what I was told for the most part. Dad was coming home at 5:00pm and I didn't want her to say anything negative about my daily behavior!

DAD WITH THE FIRST THREE! THAT'S ME ON THE LEFT

It wouldn't be fair to say that Mom was anything other than a good mother.  Now that I've raised three children of my own and stayed home doing it after the twins were born, I realize what an incredible amount of energy it takes to "do it all".  I really am very much like my Mom.  I was 32 when I had my first child.  Mom was 32 when she had me.  I was 36 when I had the twins.  Mom was 36 when she had my younger sister.  And she had two older children.  I honestly know that Mom did the best job she could with the tools, time and talent she had.  I turned out okay right?  To be fair, she loved me the best she could.  This I know.  And that's all anyone can do and all anyone should want or expect.

I think Mom's imagination was cut loose in her garden.  I understand that as I LOVE to garden also.  She had fantastic azaleas and people would come over just to look at them.  She put in a flagstone back patio.  She planted yummy tomatoes along one of the fences and grew a lot of other vegetables too. Snowball bushes, hydrangeas, violets, roses, magnolias, forsythia all flourished in her yard.  She loved her spring blooming bulbs in the little round and along her borders.  It was an old-fashioned, southern-style garden and it was lovely and it made her happy.

MOM IN HER GARDEN!  THAT'S THE "LITTLE HOUSE" IN THE BACKGROUND

SANDY AND I ON THE SWING-SET.  NOTE THE MATCHING OUTFITS!

Robbie, or Aunt Sis as she would come to be called, eventually moved into the Barton Street house with our family after Dad's home renovation.  My maternal Grandmother, Ma, moved in also.  I don't know the particulars of the arrangement or how it came to be that my father would allow his sister-in-law and mother-in-law to move in, but in they moved and we became one BIG family.

SIS AND MA IN THEIR SUNDAY CLOTHES!

NOTE PAUL'S BEDROOM WINDOW UPSTAIRS AND THE LARGE OAK TREES IN THE BACKYARD.

The second floor addition to the Barton Street house consisted of four large rooms and a bathroom.  My brother's room occupied the space in the front of the house looking out over the front porch.  The room had an interesting ceiling line following the pitch of the roof, twin beds and an attic storage space with a little door on it. I remember playing games of I Spy and hide-and-go-seek in that room with all the lights out and just a flash light operated by my brother.  There was lots of pants-peeing going on from sheer excitement and terror!

SANDY, PAUL AND I IN THE LIVING ROOM.  THE WINDOW LOOKS OUT ON THE WRAP-AROUND PORCH

Next to his bedroom and at the top of the stairs was a full bath and down the other side of the hallway were the other three bedrooms.  The first room on the right was my Grandmother's bedroom.  Straight across from her bedroom was a big room which would eventually become my bedroom but it was my Grandmother's sewing room first.  At the end of the hall was one huge room that ran the length of the house covering the big eat-in kitchen and den - it was our room.  Shirley, Sandy and I shared that big ole room that looked out over the back yard and the little round in the center of the yard and the alley that ran the length of the property and the little house and the 3 large oaks.

SORRY THIS PICTURE IS SO LIGHT BUT IT'S US GIRLS AND OUR DOLLY'S ON THE STAIRCASE.  SANDY ON THE LEFT, ME IN THE MIDDLE AND SHIRLEY ON THE RIGHT.... ALL DRESSED ALIKE

THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE AND PORCH.  NOTE THE ROSES BEHIND US. AND THE FACT THAT SANDY AND I ARE DRESSED ALIKE AGAIN AND IN THE PICTURE ABOVE THIS ONE!  PRETTY MUCH THE SAME HAIRDO'S TOO.


Ma and Sis soon became our extra mother's helping with meals and around the house and giving us their time.

Aunt Sis never married.  She had had one true love but when her father, or better yet, her mother, needed her after her Dad's stroke I think her life's ambitions shifted.  She worked out of the house in various secretarial jobs when she lived with us on Barton Street.  She never learned to drive but knew the Northern Virginia bus system very well and walked to the bus to take it to work each day.  She would venture into Washington, DC to shop and would let us tag along sometimes.  We loved to go with her and especially to look at the windows of Woodward and Lothrop (or Woodies)  when they were decorated for Christmas.  Sis bought her candied fruit for her Christmas Fruit Cakes there!  She made the BEST pancakes on Saturday mornings, just slightly crisp around the edges and perfectly poofy in the center!  She also loved to read and would read to us.  Our favorite story was the "Teeny, Tiny Woman" from a fairytale book of stories.

AUNT SIS AT HER PIANO

Sis' room was the second bedroom downstairs that faced the porch so her view was of Barton Street.  It was a lovely room and she had collected lovely things:  a delicate lacy bedspread; a stuffed gray cat that lay on the center of her bed with a zipper pouch that held her nightgown!; a glass Japanese Geisha girl standing under a glass canopy; china faced dolls in long white gowns; a rocking chair; doilies on her tables; perfume bottles; memories.

Of the three little girls being raised in the Barton Street house Shirley, the little sister and the baby, was her favorite.  She loved that little girl and was very proud and protective of her.  I found myself in trouble and spanked several times at the hand of Sis for teasing Shirley.  Unfortunately for Shirley, she cried easily from teasing and Sandy and I would have a good go at her occasionally!  Sorry Shirley, but that's what the youngest gets I guess!  She spent extra time with Shirley, brushing and braiding her beautiful long brown hair and sewing and smocking pretty dresses for her.  She took her to Florida on the train to visit her brother Bub.  She took me along once too.  Sis was quiet and sweet and a bit shy.  An old maid I guess but she was lucky to have her daughter in Shirley. Shirley was so lucky to have a second mom in Sis.  She was a true friend to Shirley and to us all and would do anything for us.

SHIRLEY, SIS AND I AT THE NATIONAL ZOO IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Ma's room was lovely too.  She had a double bed and a small closet and what I thought was the most magnificent piece of furniture; a mahogany wardrobe with an oval mirror on the door and drawers down one side.  Inside the wardrobe door she kept her coats and she had a particularly pretty black, curly-fabric (lambs wool?) coat hanging there and in the deep pocket she kept a handful of silver dollars.  She would let me put my hand in that pocket and feel the heavy coins.  Occasionally she would give me one.  I confess, once I took one for my own without asking!

Ma must have been born with long gray hair because that's the only way I ever remember her and it seems every picture I have of her or have ever seen of her she has had the same hair.  She put it up into a French twist every day.  At night she would put on a long white nightgown and bend over, her head upside down, letting her hair fall and there she would stand brushing and grooming her beautiful hair.  I thought she was lovely.  Some nights I would stand just out of her sight and watch her brushing her hair.  I could catch a glimpse of her in the wardrobe's oval mirror.

MA HOLDING ME IN NORTH CAROLINA WHEN I WAS CHRISTENED

AND PUSHING ME IN MY STROLLER

Just like Aunt Sis was Shirley's special someone, Ma was mine.  My second mother.  Because she slept in the room next to mine and my sisters, she would be the first to know if there was anything amiss in our room.  Like too much giggling or too much singing, which happened a lot!  Petula Clark was a favorite singer of ours and Petula's song  Downtown could be sung in what we thought was perfect harmony!  If we were ill she'd be the first to come to help.  And Lord knows, when I was scared guess who's bed I headed for?  I slept with Ma I swear two whole weeks after I saw Hitchcock's "The Birds"!  In fact, she was the only woman's bed I headed for when I was scared or lonely or didn't feel well.  I would very quietly stand in her room until she noticed I was there.  Or faintly whisper her name, "Ma", until she would throw the covers back and let me in.  I loved her and accepted her unconditional love.

AN EASTER SUNDAY GETTING READY TO GO TO CHURCH. ME WITH THE WHITE "THING" ON MY HEAD.  SANDY WITH HER COOL VEIL.

Ma worked from the house.  In her fabulous sewing room there were two machines, one for her and one for Sis. A huge work table with storage underneath that held bolts and bolts of different fabrics stood in the center of the room.  The woman was a VERY talented seamstress and worked for a company out of DC that special-ordered bedspreads and canopies and pinch-pleat curtains and bolsters and pillows and slipcovers, etc.  You name it and my Ma could sew it!  The man at the DC company that brought Ma her orders was named Odell and every week he would show up with measurements and bolts and bolts of fabric and new orders.  Every week he would pick up whatever Ma had completed the previous week.  I have no idea if she made decent money but I can tell you the finished work that left our house was fabulous.

After a long day of sewing and after dinner, Ma and my mother would sit in our large formal dining room and hem curtains and close pillows and do any finger work leftover from the days work in the sewing room.  Sometimes Sis would join in too and the three women would talk quietly amongst themselves.  The clip, clip of their scissors.  The soft murmuring of their voices.  Three mothers.  Our mothers.  How lucky we were.

 MOM AND SIS SHORTLY BEFORE SIS PASSED AWAY