On November 18, my mom would have been 104 years old. She died nearly fifty years ago.
I'm sorry I do not have a picture of her to share.
But maybe a few memories will be good enough.
She was one of ten sisters who grew up in Nashotah, WI. She attended the little two room school house there and graduated from 8th grade. I have no doubt she'd could have handled the upper grades and college if there had been any real opportunity for further schooling. Like her older sisters, she worked as a housekeeper out among the mansions on Lake Chenequa.
She met dad out at Moose Lake Beach, two miles north of Nashotah. Dad said what told him it was love was the time the car had a flat tire and she helped fix it.
There are a lot of things I remember about her. She was always helping someone, like giving hairdos to our aging relatives. In 1940, she ordered two blankets from a Sears-Roebuck catalog. Laundering one a few months later, she hung it out to dry. When she went to bring it in, it was gone. Her response? "Someone else needed it more than we did."
She wasn't as generous toward the one pet we had. A kitty showed up at our door and was becoming a part of the family. But it made the mistake of jumping up on the table and eating a piece of baloney we had out for lunch. It ended up as a barn cat down the road and was never replaced.
She was an at-home mom until Judy and I were both in grade school. That meant she did a lot of cooking and baking. And teaching us how to fill the kerosene tank of the stove, dusting the furniture, doing dishes, and ironing our own clothes. She made the best pork roasts, holiday turkeys, and Christmas cookies.
In typical teenage fashion, we each drifted out from under our parents influence with school, jobs, and friends. But we did not drift that far from our parents' roof. We had a home there until we each married, even if we did not happen to be in the house for periods of time because of school (in my case) or Coast Guard (in Jack's case).
Once Ann and I married and went off to school in Texas, Mom sent us ten dollars a month as support. Just so you gain some perspective on how significant an amount that was, gas cost 28 cents a gallon and Ann's tuition was $98 a semester.
We always were welcome at home during those days. We seldom got there. And just when we were getting settled after graduating from college and seminary, Mom's high blood pressure caught up with her and she died of a heart attack.
She never met our kids. We were in the process of adopting David when she died and he came into our lives just months later. So they never got to meet her either. My only hope is that I followed her example and they got a sense of who she was by who I have been.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
Merle Howland, 1915 - 2013
Aunt Merle passed away last weekend. It is hard to believe. She was always there ever since I was old enough to notice.
My family moved to Nashotah (WI) in 1936, a year after I was born. It was the middle of the Great Depression and we had to live someplace my folks could afford, and that was with Grampa Freihube. My earliest memories of anyone outside of my immediate family was of the Howlands. Patsy and Billy were about my age and so at Christmas time, we got to play with them and their amazing presents. I have great appreciation for their willingness to let us do that.
I remember Aunt Merle as my mother's younger sister, one of many sisters! There were three aunts in Oconomowoc, two in the Milwaukee area, one in Chicago, and I never could keep track of where the rest were. There were nine who lived to adulthood and they each had families and when there was a family reunion, there were too many cousins to get to know. It was quite impressive to be part of such an extended family. My older brother Jack was great about getting to know all the older cousins but during those prree-school years, I was glad to be in the same town with just the Howlands. They were nice, easy to know, and I could always walk to their house and find a welcome.
Uncle Bill also had a good-sized family, some of whom lived in our village. One 4th of July, I saw some kids who were from out of town put firecrackers into the wood railing on the bridge above the railroad tracks. It caught fire. Luckily, the Howland clan lived next to the bridge and were having a picnic and the men came up in a hurry to put it out.
Two months after WW II began, we moved to Waukesha to be closer to my dad's work. The next we heard, Aunt Merle and her family moved in with Grampa Freihube. They remodeled the house and made it better, though when we visited there it was a little strange. A water closet was added at the end of the kitchen. I wish my folks could have done that! After that nice addition, no one had to go down into the dark, scary basement to go to the bathroom.
That house served the Freihube family from the time of Oscar and Amelia's 1894 marriage in the lovely little Episcopal Church across the road. From that house as the sisters grew to young womanhood, each one went to school and then to work. Most frequently, they were housekeepers in the mansions of the wealthy who lived out on Lake Chenequa. Some like Merle got to work in town at what was once one of the most famous restaurants in the Midwest, the Red Circle Inn.
Each married over time and had families, some as large as their own. My mother and Merle each had three. Helen had two. Louise had one. Aunty Dot and Uncle Harold did not have any and the youngest, Arlene, died in an auto accident before she and her husband had any children. The oldest sisters were married not long after the First World War so they had grown children who had already married and had kids our age.
Summer Sunday afternoons during the war years, my dad would get out the car and our family went for a ride, usually to see one or another of our relatives, including the Freihube clan.
Then came junior high, high school, and college and we didn't have the time to do more than see each other once in a great while. During that time, Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill surprised us by having Tim, their child number three, the very youngest of the direct offspring of the sisters. Eight years later, Billy, who was serving in the Army, was killed in a jeep accident on base. Nearly everyone in the clan attended the service for him at the little Episcopal Church across the street.
Patsy and her husband Tony settled in Mukwonago and became part of the weather observer network for WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee. Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill moved out to the lake near Oconomowoc. Tim grew up and married. At one point, my sister Judy and her husband Lynn were in Texas with the Air Force, my brother Jack and his wife Joana were on the east coast with the Coast Guard, and Ann and I were in many different places in Wisconsin as I followed my career. We were caught up in our own lives, working, raising our own families, and every now and then, touching base with each other.
After Uncle Bill died and Aunt Merle had lived alone by the lake as long as she could, she moved to the Masonic Home in Dousman. She had always been active as a person with church and family and work. She entered into the activities at the Home as it developed into a major retirement center. The last I knew, she was the "paper boy"who delivered the morning paper to many apartments in the complex. In our own retirement to the South (Louisiana and then to Florida), I had reason to come back to Wisconsin and with the help of my brother-in-law, was able to gather some of our family with Aunt Merle. Even in her 90's she was sharp and "with it" during those gatherings. They were way smaller than the reunions the Freihube clan had. But it was a treat to be together, and with her, especially.
It is hard to think about Aunt Merle without thinking about her in the context of her sisters and all the cousins. It will be even harder to think about the fact she isn't there any more where she had been all my seventy eight years.
My family moved to Nashotah (WI) in 1936, a year after I was born. It was the middle of the Great Depression and we had to live someplace my folks could afford, and that was with Grampa Freihube. My earliest memories of anyone outside of my immediate family was of the Howlands. Patsy and Billy were about my age and so at Christmas time, we got to play with them and their amazing presents. I have great appreciation for their willingness to let us do that.
I remember Aunt Merle as my mother's younger sister, one of many sisters! There were three aunts in Oconomowoc, two in the Milwaukee area, one in Chicago, and I never could keep track of where the rest were. There were nine who lived to adulthood and they each had families and when there was a family reunion, there were too many cousins to get to know. It was quite impressive to be part of such an extended family. My older brother Jack was great about getting to know all the older cousins but during those prree-school years, I was glad to be in the same town with just the Howlands. They were nice, easy to know, and I could always walk to their house and find a welcome.
Uncle Bill also had a good-sized family, some of whom lived in our village. One 4th of July, I saw some kids who were from out of town put firecrackers into the wood railing on the bridge above the railroad tracks. It caught fire. Luckily, the Howland clan lived next to the bridge and were having a picnic and the men came up in a hurry to put it out.
Two months after WW II began, we moved to Waukesha to be closer to my dad's work. The next we heard, Aunt Merle and her family moved in with Grampa Freihube. They remodeled the house and made it better, though when we visited there it was a little strange. A water closet was added at the end of the kitchen. I wish my folks could have done that! After that nice addition, no one had to go down into the dark, scary basement to go to the bathroom.
That house served the Freihube family from the time of Oscar and Amelia's 1894 marriage in the lovely little Episcopal Church across the road. From that house as the sisters grew to young womanhood, each one went to school and then to work. Most frequently, they were housekeepers in the mansions of the wealthy who lived out on Lake Chenequa. Some like Merle got to work in town at what was once one of the most famous restaurants in the Midwest, the Red Circle Inn.
Each married over time and had families, some as large as their own. My mother and Merle each had three. Helen had two. Louise had one. Aunty Dot and Uncle Harold did not have any and the youngest, Arlene, died in an auto accident before she and her husband had any children. The oldest sisters were married not long after the First World War so they had grown children who had already married and had kids our age.
Summer Sunday afternoons during the war years, my dad would get out the car and our family went for a ride, usually to see one or another of our relatives, including the Freihube clan.
Then came junior high, high school, and college and we didn't have the time to do more than see each other once in a great while. During that time, Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill surprised us by having Tim, their child number three, the very youngest of the direct offspring of the sisters. Eight years later, Billy, who was serving in the Army, was killed in a jeep accident on base. Nearly everyone in the clan attended the service for him at the little Episcopal Church across the street.
Patsy and her husband Tony settled in Mukwonago and became part of the weather observer network for WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee. Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill moved out to the lake near Oconomowoc. Tim grew up and married. At one point, my sister Judy and her husband Lynn were in Texas with the Air Force, my brother Jack and his wife Joana were on the east coast with the Coast Guard, and Ann and I were in many different places in Wisconsin as I followed my career. We were caught up in our own lives, working, raising our own families, and every now and then, touching base with each other.
After Uncle Bill died and Aunt Merle had lived alone by the lake as long as she could, she moved to the Masonic Home in Dousman. She had always been active as a person with church and family and work. She entered into the activities at the Home as it developed into a major retirement center. The last I knew, she was the "paper boy"who delivered the morning paper to many apartments in the complex. In our own retirement to the South (Louisiana and then to Florida), I had reason to come back to Wisconsin and with the help of my brother-in-law, was able to gather some of our family with Aunt Merle. Even in her 90's she was sharp and "with it" during those gatherings. They were way smaller than the reunions the Freihube clan had. But it was a treat to be together, and with her, especially.
It is hard to think about Aunt Merle without thinking about her in the context of her sisters and all the cousins. It will be even harder to think about the fact she isn't there any more where she had been all my seventy eight years.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Cynicism Today
What is a cynic? A cynic is someone to whom nothing can be proved.
They do not need proof because they already believe it. If they believe it, then it cannot be disproved.
Even if they believe something else that is exactly opposite of something else they believe, that does not make it false. Because the cynic believes both, then there is no argument because to the cynic, both are true.
There are two explanations for this kind of thinking. One, it is genetic and there is no hope of changing the person. The Greeks must have believed that because they executed their greatest cynic, Socrates, because his students brought Greece wrack and ruin.
The other is environmental, that the cynic has power, prestige, and possessions. With power, there is no argument. The powerful wins every time no matter what the argument. With prestige, the issue is privilege of place which wins every argument. This kind of cynic answers to no one beneath him/her. With possessions, the cynic buys whatever s/he wants to be true. Who can argue with success?
I suspect both explanations are true. But either way or both ways, philosophers had better start protesting the cynics of whatever stripe because cynics do not live in a truth-based universe. If they are in authority over us, they cannot help us or anyone else but themselves.
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