Tales Out of School

These are the stories that like glue hold a family together, the kind we love to tell. I don't want these to be lost, and I'm hoping that over the years you will add to them, telling those of the next generation, and the next.

When John and Mary were little (John about 28 months and Mary about 10 months) we went for a walk every afternoon along Maryland Avenue in Shorewood, Wisconsin. John loved hats and always dressed for the occasion. A new ice cream parlor opened on the corner of Maryland and Capital and one day we went in. John and I sat on little stools at the counter. Mary sat in the stroller. The fellow who owned the shop asked for our order. We gave it, and when he turned away John said, "That man doesn't have any hair."
   I knew the man had heard for I saw his ears turn red. I turned to John, my finger on my lips. "Sh-h-h."
   John's eyes widened. "You mean he doesn't know he doesn't have any hair?"
   One more story for John: When he was three, he came to me in the kitchen one day and asked. "Where's God?"
   "Everywhere," I told him.
   He leaned forward and whispered, "Could you tell him to go in to the other room?"
   I wondered what mischief John had in mind.

Mary's turn.
   It was the Christmas before Bill was born. Mary (2 1/2) was enthralled with the Christmas story. I overheard her telling her best friend Elonda, "And when our baby comes we'll lay him in the hay."
   "No, no," I said. "We'll put the baby in a beautiful little plastic basket, blue for a boy, pink for a girl."
   But Mary knew better and took all her hair ribbons and made hay for all her dolls.
   And another for Mary: She was just three when the children in Sunday school were given little banks. They were to save coins to buy shoes for the little children in Korea. Mary loved the little bank and every day asked for a coin. Art Linkletter had a daily TV show I let the children watch as it was all about children. One day, Mary came to me, hands on her hips, a look of exasperation on her face. "They do too got shoes!" she said. She took me to the TV set. There was a Korean children's chorus and she was right. All of the children had shoes. That was the end of that bank.

And now Bill's turn.    We had gone to Panama City, Florida for a little vacation--calm days at the beach. Dick was called away, an important meeting in New York, but I decided to stay. The cottage was paid for, and the kids were having a wonderful time. Some college girls had adopted Doug (just 2) and Bill, Mary, and John played nicely in the sand and surf. We brought in meals. A nice little break for me. Finally, it was time to make the drive back to Atlanta. I piled all four kids and our luggage in the car and set off. It was a long hot drive. At one point I stopped at a roadside stand and bought fruit for a snack. Soon, Bill stuck his little hand under my nose. It held a peach pit. "What should I do with this?" he asked. I'd reached that time in the trip when I was feeling stretched a bit thin. You know, the moment when you wonder whose good idea this was. "Toss it out the window," I said. He pulled back. "No! You want a dirty world?"
   One more: Tenafly, New Jersey was like a precious little village. I regularly walked Doug and Bill to the library. Doug always settled down to read books, but Bill often got restless and wandered about. One day I realized he wasn't in the library. I grabbed Doug's hand and raced outside. No Bill. I was frantic. I hurried up and down the little main street. Not a sign of him. The police department had a small storefront office. I rushed inside and told them my son was lost. They were friendly and told me it happened all the time. Not to worry. But I was worried and insisted they take down the information. They did, then told me to go home and wait. They'd find him and bring him to me. Doug and I walked the few blocks home. And there was Bill, playing in the brook in the sideyard. I rushed up to him. "Bill," I said. "You were lost." He looked puzzled. "I wasn't lost. I was home." And he was.

And now it's Doug's turn.
   When Doug was four, he had a terrible break in his arm. He'd been playing Over the Moon with his dad and had fallen. (That's the game where Dick lay on his back, legs in the air. The kids lay on his feet and held his hands and he took them over the moon.) The pediatrician brought in an orthopedic surgeon and Doug was hospitalized. The surgeon was a marvelous technician, a lousy people person, and I was shocked at the manner in which he dealt with Doug over the weeks. Bad experience all around.
   A year later, Doug fell again. The Froede family was visiting us and Doug was showing Rick the trapeze set-up in the backyard. Showing off, I suspect. Anyway, Rick came screaming into the kitchen. I hurried outside to find Doug hysterical. I was sure he was remembering his former experience. I knelt down, grabbed his shoulders, and said, "Stop it!" He gasped and stopped crying. I walked him into the house, all the while making soothing comments like, "You'll be fine, etc." I took him to the breakfast nook and had him sit. I carefully placed his arm on the table. "Rick will stay right here and won't let anyone touch your arm." I walked over to the wall phone. "I'm calling the doctor right now. It's all right if you cry."
   Doug sobbed out, "Oh, thank you."
   Poor baby!!!
   And one more: He was in kindergarten and liked it. Told me he learned something every day. One evening at dinner the kids started squabbling. I spoke up. "Dinner time is meant to be a pleasant time. No more arguing. Our conversations need to be nice and uplifting." The family could tell I was serious. Suddenly Doug spoke up. "I have a poem," he said. "Beans, beans..."
   I interrupted. "Are you sure you should say this?"
   He nodded seriously. "It's a poem I learned in school. Beans, beans, a musical fruit. The more you eat the more you toot."
   There was dead silence. The others all had their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing. Doug looked at me, his face stricken. "Did I do a wrong?"
   With that sweet face? I knew he'd NEVER do a wrong.

Stay tuned for the next generation................

The Prettiest Girl in the World

It was the middle of winter in 1923, and Daddy was snowbound in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He'd gone there to help one of the new salesmen on his team. They'd eaten dinner in a local diner and then had the whole evening before them. Daddy saw a notice for a dance at the Methodist Church. Being a preacher's kid, he knew there were always pretty girls at Church dances. He and his friend went, and sure enough, there they were--lots of pretty girls.

     As soon as he'd hung up his coat and hat, Daddy saw a girl and then had eyes for no other. Her dark hair was piled softly around her face. Her eyes sparkled, full of life. She was, without a doubt, the prettiest girl in the room, and he wasted no time asking her for a dance.

     "What's your name?" he asked.

     "Marguerite," she said, "but my friends call me Margie."

     Daddy stopped dancing and walked her to the orchestra. He made one request. "Can you play the song Margie?" They could.

     He danced with her as often as he could, but she was popular, and there were other young men waiting for their turn. Finally, he asked to take her home and she agreed.

     Mother told me he put her galoshes on her feet. He helped her with her coat and hat and they joined mother's friend Genevieve and her beaux. (Mother was rooming at Genevieve's home.) It was cold and the snow deep, but daddy said he never enjoyed a walk more in his life. They walked slowly for daddy knew when they got to Genevieve's home he'd had to let mother go. On the porch he asked mother to remove her hat so he could kiss her goodnight. But she was not an easy catch and refused.

     Daddy immediately began to figure out ways to court her. And it wasn't easy. He had a sales territory to cover and she spent her weekends with her parents on the farm. When daddy visited, he brought a box of candy for grandma who sat in the living room with them hinting that it was getting late and didn't he think he should go home. Finally, Carl (mother's older brother) came to the rescue. He and mother slipped out through a bedroom window. They couldn't start the car until they were some distance away for fear of getting caught. Carl pushed and mother steered until it was safe. Then Carl drove to town and picked up daddy. The three of them went to a variety of dances (all the churches had their social calendars) and had coffee and donuts in the diner. And then one night, grandpa caught them as they were climbing back in the window. Grandpa was a tiny fellow, half the size of Carl, but nevertheless he whipped Carl with a belt (and Carl let him). That was the end of their escapades. If daddy wanted to see mother, he came to the farm and sat through the hour of grandma's scrutiny.

     Daddy proposed and mother accepted. The only problem was that the ring he gave her had a large diamond, too big for this shy girl. And he was a traveling salesman. Mother was sure people would talk. So he returned the ring and found a beautiful setting with a more appropriate diamond. They were married in June.

     Daddy never tired of telling the story. One afternoon in 1988, while mother and I were visiting daddy in the nursing home, he raised his glass of wine, looked at mother and said, "I've known many girls, kissed a few, loved but one, here's to you." Sixty-three years and despite all the lumps and bumps of married life, his affection had not dimmed. He still claimed to anyone who would listen that he had married the prettiest girl in the world.



Road Trip Songs

     I took a road trip last weekend. Went to Portland (Wilsonville really, but who's heard of Wilsonville?) to visit dear friends Cynthia and Laurie Whitcomb (and Laurie's little 20-month old Binny). My friend Jeanne Barker is taking a 10-session class in screen writing from Cynthia. Jeanne was delighted to have company for the 3+hour drive, and I got to be a passenger. As we rode along, we talked. When I was a girl, we sang.
     People didn't travel much when I was young. They had little reason. Most had families nearby. There was no Disneyland. No Branson, MO. Vacations were spent at home, fixing the house, taking day trips to the beach, or just lying around in the shade. But we had a new house that needed little fixing, lived at the lake, and Daddy was never one to lay about. So we did road trips.
     My sister Mary Ann and I had the backseat. Mother and Daddy in front. About an hour into the trip (before the "are we almost there" began), Mary Ann and I started the sibling thing. "She's got her foot on my side." "She's looking out my window." Daddy once tried piling the luggage between us. Didn't help. And so we sang, and the squabbling ended. I don't recall if Mother sang. She might have, but Daddy was the star.
     In his high quavering tenor he always began (in a German accent): "Oh, Dunderbach, oh Dunderbach, how could you be so mean. To ever haf invented that wonderful machine. Where dogs and cats and mice and rats would never more be seen. They'd all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbach's machine.
     "One day there something happened, and the machine she would not go. So Dunderbach, he climbed inside, the reason for to know. His wife was having nightmares and was walking in her sleep. She gave the crank an awful yank, and Dunderbach was meat."
     I'm sure Mother shuddered. Not Mary Ann, nor I. We begged for more, and Daddy was delighted. He sang college songs, drawing-room melodies, songs he'd learned as a boy. One of his favorites was: "One evening when the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning. Down the tracks came a hobo hiking and he said, 'Boys, I am yearning. I'm heading for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains, so come with me and we'll all go see the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright. Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night. Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day, on the birds and the bees, and the cigarette trees, on the lemonade springs where the blue birds sing, in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
     "In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs. The bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs. Where the brakemen have to tip their hats, and the railroad bulls are blind. Oh I want to go where there ain't no snow, where the rain don't rainy and the wind don't blow in the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks. And the little streams of alcohol come atrickling down the rocks. Where the farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay. There's a lake of stew and a gin late too, you can paddle all around it in a big canoe, in the Big Rock Candy Moutains." There were more verses, and we sang them all.
     Another favorite was Abdul Abulbul Ameer. Thirteen verses! He sang them all. "The sons of the prophet  were brave men and bold and quite unaccustomed to fear. But the bravest by far in the ranks of the shah was Abdul Abulbul Ameer. The heroes were plenty and well known to fame in the troops that were led by the Czar. But the bravest of these was a man by the name of Ivan Skavinski Skivar."
     The last two verses left us in tears.  "A tomb rises up where the blue Danube rolls, engraved there in characters clear. Oh, Stranger, in passing please pray for the soul of Abdul Abulbul Ameer. And a Muscovite maiden, her lone vigil keeps neath the light of a pale Polar star, and the name that she murmurs so soft as she weeks, is Ivan Skavinski Skivar."
      We sang songs of the Victorian era. Our favorite was Daddy's version of After the Ball is Over. "After the ball was over, Katie took out her glass eye. Put her false teeth on the mantel, hung up her wig to dry. Put her peg leg in the corner, took off her bustle and all. Not much was left of Katie, after the ball."
     A Bicycle Built for Two gave Mary Ann and me the chance to try something new. On one of the trips, it began to rain. Don't know who thought of it first, but Mary Ann and I began. As the windshield wiper touched one side, we sang one word, "Daisy." When it touched the other, we sang another, "Daisy." It sounded like this: "Daisy...Daisy...give...me...your...answer...do..."
     Mother interrupted. "What are you girls doing?" We told them to guess, but they gave up immediately. Try it. It's harder than you think. Kept us occupied for hours. Drove our parents crazy.
     Another singing game Mary Ann and I played was on the count of three we each started a song. Our challenge was to sing our song all the way through in time and on key (in the style of Charles Ives). Once we started with the same song and dissolved into giggles.
     Mary Ann and I sang while we did the dishes. You can't argue while you're singing. We took turns with the alto parts. Can't remember the title or composer, but have never forgotten this one. "I heard a bird at break of day, sing from the autumn trees, a song so mystical and calm, so full of certainties. No man I think could listen long, except upon his knees. Yet this was but a simple bird, alone, among dead trees." Still brings tears to my eyes.
     With Daddy we sang love songs (Bendemeer Stream, Danny Boy), sentimental songs (My Ole Kentucky Home, Beautiful Ohio), silly songs (My Old Shanghai Rooster, St. Olaf Fight Song with a Norwegian accent). Our most vigorous singing was on a return trip from camping at Rice Lake, Wisconsin. A fire had started deep in the woods and by the time we packed and left, it was blazing. We had no choice but to drive through on a narrow dirt road. I remember Daddy's back hunched over the steering wheel, my mother's handkerchief clenched in her fist. At one point I looked out the back window and saw a tall pine tree flare up in seconds. Daddy had us sing every song we knew, all the verses. Our car was covered in ashes, our faces too, but we were safe. I smile when I think of how I knew Daddy would never let anything bad happen to us.
     I'm sure you have your own songs. So, with your loved ones and friends, find any excuse, and sing.

I'm Baaaack

Ruth in pink pajamas

I had dinner last evening with a dear out-of-town friend. He's been following my cancer journey via emails and occasional phone conversations. During our conversation, he asked me what lessons I had learned from having had cancer. A useful question, as it required I stop and reassess what has been happening to me. And I came up with some lessons.
   Then this morning, I read Dylan's blog and was amazed at how profound and interesting it is. He's a marvelous writer, an astute observer, and truly captured the joy and challenge of the game. I felt instantly connected to Dylan. When cancer took over my life, I set aside some things--my blog being one. But I want to reconnect and so I'm back.
   So to get caught up-------My lessons from cancer were several. First, it brought me back again to my love and trust in God. It's so easy (at least for me) to loosen that bond when all is going well. "Look, God, no hands. I can manage life all on my own!" But I can't.
   Another lesson: On the visit with my oncologist after the biopsy and CT scan, he explained that I had an agressive carcinoma. He went through all the possibilities, then cocked his finger, pointed it at me, and said, "It's not your time." Gave me pause as I had been in a neutral position about my life. If it's my time, I thought, so be it. If not, that's okay too. But when the doctor said that, I realized that neutral was not a healthy position and I had to take a stand. I saw that his position was one of defeating cancer and he had aligned a team to do that. I figured I'd better get on board and so joined him and took that stance throughout the treatment.
   More lessons: I was raised to be not only healthy, but also independent. And suddenly I found myself in a position of needing LOTS of help. I was amazed at how quickly people responded. They were wonderful. Reminded me again of a lesson I learned from my darling daughter long ago. Mary was pregnant with Dallas when I visited her in Phoenix. We went to lunch. (I loved being able to take her to lunch.) When the bill arrived, she picked it up. I protested. Then she said, "Mom, let me have the blessing." And so I've again had to learn to set my ego aside and let others have the blessing.
   I also learned how beautiful our bodies are--whatever shape they're in. They are amazingly capable, and I don't know about you, but I had ignored mine for years. After each poisonous infusion, I watched my body struggle and fight to regain balance and health. So I'm better now at assisting rather than sabotaging it.
   I know there are lessons for me now that I'm healing. After the last infusion, when the lab results showed I was cancer free, I realized I had accomplished my goal and was left with "now what?" A downer. It took a while for me to figure out I was suffering from post-partum depression. So I've created some new goals to aspire to. The first is to regain my health. One of the biggest lessons ahead for me is patience. The doctor warned me it would take months, and I'm champing at the bit to be back to normal. It feels like I'm healing too slowly as I putter about and I need to constantly remind myself I'm on my way. Baby steps. One day at a time. And each day is better than the day before.
   The most wonderful lesson of all was to see how precious life is and how privileged I've been to have my family. God has truly blessed me with you all and I am deeply grateful. When my "Grands" (my grandchildren--for you are truly grand. The little ones are the "Greats" for they are that.)  I wrote this poem for them. It was published in The Friend magazine.
          I open my eyes to a new surprise,
          A present just for me.
          It's just my size and sure to fit,
          I'm pleased as I can be!
          What is this gift, so bright and new,
          So special in every way?
          Why don't you know? You get one too--
          A brand new shining day.
Enjoy it!!

The Gassaway Story

Grandpa Montgomery's mother was Martha Gassaway. The first Gassaway in America was Nicholas, born in London Town on March 11, 1634, the son of Thomas Gassaway and his wife Anne Collingwood. They lived in St. Margaret's Westminster Parish. St. Margaret's Church stands adjacent to Westminster Abbey. Sometimes the name is spelled Gasawaie which has a Flemish or Dutch flavour.The Collingwood family was an old heraldic one as was the Gassaway family.
     In 1649, Nicholas came to America with a Richard Owen who had a land grant from the King. Nicholas settled on South River in Anne Arundel County (Maryland) among the Puritans who had come from Virginia as Quakers.He became one of the early merchants of that area. In 1650, he applied for his land rights and over time accumulated over 1,000 acres of land. There is no record of his first wife, who became the mother of his two oldest children (Nicholas and Anne). After her death, he married Anne Besson in 1672. She was the daughter of Captain Thomas Besson and was only fourteen at the time of her marriage. Her father so loved Nicholas and was so pleased about the marriage that he gave them an additional 610 acres of land. Their children were John, Hester, Jane, Margaret, and Thomas.
     Nicholas became one of the outstanding Marylanders of his day and one of the wealthiest. He was active in the militia and had a  company of nineteen men. In a letter to Col. Burgess he wrote, "...we have noe orders but to Range and Defend the Plantations, the which we shall doe to the best of our skill." In 1687 he was commissioned a major.
     In a letter dated 25 March 1689, Nicholas Gassoway, alson with several others signed a letter directed to Col. William Digges in which they expressed their concern of eminent danger to the Protestant citizens. They wrote: "...wee have heard this day That Maj Ninian Beale is either engaged with the Piscattoway Indians or every minute in expectation to put in operation their wicked and malicious designe...wee remaine in a posture of defence for the generall safety of all..." After the ensuing rebellion led by Capt. Coode, Col Nicholas Gassaway was appointed one of the Committee of Twenty who governed Maryland until the arrival of a royal governor from England. (It seems that there was trouble between Catholic and Protestant settlers. Does anything ever change???)
     At his death, Nicholas left a large estate to his children that included twenty slaves, one servant, and more than 1320 acres of land. His request was that all but one of the slaves be freed. The one, a fellow who understood the work of the plantation, was to instruct the sons and after one year was to be freed. When I read that, I breathed a sigh of relief. Owning slaves did not sit well with me.
     Thanks to Mary for her hours spent on the genealogy research. She has all the information about the family all the way to the present. I think we have an amazing family. On one side we have two lines that go back in this country to the 17th century--long before the Revolutionary War. And we also have newcomers who arrived in the 19th century. Sounds like a true American mix to me.You can still find out family names sprinkled throughout Maryland and the South. Seems we've left footprints along the way.