Ten-Finger Exercises

Family relationships

I work part-time as a hospice chaplain. Today I rode with a social worker to visit the wife of a patient. He is still as active as possible, getting a boat ready to go fishing, playing pool, etc. On the way, the social worker told me about her family of origin, how they'd quickly moved from Canada where her father was a rancher, to California when hoof and mouth disease began spreading west. This must have been 40 years ago or more.

Then we were called to the death of a woman who had 9 children. A black and white picture of the whole family hung on the wall. They were standing outside a small farmhouse, some making faces at the camera. One daughter had just flown here to be with her mother and arrived too late by an hour.
They were grieving too much to tell family stories, and I had not known this woman at all.

It made me think, though, of the story I'd shared this morning with the social worker of my own family, and that I need to write more of it for my own children, should they be interested. They've probably heard it all already, but they might like it anyway.

My mother's parents, Stanford 'Stant' and Lenore 'Otie' Thompson, never had the opportunity of much schooling. 'Mom,' which is what I called that grandmother, had made it through 3rd grade at least. She would like to have gone further, according to my mother, and I don't know why she didn't. There's no one now left to ask. It could be that she had to take care of an ailing mother or brother. She had a brother who died.

The Cantwells, my father's parents, both attended college. Harold's father had been the speaker of the house in Indiana, and had a law practice in Hartford City, Indiana. 'Baba Harold' died when I was 4, and I don't remember hearing about any jobs he had. His obituary credited him with starting an airplane factory in Anderson, Indiana, but I'd never heard about it.

Hazel, who I called Nana, was very much the opposite of 'Mom.' She had attended Vanderbilt and had been in a sorority. She always wore a one-piece corset and stockings until she was ready for bed at night. When she sewed, she paid special attention to the neatness of the inside of the garment as well as the outside.

'Mom' was happier without a bra and seldom wore stockings, although I never noticed. She didn't have the strict, upright carriage that Nana had though. I remember her in sundresses in Florida. I remember Nana in suits and blouses.

'Baba' Thompson, despite his lack of education, always had enough. He lived to be 106 and paid his own way till the end. He and his cousin came out west to Tacoma in the early 1900's to work for the post office. Baba's job was sorting mail on the ferry boat, but it was a little too much for him. His cousin continued, but he started up a little restaurant by the docks instead. "People always have to eat,"he'd say. But 'Mom' didn't want to move that far away from her family of 7 siblings, so he came back to Indiana. My mother, Betty, was born a year or two later.