For St. Patrick's Day, my dad and his siblings

I did not know I was Irish until I was in college and someone identified my last name. My father was proud of neither his family nor his heritage. Abandoned by their father; neither his mother or her family able to support five more children, he and his siblings had a hardscrabble existence. 

Aunt Laura, the oldest girl, remembered the Akron Children's Home as a nice place, with all the books she could read and her only taste of birthday cake. My dad and my Uncle Bill, the oldest, didn't do well in the Children's Home. My dad turned 17 on August 28th, and by the next weekend was in the army.

Uncle Bill was sent to Orient State School, a mental institution, where he remained until my parents sprung him and took him in in the sixties. He was presumed mentally retarded, a good catch-all for institutionalization. Over his many years at Orient he taught himself to read, and read "to all the boys." When he died his collection of books was enormous. He had every Zane Grey ever published.

The two youngest, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Helen Rita, were eventually taken in by relatives. Aunt Ruth by an aunt, Aunt Helen Rita by her grandmother.  Aunt Ruth was trained to and became a nun, Aunt Laura was trained be a secretary. She met her husband in the course of her job and married. Aunt Helen Rita just eloped one day. All the marriages were long and happy.

Here are pictures  of them I've put together from several sources.

Dad and his little brother, Uncle Bill.

About 1911.

Dad at his wedding, 1942.

Dad and his beret, in the sixties.

Dad in the mid seventies.

Uncle Bill in the fifties. So few pictures of him.

Aunt Laura, aged 16.

The oldest of the three girls.

Aunt Laura in her fifties.

Aunt Laura at 72. 

She was the snappy, fun loving aunt.

My Aunt Ruth, in the sixties.

When her order adopted the less formal habit Aunt Ruth went for it.

She even dyed her hair so her students would not know it was pure white under there.

Aunt Helen Rita, the youngest sister.

She was quiet, demure, meek.

Aunt Helen Rita in her seventies.

The three sisters in the twenties.

Aunt Ruth, left, Aunt Helen Rita center, Aunt Laura right.

Three of the siblings at my sister's wedding, late eighties.

Standing, me (the bridesmaid)

My cousin Pat, who actually is my dad's cousin and another abandoned child of his Irish clan.

Next Aunt Helen Rita, by her daughter Elaine.

Next, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill.

Seated, my cousin Marge, Aunt Helen Rita's other daughter,

and her husband Tom.  

The Contest

Jacquelineand… at Cheapskate Blethering  took me on as a project. She offered to show me how to do a better job with social media to promote my Etsy shop, and for an example for me to see and learn from, dreamed up a little contest with a prize.  It’s a grand little contest, I am impressed. But you must click on the link over to her place to see the rules and the prize.

Jacqueline also suggested I provide some more information about the premise of the little Etsy shop, weaving, and gave me five questions to answer via my blog, Cup on the Bus. Since she actually gave me five and a half questions, and the name of my blog came right out of a weaving incident, I’ll make its story number six.

The questions are:

1. How did you get started weaving?

2. What do you enjoy most about it?

3. What kind of yarn/thread do you use? And why?

4. Do you have a favourite piece to weave?

5. What is the most time-consuming aspect of weaving?

5 1/2. If you had to choose between coffee, chocolate, or Scotch eggs, which would it be and who would you have it with? 

Since the contest runs several days, I believe I’ll answer them a blog at a time. There’s a good story behind every question, and a good story teller can spin a story out forever. Or, tell it a day at a time.

How did I get started weaving?

I came to weaving much the same way my Aunt Laura and Uncle Frank did. By accident and fascination. Aunt Laura was my dad’s oldest sister. I’ve written several stories about her. Aunt Laura and Uncle Frank never fell out of love with each other. I wish that for every couple.

Uncle Frank was casting about for something to do in retirement. He played the organ very well; perhaps restoring them would be interesting. He and Aunt Laura looked at an organ to restore in Lima, Ohio, and after lunch explored to the other end of downtown, The Oriental Rug Company. Aunt Laura said he just walked from loom to loom, besotted. She attributed it to the loom treadles, like organ treadles.

For whatever reason, looms came to their tiny house and took over the living room. The big Newcomb was delivered through the framing of the family room addition they built. Aunt Laura and Uncle Frank became excellent weavers, gave classes, sold at a local art show. Uncle Frank wove rugs on the Newcomb Loom that my sister eventually acquired. Aunt Laura wove placemats on a little Gallanger and exquisite scarves and runners on her favorite loom, a thirty inch Fanny LeClerc.

The only reason I know about these looms is because my sister and I eventually bought them.  I saw my aunt and uncle at family gatherings, but paid little attention to their weaving. Then my sister told me Aunt Laura was selling all the weaving equipment—Uncle Frank’s dementia was progressing to the point he could not weave, which depressed him more. Aunt Laura wanted all reminders out of the house.

My sister already had the Newcomb, and I was fascinated watching her tuck right into making all sorts of rugs. But, that Newcomb was overwhelmingly big. I couldn’t imagine sitting behind it and weaving a rug. Jan reminded me that Aunt Laura still had the LeClerc, the Gallanger and a table LeClerc for sale, plus all her weaving thread, yarn, and the rest of the stuff in a weaver’s repertoire.

In 1983, with the help of my brother-in-law’s truck, those beautiful looms came to my house, together with boxes and bags of tools and thread. The Fanny still had almost a full warp of Lily 20/2 cotton threaded Star of Bethlehem. If any of you are weavers, you will know I came home with the prize.

Our dear aunt turned away from weaving as completely as my sister and I turned to it. We quickly learned not to ask her questions, they were painful reminders of a happy recent past. Not until after Uncle Frank passed away could she discuss weaving, and by then my sister and I had turned to weaving as a career. Aunt Laura came for a visit to the home and studio Jan and I purchased together and went from loom to loom saying how happy she was to have visited “this little piece of heaven.”

And that’s how I became a weaver.

I made this vest for Aunt Laura from the first fabric I wove.

A shortage of hand woven dish towels!

My first loom was a 36” LeClerc Fanny, the sweetest little counterbalance loom in the universe, and I learned to weave using my aunt’s old Marguerite Davidson pattern book. I still have the book; she and my uncle wrote charming little notes to each other about their weaving in the book.

I wove some beautiful, soft as butter fabric on that loom, made a lovely shirt, sold it for too little money, back in the neophyte days. The loom was not very practical for yardage fabric and we went on to 44” looms for fabric. My little Fanny kept busy with place mats and dishtowels, and that sort of labor intensive, small profit products neophytes are prone to. Eventually that Fanny went onto a creel and wove rugs to the end of our weaving days.

When I wove towels, I wove them as yardage, not as individual towels.  I fulled my yardage, cut 40” towels, hemmed them and put them on the towel shelf in the booth. If I found a weaving error, or came up short, that piece became a house towel. They still dried dishes. We have a drawer and a half of house towels; our heirs and assigns will be tossing them.

A Shaker towel, about thirty years old. Raggedy, but serviceable.

A checkerboard towel I wove twelve or so years ago. Good shape.

A twill towel Beth wove maybe fifteen years ago.

But friends? They didn't have a drawer and a half of house towels; maybe only a dozen or so they’d been gifted. At her house one day Linda held up a towel and said to me, through the face sized hole, “You know you’re not forgiven for giving this up.” From all around, I heard “My towels are wearing out.” As if twenty years were not enough.

Former weavers don’t let friends down. I borrowed my daughter Beth’s little 8 harness Harrisville. It had close to a full towel warp that she put on in probably 1998. She wove for us before she was married, which was 2000, but her looms collected dust from the day she met Bill, in 1998.

Her loom was threaded for an undulating twill on six harnesses.I simply could not pick up any rhythm or speed on the pattern. I was the weaver now; I’d thread up something else. It took me a month, I’m sure, and I threaded up an eight harness checkerboard I used to weave on another LeClerc loom I had in the old days. Beth’s Harrisville is nice, but really cramped; just not enough room to comfortably make a thirty treadle sequence down there. My LeClerc’s were so nice.

The undulating twill pattern.

Undulating twill off the loom.

In the "fulling machine."

Thank God I did not live a century ago.

After the washer and dryer. I think it resembles flying geese.

I moaned to my sister that I needed to take time to reconstruct that Shaker plain weave/twill variation I used to weave by the yard; I was through with all this six and eight harness nonsense and ready for a sturdy little workhorse of a pattern and towel. “Well, if you still had the bible,” she said.

I was off like a shot to rummage in the book case. The bible, where we wrote down every pattern we wanted to make again, because we learned bread and butter is weaving what we sold, not selling what we wove. At least not until we introduced the new stuff next season.

The bible was there, right beside Marguerite. I tore down the loom another time and threaded again, for another month, plus the week I went to Ann’s. I simply don’t have the time I used to have, when I did this for a living.

The Shaker towel!

Rethreading the loom, one more time.

I took a dozen butter yellow Shaker towels off the loom last weekend, plus one short house towel and I’ll finish off the warp with a lovely teal. I've given away the half dozen yellow checkerboards I wove, and half the Shaker towels, with the other six earmarked. In fact, tomorrow I’m mailing off a couple to a customer from twenty years ago who recently tracked me down and sent pictures of her poor, dear jackets we wove.  A story for another day.

Hot off the loom Shaker towels.

The next towel weft.

When Beth’s loom is empty I’ll warp up again for another round of Shaker towels. I know more chief bottle washers who might like a couple of towels that will outlast them. If I don’t already know your address, don’t be surprised by an email asking for it.

I've also asked the universe to find me an old 36” Fanny at a good price. Wouldn't that be nice!

A 1951 LeClerc Fanny counterbalance, four harness, six treadles.

About the vintage I bought from my Aunt Laura in nineteen eighty something.

Archery camp

Laura started archery camp this afternoon, at Old Trail School in Bath, on Ira Road, just over the river past Riverview Road. I’d not been there before; nice campus.

I haven’t been that way into the valley since taking Hamilton to and from church every Sunday, and occasionally spending the three hours between enjoying the valley, the river and the herons. Sad Hamilton couldn't be bothered to stay in touch with the men who would underwrite his mission. Like his father, I agree the structure and direction could only benefit him, as much as proselytizing turns my stomach.  Now he wants sent to college, and his dad says “Get a job.” I suppose he’s waiting for a really good job for a summa cum laude high school graduate to come up the steps and knock.

Metro Parks has an archery range on the way to Old Trail, and we stopped there to show Laura what a range looks like. No targets were up; I suppose because the range wasn't booked for the afternoon. However, the posts the targets hang on are there and all the backstops.

As we left I said she’ll know what she’s looking at this afternoon. “Yes,” she replied, and I also know the string goes toward my nose!”

I dropped her off in a classroom; I bet they start with theory. “Only William Tell and Douglass Fairbanks shot arrows over the shoulder. The string goes toward your nose.”

I opted to wander the valley while I waited. When I picked her up I learned there is an up and down to a bow, and it’s necessary to bend the elbow of the arm holding the grip, else the string will thwang you on the forearm. I do recall that from gym classes in college. She will most certainly go back tomorrow.

I drove down Ira to the end, which is not the end, but where the road is closed because no one has enough money to put it back together again. Since the only landowner is the national park, it’s their problem.

In the order in which I took them:

Impatiens around a mail box 

I'll be. Hale Farm. I'd forgotten it's on Ira Road, past Old Trail.

It's a sort of living history place now. Admission charged.

The Hale House, but you can bet not the "homestead." Took some money to put up such a house.

Ditch lilies, brown eyed Susans, and I think, phlox. 

A barn at a private home on the way down Ira.

 The Covered Bridge!

It was on our way to Aunt Laura and Uncle Frank when I was a child.

There was a sign with clearance over the cross beams.

Ira Road makes a sharp right under the bridge.

Drivers had to blow a horn to see if another driver might be in the bridge.

It's part of the Towpath Trail now; not a road.

Looking at these beams and timbers, I doubt it is the bridge of my childhood. Too new. 

Part of the rewritten history of the valley, courtesy of the National Park. 

On the other hand, another generation can look at and understand a covered bridge.

The river under the bridge and

the origin of one of Dad's favorite remarks as we passed through the bridge.

"Mary (an artist friend) sat in the river and painted the bridge."

"Did she have a ladder?"

"No. She sat in the river and painted the bridge."

Along the river bank.

On the way back up the road.

I cut off the openwork metal piece on top of the church.

On the Hale Farm property, one of the buildings moved to the site to emulate early 19th century life.

Must be private property.

I believe this barn and the next are on Old Trail School property.

Altogether too precious, and that's not a compliment.

Raspberries along the parking lot, waiting for Laura.

I left them for the birds.

  

Whupped! Leaving three trails.

It has been a long and mentally draining two weeks at work.

When I am 77, when Laura is through school, 

I won't run for office one more time

And then I will spill the beans.

But until then, it's one more time through the electoral process.

I love chickadees. So cheeky.

I was off to run another errand and stopped short to watch this one.

"Oh, it's her again."

Back to cracking seeds.

The background greenery is the fall crocus and Aunt Laura's iris.

The four hundred plus crocus that we removed last fall

Obviously did not include the rear guard.

Some of them may join some of Aunt Laura's iris

Over the ravine. The ravine lilies are in rare form,

But I'm too tired to go take a picture.

Spending the day at Linda's tomorrow.

Warping the ten foot loom.

Gas is up twenty cents a gallon!

Must I work until I'm 83?

Imagine yourself someone else

I've thought recently about people who write books with characters. How they can live in the lives of all those people, start to finish, until done with them. Or actors, moving from character to character, not letting go of the persona until “it’s a wrap,” or however a film ends.

This isn't like walking a mile in someone’s shoes. I can do that, mentally. I've lost loved ones, some so young. I know gut wrenching, mindless wailing grief. I've stood at the finish line, cheering a marathon runner on to the end. I've listened to old folks relive their lives. Slipping into a character isn't walking a mile in their shoes. A mile or so and I can leave.

I cannot imagine a soldier. I've never been terrified. I cannot imagine myself a refugee; I've never been hungry enough, or seen my children in want of life’s necessities. I cannot imagine living in a patriarchal society. I cannot imagine accomplishing heroic feats of strength or daring. I cannot even imagine myself accomplishing a feat.

I cannot imagine having a screaming fit, or throwing things. I cannot imagine assembling or preparing a gourmet meal; setting a table for eighteen; having a dining room big enough. I can imagine cleaning up afterwards.

I am too literal. I am more corner German greengrocer than shape shifter. I cannot imagine how a writer moves through a piece of fiction, hanging all the facts in their precise places, characters saying the right things, arriving in the proper place, at their time.

When I was very young I wrote stories in my head. Once I had such a complex bit of conversation forging on in my head I began reciting it out loud, to keep everything straight. “Who the hell are you talking to,” my cousin asked me, from up in his apple tree. That was so daring, to hear my three year older cousin swear, I made up a story about that, too. In my head, of course.

I am so literal, my stories all are about me, and the characters in my life. I can write about them, but only as I see them.  My world of flat Stanley’s. Take my cousin Bob, there in the apple tree. I loved his mother, my Aunt Laura, but never understood Bob. I once met a man who knew Bob for years. He mused a moment and said “Strange couple, Bob and his wife.” I nodded. “Live like the lilies of the field,” he added.

Lilies of the field, a lovely image. Living that close to the moment, not. So, Bob hasn't been in my stories. Because when all is said, I’m of the corner German greengrocer stock; he got all the Irish dreams to live on. I cannot imagine that.

1943, the greengrocer's son and me

My Grandfather Rolf

25 years of crabgrass roots

The front garden has turned into a mega project.  We have put in about six hours a day the last two days, with varying numbers of helping hands.  We thought we would finish today, but the old rock garden was down there, under an inch of crabgrass roots. 

My son-in-law and my oldest granddaughter, Rebekah, come to visit tomorrow.  Maybe they will pitch in for a bit, after the parade, before the cook out.  I really think we can lick it in a couple more hours with just two more willing participants.

The plan for yesterday was to clear out the section with day lilies and Aunt Laura’s iris.  Beth and Caroline came for lunch and stayed to help.  Beth was quite pleased; she’d hoped for some more iris and went home with two bags of iris and two bags of lilies for their work.

Today was to be all downhill.  The last section back by the steps and along the sidewalk, behind the lilies.  Emily and I were on it by nine; she was digging and I was sifting.  Jan came home from taking Hamilton to church and found us fighting the dilemma:  the old rock garden, currently engulfed by crabgrass.

We started a lovely garden out there twenty five years ago.  We even imported a couple truck loads of rocks for a rock garden at one end.  We weeded and fussed out there for a few years, but come the day the business took our full time attention, the poor garden went by the way.  Way by the way.  An inch of crabgrass roots over the stones by the way.

The rocks are out.  The kids decided they will go back along the foundation of the house, graded from large to small. Sounds like a fine job for them.  Laura also wondered how long the garden would look nice when we are done.  “As long as there are grandchildren here.”  She smiled.

It will be finished tomorrow, or early on next week.  (I’ll let you know if my son-in-law is a hero tomorrow.)  We had to offload one wagon of screened dirt today in order to keep on.  Maybe one more wagon load tomorrow, and the wagon already is half full.

And, all day today a sparrow alternated between the ridge of roof and the oak tree, voicing his total displeasure at our presence.   Mama sparrow continued her routine of tending babies; I occasionally saw her at the opening, passing in the grub.  We figured papa bird could just get over it. 

Suddenly Laura said “Look at the tiny bird!” and indeed there were two tiny sparrows in the grass, pecking at seeds.  Our presence did not disturb them in the least. I took some pictures and looked again.  They were gone.