Oh Dave! Now

It was on this day oh so many years ago that my mother went into labor and I was dragged forth from her loins kicking and screaming. I was the fourth of five children so she had some practice by the time I was born. But according to my father, my birth was the most difficult of the five because my head didn’t come down first. A breached baby, the doctor used a forceps to pull me out by the head, leaving red marks on my head that gradually went away. (I think he stretched my soft skull, leaving me with a long head and big forehead. And a fear of doctors?)

My parents are both deceased now and I never gave them enough credit for all they went through to give me life. I have been at times insensitive to their sacrifice, love, and devotion, and didn’t always treat them with the respect they deserved. I took them for granted, the way I take the Bay Bridge for granted when I just want to get across and get somewhere, not acknowledging all the engineering and hard work behind it, despite cracks and collapses.

Like the song “Teach Your Children” expresses, raising kids and growing up are “hell” for parents and kids. On bad days I said at least once, “I wish I was dead. I never asked to be born.”  That upset my mother and she scolded me. I think it also caught her by surprise, because I was a good kid, a bit of a mama’s boy. We were close and enjoyed spending time together. But like any family, we had our tragedies and conflicts, and it sometimes clouded our connection and my love for her. So on this day, I celebrate the woman who gave birth to me.

My mother, Verna, married my father in 1947 at a time when women aspired primarily to be wives, homemakers, and parents. She took motherhood seriously, and family and kids were the focus of her life. Once as a young adult, standing in front of her desk at our Lutheran church where she was the secretary for many years, I complimented her intelligence and capabilities and asked if she regretted not going to college and having a career. She replied, “Of course not. I wanted to have kids and a family. You kids are everything to me.”

She was proud to be a mother and gave an incredible amount of energy, perhaps obsessively so, to care for us and create a fun and nourishing family life. Like many mothers, she cooked, canned, gardened, sewed, knitted, and made crafts, in addition to housework. She sewed her own clothes including some of her whimsical maternity clothes which I still have. In short, she liked to keep busy with her hands, especially with crafts. With two neighbor ladies, Mrs. Moxley and Mrs. Leach, she created an abundance of crepe flower centerpieces, sequined holiday tablecloths, crocheted doilies, and holiday decorations and Christmas wreaths. The three of them belonged to different churches and each donated many of their creations for the poor and for fundraisers.

We lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota in good neighborhoods arranged in neat grids with lots of other big families. She belonged to neighborhood ladies’ groups like sewing club and took her turn hosting and serving refreshments. She was always baking for neighborhood, family, and church potlucks. She was on committees at church, attended Bible study, and sang in the choir.

Most of the down-and-dirty vegetable gardening was done by my father, but Mom did some of the flower planting. Her favorites were Lily-of-the-Valley and orange and black Tiger Lilies.

A pretty, voluptuous woman with intense eyes and big cheeks and smile, she dressed neatly and had an alternately fun and modest sense of style. She carried herself in public proudly but with humility and reserve. At home she dressed more casually, in work clothes of sleeveless blouse and culottes or Capri pants. At times she seemed overwhelmed by us five kids and trying to keep it all together. She could be critical and burst into anger, but it was out of frustration and trying to maintain control of sometimes unruly and bickering brothers and sister. Her escape was to retreat to her bedroom and close the door and Dad would keep us occupied so Mom could have some quiet time for a change.

Mom approached housecleaning, laundry, and cooking with determination and slow precision. After long Midwest winters, there was spring cleaning. Mom’s fastidious method was to clean every inch of the inside of the house, wiping down every wall, baseboard, door, window sill, cupboard, and shelf with a sponge. Windows were washed inside and out. Draperies were washed, rugs were shaken and aired, carpets shampooed. She put my dad and us kids to work too but she had the most attention to detail. I gave her a run for her money though. I took that sponge and systematically made sure to wipe the walls, doors, and window sills thoroughly.

We always had a cat and /or dog in the house so the kitchen floor was ground zero for dirt. To get the kitchen floor clean, it went like this: first sweep with a broom to get the dirt, then vacuum to get what the broom missed, then mop with Spic-n-Span, and then apply Johnson’s Floor Wax.

My sister, the oldest and only girl, remembers doing a lot of ironing. It was mostly Dad’s dress shirts and hankies, but also the boys’ dress shirts, Mom’s blouses, pants, and skirts, even the pillowcases.

When it came to preparing meals, Mom was again on top of it. She was a good, quiet cook and made family dinner every night of the week. She didn’t do much improvising but instead followed recipes precisely. I was fascinated by cooking and frequently helped her by peeling vegetables, measuring out ingredients, beating eggs, or stirring pots. She had a repertoire of dinners, some that we had every week, some that showed up now and then. Coming from a Finnish background, her cooking tended to be lightly seasoned even when she made spaghetti or chili. Everybody liked her cooking for the most part. It was solid and dependable though not usually fancy.

Minneapolis was the home of General Mills, Betty Crocker, and Pillsbury and they influenced my Mom’s cooking and entertaining as they did Minnesota and the country in general. However, she rarely if ever used cake mixes, a practice she has passed on to me. She did all her baking from scratch including cakes, pie crusts, breads, cookies, and candies.  Mom was on the committee that produced our church’s simply named “Cook Book” and contributed nine recipes which I’ve collected in the attached PDF.

Her Salmon Loaf has become one of my staples. French Fried Liver was the least favorite dinner of our family and we let her know it but she told us to eat it anyway and we did. I forgot about her Butter Mints recipe—will have to make some this holiday season.

Her recipe for Whipped Cream Frosting was her claim to fame. She was the only one who could get it to come out right, since it didn’t use cream but is a mysterious concoction of flour, milk, butter, shortening, and sugar. For our birthdays she always gave us our choice of dessert. I often chose banana cream pie but my favorite was devil’s food cake with her Whipped Cream Frosting. The last time I tried to make it, it came out grainy. Hers was as smooth as whipped cream.

For relaxation, she liked to read and play records like Englebert Humperdinck or Broadway and movie musical scores and sing along. At Christmas my sister played piano while the rest of us sang along to carols. With the family Mom liked to watch TV programs like the Andy Williams Show, Lawrence Welk, I Love Lucy, Carol Burnett, and even Laugh-In in the late 1960s. Offended and titillated at the same time by off-color humor, she frequently laughed herself to tears.

At bedtime, after a long day, either she or my dad would read us bedtime stories or at least tuck us in, and hug and kiss us goodnight. Whatever had gone down during the day, those moments of tenderness helped wash any bad feelings away.

For my birthday in 1965, she took me to the premiere of the movie “The Sound of Music” in downtown Minneapolis at a big ornate movie house. It was a full house and we sat in the balcony so I could see the movie. In those days, people dressed up for evening showings of movies, especially downtown. I remember wearing dress pants, a dress shirt, and a sweater, my hair neatly combed. After we found our seats, she let me go by myself downstairs to the snack bar to get some popcorn and Junior Mints. It was a big deal and made me feel grownup, but truth is I was a runt in a sea of adults. I got to the snack bar okay but was having trouble getting through the crowd to the balcony with my hands full so a kindly gentleman helped me get back to Mom. They exchanged smiles, I suppose acknowledging my cute timidity.

We both loved the movie and in the next months wore out the soundtrack. Many years later when I was in college and her health was failing, making it difficult for her to get around, I took her to see a touring revival production of “Camelot” starring Richard Harris at the same theatre. It was a treat to see a live production with the charming actor who made the role of King Arthur famous, and to share a memorable outing together again though I know it was uncomfortable for her to sit long in one place.

Shortly after I graduated from college I was transferred to Sacramento, California by my employer and lived there for the last two years of my mother’s life. Her family was genetically presupposed to rheumatoid arthritis and she suffered greatly from it for nearly 10 years. She got some relief from medication but also had both hip joints and both knee joints replaced, a new thing at the time. It helped tremendously with the pain but she had to walk with a cane and eventually stopped driving. Only in her late 50s, she looked like a little old lady.

Then in 1985 at age 57 she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a blood disease related to rheumatoid arthritis. There was no treatment for it and doctors gave her less than a year. We talked and cried over the phone and I made plans to go stay with her. Sadly, two weeks later she suddenly passed away. Fittingly for a career mother, she died on the evening before Mother’s Day. While my sister and she waited in her apartment for an ambulance to arrive, the bouquet of roses I had sent her for Mother’s Day was delivered. Later that evening in the hospital, she was gone.

Today I think about all the positive characteristics she gave to me: her love for creative projects, cooking from scratch, singing, and an obsessive attention to cleanliness, spelling, and punctuation. I marvel at her acceptance and appreciation of the beautiful details in a sometimes painful existence. I humbly and gratefully acknowledge what a momentous occasion, of both pain and joy, my birth must have been for her.

Mom, I raise my glass in respect and celebration of who you were.  And also in respect of the life you gave me.  To Verna!