PRESERVING-FAMILY-HISTORY.COM
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Memories All of us have stories to tell and memories to share, but it may seem like too big a task to capture them. But doing a little is better than doing nothing at all, and just an afternoon or two can yield results. Try thinking about a person or an object from your childhood. Or perhaps recall a recipe or a family custom and see what memories come back. Then write the ideas down, paying attention to whatever details of color or sound or smell, etc. that you can remember. Read your ideas over and see what you have: a story, an image of a person or place, or a memory of feelings and associations. All are valuable. Push and pull your words around, maybe change the order of some sentences, and add a few words for transitions such as however, later, also, at another time. Most people will find they can also take out some words that aren’t really necessary. Let your work rest for a few days and then reread what you’ve written. Let someone else read it and give you feedback. Then polish a little more. Repeat the revision process if necessary. You don’t have to achieve prize-winning writing, but you will have rescued a piece of your family’s history from oblivion. Later generations will thank you. I’m
sharing some memories from my own life to give you an idea of
what you can do without having to write a full-length autobiography. We seldom noticed the bowl in its corner, yet it caused excited anticipation for the whole family when it came out of the pantry. Others would have seen just a large, heavy ceramic mixing bowl, yellow, with a wide blue stripe flanked by two thin white ones, and a crack running from its rim halfway to its base. But for us it was a signal of good things to come. Mom always used the bowl when she made oatmeal bread, something she did only a few times a year. Her homemade bread, fresh and hot from the oven and slathered with butter was one of our household's most special treats. Mom was an early riser, so sometimes the sight of the bowl, its top covered with an old towel to keep the dough from drying as it rose, greeted us when we came into the kitchen for breakfast. Other times it would be there when my two older brothers, Peter and Dick, and I came home from school. I’d want to peek to see how high the dough had gotten, but if Mom caught me she’d stop me. “Don’t look,” she would say. “The yeast has to work in secret.” Finally, she would empty the bowl, and shape the dough into loaves to finish rising in their baking pans. Then the loaves would go into the oven, and the heavenly smell of baking bread would begin to permeate our apartment. When the loaves had been removed and cooled a bit, one was selected for immediate consumption. Sometimes the bread wasn’t ready when I went to bed, so Mom would get me up to join my elders for a piece or two. Oatmeal bread was a welcome addition to many holiday meals. It could also appear on the table because of my brothers’ return home for college vacations or leave from their military service with the Navy. During my twenties and early thirties, the bread was frequently served on New Year’s Eve. Since no one in my immediate family drank alcoholic beverages, New Year’s Eve was celebrated as a family occasion at my parents’ home. Near midnight, we’d gather around the dining room table and watch on a portable TV as the glittering ball in Times Square descended. We’d toast the New Year with apple cider and devour the oatmeal bread and whatever sweets, usually either pie or cake, that had been bought or baked for the occasion. I’m looking at the bread bowl as I write these words. It has survived for decades beyond my childhood and traveled back and forth between Massachusetts and California. Other bowls have come and gone, but this one has remained. I don’t know its exact history, whether Mom bought it or whether it was a present. I just know that it has always been here. She and Dad married in 1936, and I think that during the Depression and World War II, she made bread often to save money. But after the War, and after I was born, she began to work from home, so making bread became rarer and was one of the most special things she did for her family. I think that made the bowl very precious to her. When I look at the bowl, I can see Mom, short, plump, with floury hands, standing at the kitchen table kneading with her strong arms. The bowl sits beside her waiting to receive the dough. Soon it will move to a warmer spot, the towel will cover it, and the yeast will do its secret work. Eventually, there will be hot, steaming, wonderful-smelling loaves sitting on cooling racks and begging to be devoured. For me, fresh-baked, homemade oatmeal bread is probably the finest comfort food in the world. Now
I use the big yellow bowl to make bread, once or twice a year.
I carefully take the bowl from its shelf. I go through the
same steps Mom did, and I feel connected to her and aware of
the love, and strength, and support she gave to all of us. I
think of happy times and holidays and homecomings, and I feel
grateful for my family. Even empty, the bowl holds many memories. The
Nature of Nurturing Use
double boiler. Heat milk, then add tapioca and salt. Stir while
cooking (about 15 minutes). Separate egg, then beat egg yolk
and sugar together. Add to tapioca mixture and cook about eight
more minutes. Stir while cooking (until thick). Then add vanilla.
Beat egg whites and fold into mixture, which has been placed
into the bowl from which you will serve it. Can be served warm
or chilled. Feeding, nurturing, sustaining – these concepts had considerable significance in our household. Mom had grown up in Germany during and immediately after World War I and had suffered from malnutrition during the hardships of those years. It left her with a horror of an empty table or cupboard or refrigerator. It also left her unable to look a turnip in the face since turnips were usually all she had had to live on. She would never kill a housefly because she remembered her mother saying that as long as there was a fly around, that meant there was a scrap of food in the house. For her, an abundance of food was an affirmation that her family would never suffer the deprivation she had experienced. However, food was not merely overcompensation for the past. Mom was an excellent cook who genuinely enjoyed feeding people and could serve two or twenty with equal aplomb. That was fortunate since our household often included others beyond our family of five: Eric, Elfriede, my older brothers Peter and Dick, and me. There were a number of elderly ladies in our church, most of whom had never married and had few or no relatives. They were frequent guests and some of them, Elsie, Elisabeth, Elise, Bessie, and Maude, came to live with us for varying periods of time. In addition, Nana, my paternal grandmother, became a full-time member of the household when I was in my teens. Taking into account the dietary needs and preferences of a changing array of people called for considerable flexibility and the offering of options, but my mother rose to the challenge. Nana had gallbladder problems and required a low fat diet. Bessie needed low salt. My mother loved squash, and my brother Peter adored peas. I detested peas, squash, and lima beans, but could eat corn three meals a day. My father and I couldn’t stand liver, although everyone else liked it. My brother Dick hated onions and wouldn’t drink milk. Two friends of mine, Debby and Mike, who frequently joined our family for holiday meals when I was in my twenties and thirties, didn’t like chocolate. Phyllis, a close high school friend, was an Orthodox Jew, who couldn’t eat anything at our house but tuna fish. Occasionally, we’d have a guest who was a vegetarian. Mom never seemed fazed by any of it. No matter what the season, no one who entered our home left without being fed. Even casual visitors would have Mallomars, Pecan Sandies, or coffee cake and a choice of tea, ginger ale, orangeade, or coffee magically spread out before them. If people were there late in the afternoon, they would find themselves seated at the supper table, which always had more than enough food to accommodate the extra guests. I can remember that a few days after my father died, two ladies from our church came to pay a condolence call. They had come directly from work and had not eaten. Mom and I had been busy with funeral arrangements, and she had not had time to cook, but we had purchased enough Kentucky Fried Chicken to feed the Israelites in the wilderness. The ladies who had come to offer us comfort were made part of the family gathering and fed and cared for. Christmas, of course, was an occasion for serious feasting. On Christmas Eve we would visit Dad’s relatives for a traditional and plentiful Swedish smorgasbord. Some years for breakfast we had German Christmas cake or Stollen sent by Mom’s sister Mimi in East Berlin. On Christmas Day, after presents had been opened, we sat down to a lavish dinner, served at midday. Every inch of the tabletop not taken up by the best china and silver was covered with bowls, platters, and condiment dishes heaped with food: roast turkey with bread stuffing; mashed potatoes; homemade turkey gravy; boiled onions with milk; corn; winter squash; peas or green beans; jellied cranberry sauce; pickles, usually sweet and dill; green olives; homemade bread; apple cider; apple pie; custard pie; and possibly another kind of pie, maybe pumpkin or lemon meringue. Later in the afternoon, after the table had been cleared and the dishes washed, we would indulge in a tradition from Mom’s German heritage. Everyone would receive a “bunte Teller,” literally “a colorful plate.” These were Christmas patterned paper plates with an apple, an orange, some nuts, a large chocolate Santa Claus, some filled hard candy, ribbon candy, maybe a few sourballs, and usually some additional chocolates. Our holidays often included those who did not have families of their own nearby to celebrate with. One year, when I was in my twenties, Mom invited a British couple, who had recently moved to the Boston area and were attending our church, to spend Independence Day with us and celebrate getting rid of those troublesome American colonies. It’s a New England custom to serve salmon and peas on the Fourth of July, and we usually followed that custom with the addition of corn for me. Mom would buy a seven or eight pound salmon fillet, wrap it in cheesecloth and poach it in boiling water with salt, bay leaves, and allspice. She would then make a cream sauce and add cut up hardboiled eggs just before serving. If the British couple were expecting a red, white, and blue American barbecue, they may have been a little surprised at the pink, white, and green repast spread before them, but they weren’t disappointed. Purchasing, storing, and cooking amazing quantities of food, required the skills of a chef, a short-order cook, a quartermaster, and a general. But Mom had an ally in the fray. God was definitely on her side. Deeply spiritual, she turned to God for guidance in all aspects of her everyday life. The question, “Hi, Mom. What’s for dinner?” was sometimes answered with, “I don’t know. God hasn’t told me yet.” But she always received the answer in time. Feeding her family, and anyone else who happened to be included that day, was a spiritual activity — an activity not just of love, but of Love, an expression through her of God’s care for His children. Storing food was also a task for God’s guidance. We would return from weekly shopping trips with bag after bag of food to be put away, and I remember thinking, “When I’m on my own, I’m going to have to learn a whole new way of shopping or I’ll be automatically buying enough to feed ten people instead of one or two.” I can remember Dad frequently saying, “Elfriede, Elfriede, where do you think you’re going to put all of this?” Mom would just look at him and reply, “God fills all space, so He certainly knows how to fill it.” Within minutes, everything would have gone to its appropriate place in cupboards, refrigerator, or freezer. When she visited my brother and his family in Missouri, she would take my sister-in-law grocery shopping to stock up their shelves for the next several months and would follow the same process. The downside to the experience of abundance was that the memory of scarcity sometimes caused her to over buy, and food would go to waste. Leftovers would go bad in the refrigerator, and potatoes would shrivel up in the bin. She regretted the waste, but to her it was a lesser evil. Growing up with such an example was overwhelming. It seemed to me that I couldn’t ever do things the way she did. After a while, however, I came to realize that I didn’t have to. Mom was a great teacher of the qualities of hospitality, caring, and competence, but I could express her qualities in my own way. There is always plenty to eat at my table. No one will hesitate because they’re embarrassed to be taking the last bite, but the leftovers will be of manageable proportions. And no one has ever felt unwelcome. The
tapioca recipe doesn’t get much use these days. My husband
likes only very smooth pudding, so creamy custard has replaced
tapioca on our menu. But just mentioning the word evokes memories:
the whirr of the electric mixer beating the egg whites to peaks,
the texture of the mixture thickening as it cooked, the smell
of the vanilla extract as it was added, and the cook’s
privilege of tasting the final result. Most of all, I can see
Mom serving the pudding from its big glass bowl and smiling her
love on all those whom God had given her to care for that day. I know I must have cried, but my memories of the passing of my father, and nearly seven years later, my mother, don’t include weeping – at least, not immediately. What I do remember are instances of not crying, of not inflicting my emotions on others, of taking care of things in a calm and rational manner. Would other people remember me in the same way? Or would they say that I was not really as calm as I remember being? My father’s sudden passing from a massive heart attack abruptly removed one of the foundations of my family’s world. Dad was not a talker, but all of us, especially Mom, relied on his quiet strength and dependability. My brother Dick commented, “If there was a divine quality that Dad expressed, it was omnipresence. His home and family were the most important things to him. He didn’t look for activities that took him away. You could count on him. He was there.” One reason I couldn’t give in to grief was my concern for my mother. She was a strong and capable woman, but she and Dad had been married for almost forty-three years. Losing him abruptly shattered the established patterns of her life. In addition she had had a heart problem herself two years before, and I was worried that I could suddenly lose her as well. Helping her to adjust and to go through her grieving period helped me to adjust, to let go of my own grief, and to realize that she would be ok. Mom’s passing was less unexpected, but still a shock on the day it occurred. She had been in ill health for about a year, and had gone through a series of downs and ups. This time the up didn’t happen. I had been living at the family home, going to work as well as caring for Mom with some help, and had shouldered the responsibilities of banking, check writing, etc. I was also the executrix of her estate, so when she died, I had a lot to do very quickly. Family and friends were a great help, but I don’t remember having much time to cry. I know that in both instances of loss, when I went back to work and for quite some time after, I would be fine until I had to talk about my parents. Then I would get an upwelling of tears in my eyes, and I would start to choke up, but I would never really break down. Did I cry when I was alone? Probably, but I honestly don’t recall. I do know that I felt the loss very deeply, and sometimes still do. Memories tell me that I was in control of my emotions during these two periods and functioned calmly because I felt that was what was needed. My father has been gone for nearly thirty years and my mother for over twenty, and there are not that many people who are left to tell a different story. The calmness has emotional truth for me. But I question my own memories of those days. Am I telling an accurate story? It bothers me that I may not be. Should I care? Some would say, no. My training from the years I worked on the research staff of an archives, where maintaining the factual accuracy of the historical information used was an important part of my work, is probably causing me to apply a standard of truth that doesn’t fit the situation. Memory
is tricky territory. Sometimes objective truth is impossible
to attain. But there are few now who could contradict my story,
so let the reader beware. The truth may be more tear-stained
than I think. What
They Don’t Tell You About Visiting the Sistine Chapel In the fall of 1969, I had the wonderful opportunity of going to Europe with a group of fellow students from my college on a ten-week art history study tour, tracing the course of Western civilization through Greece, Italy, France, and England. Seeing first-hand the places and the masterpieces we’d been looking at in books and slide shows was amazing. We’d been getting ready for months, reading, studying, taking tests so we’d be prepared to intellectually understand what we’d be seeing. However, intellectual preparation is far from the whole story. The professors couldn’t prepare us for the emotional impact many of us would experience. The trip started in Athens, Greece, and proceeded to other historic sites on the Grecian mainland such as Mycenae and Corinth. The next portion of our journey was a cruise of the Greek isles, where we visited several sites including the Labyrinth on Crete, and the isle of Delos, where myth says that Apollo and Artemis were born. Then we flew to Naples to visit the museum there and to make the short trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum. We went by bus along the beautiful Amalfi Drive to Sorento, and then on to Rome. Everywhere we were surrounded by history, by art, by natural beauty, by sites, and sights, and objects that demanded a response from heart as well as mind. By the time we reached Rome, many of us were starting to OD on art. However, Rome has too long and too powerful an involvement in art, history, and religion for one to easily escape it. Our first few days in the city were taken up with the sites of ancient Rome: the Forum, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the catacombs. Then it was time for us to visit Vatican City to view the Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel. Just arriving at St. Peter’s is a powerful experience. The scale of the building is inhuman, and the plaza in front swallows dozens of tour buses whole. We went on a whirlwind tour of the Vatican Museum from which I remember very little besides a statue of Laocoon and his two sons being attacked by huge snakes. We proceeded to walk around inside St. Peter’s itself and to take in its overwhelming size and its profusion of art. To my surprise, I began to feel a strong sense of reverence, an awareness of all the millions of people to whom this building was the center of their faith. I am Christian but not a Roman Catholic and had not expected that emotional reaction. As I was still dealing with it, our guide led us into the Sistine Chapel. This was something I was totally unprepared for. They don’t tell you how very large the Chapel is. They don’t tell you that the ceiling is about twenty feet high. They don’t tell you that except for the altar area, the room is empty of all furnishings. They don’t tell you that it is filled like a pen in a stockyard with milling hordes of tourists. They don’t tell you that the tourists and their guides are all talking at once and that the cacophony echoes and reechoes off the walls and ceilings magnifying the sound. They don’t tell you how to process the contrast between the sensory roar enveloping your body and the soul-inspiring magnificence of what’s going on twenty feet above your head. I’m sure our guide was saying interesting things about Michaelangelo’s frescoes, but the only way I could handle the overload of conflicting emotions was to tune out the din and the restless presence of the crowd as much as I could and concentrate only on the paintings. I had brought opera glasses with me, so I was able to look closely at each panel in turn and at The Last Judgment on the end wall. I was jostled back into the din now and then by others in my group who wanted to borrow my opera glasses, but I managed to go back to shutting everything out once I had them in my hands again. I had seen photographs or reproductions of the images many times, but the power of the actual paintings themselves was far beyond what I had expected. Finally, it was time to return to our bus and go back to the hotel for lunch. I was feeling almost shaky, and my closest friend in the group was saying, “It’s too much. It’s just too much.” But perhaps the professor who was leading our group had an idea that at least some of us would need time off. There were no tours or lectures scheduled for that afternoon. I don’t know what everyone in the group did, but looking for a complete change of focus, several of us went for a walk and found ourselves at Rome's unimpressive zoo where we wandered around and gradually decompressed. No magnificent art or architecture, just lions, seals, a pot-bellied Brahma bull, and hordes of stray cats who unwittingly came to the rescue of half a dozen emotionally overwhelmed art history students. From the sublime to the ridiculous, from the magnificent to the mundane. from soaring on high to walking on solid ground, we regained our emotional equilibrium and were ready to resume our journey. After all, we were young, and there was still so much more to see and experience. We had weeks to go, and Florence, Venice, Paris, and London were waiting for us! All Rights Reserved ©
Nancy E. N. Silva |