When the tide is right, I will hold you tight in the way

[sovay]

On May 6, 1923, my grandmother was born in Brooklyn. I have seen the naturalization papers of her parents and the census records of her childhood, but never her birth certificate, so I have no idea at which hospital or under which name, but her eyes as deep-set as a cat's looked out of the photos of her toddler self that papered the walls of the guest bedroom in my grandparents' house in Maine with the rest of the family collage. For her memory this afternoon, we baked the traditional strawberry shortcake for her birthday and tuned in to the Kentucky Derby, which my mother watched with her for years. She liked violets, so I brought some inside with the lilac, in a glass jar that used to hold horseradish.

Comments

Hospital?

[lauradi7dw]

My parents were born in the 1920s in NC, not Brooklyn, but they were born at home. Actually I'm not sure about my father, but my mother definitely was. I don't know anything about regional variance in home births vs hospitals at the time in the US.

[choco_frosh]

Cool!

Re: Hospital?

[ethelmay]

In the late 1940s my mother did several short residencies in different areas of medicine (as was then standard for anesthesiologists). One was in obstetrics, and she did a number of home deliveries in Chicago. Her father was a small-town GP in Wisconsin and did a lot of home deliveries during his career, though probably fewer and fewer as time went on.

[gwynnega]

How lovely that you have lilacs and violets. Your grandmother was born only four years before my mother (who was also born in May, in Chicago).

[sovay]

Cool!

It seemed a suitably centenary thing to do! (Then I came home and fell over.)

[sovay]

How lovely that you have lilacs and violets. Your grandmother was born only four years before my mother (who was also born in May, in Chicago).

I didn't know that about your mother. What did she like—trees, flowers?

[asakiyume]

What a lovely day. Strawberry shortcake, sunshine, violets, a remembered family member, and a horse race. <3

[thisbluespirit]

That sounds like a good memorial. <3 The violets are beautiful!

[pameladean]

What a lovely memorial.

And the violets are wonderful. I keep thinking I should recognize the plants that are not blooming yet -- bouncing bet?

P.

[nineweaving]

What a lovely remembrance! She was just a half-year younger than my mother and her twin (December 9, 1922).

Nine

[sovay]

What a lovely day. Strawberry shortcake, sunshine, violets, a remembered family member, and a horse race.

It was good! I had a bagel with lox and avocado, too.

[sovay]

That sounds like a good memorial.

Thank you. It felt like one.

*hugs*

The violets are beautiful!

It feels like they just sprang up in the last week. I'm so happy about them.

[sovay]

What a lovely memorial.

Thank you.

And the violets are wonderful. I keep thinking I should recognize the plants that are not blooming yet -- bouncing bet?

I have no idea! I can try to take closer pictures if you would like. The yard looked absolutely dead when we moved in and now seems to be emerging as a neglected mix of ground cover, actual weeds, and junk. There's a second tree that's always out of shot and a couple of saplings growing accidentally through some kind of defunct garden frame.

[edit] According to the herbal on a_reasonable_man's phone, the intermingled green plant is indeed bouncing bet, although his phone called it soapwort.

[sovay]

What a lovely remembrance! She was just a half-year younger than my mother and her twin (December 9, 1922).

Thank you! That's neat to know.

[asakiyume]

I had a bagel with lox and avocado, too. EVEN BETTER

[thistleingrey]

Sounds like a lovely remembrance. (Generations are weird--not many years between you and me, but my father's parents were born two decades earlier.)

[gwynnega]

She planted azaleas in front of the house, and white and purple daisies in the garden. She sometimes had a potted bromeliad inside the house. When she and my dad first moved into the house, the people installing the pool in the backyard were about to cut down the orange and tangerine trees bordering it, and she intervened. Decades later she had the pool filled in, but the fruit trees were still going strong.

[sovay]

Sounds like a lovely remembrance.

Thank you. I am very glad we did it.

(Generations are weird--not many years between you and me, but my father's parents were born two decades earlier.)

My father's father was born in the nineteenth century! Generations are nuts.

[sovay]

When she and my dad first moved into the house, the people installing the pool in the backyard were about to cut down the orange and tangerine trees bordering it, and she intervened. Decades later she had the pool filled in, but the fruit trees were still going strong.

That's wonderful.

[pameladean]

Oh, thank you, and thanks to Spatch too. Soapwort is indeed an alternate name. We have a lot of it back by the garage; it does not seem to need much encouragement to flourish, and apparently escaped from an alley garden across the way that has since gone over to grass.

The flowers aren't an amazing color -- kind of pinkish-white -- but they make a pleasant display for no more work than failing to mow them.

P.