Nana's Doll

Nana's Doll           

When she was a little girl

 my mother was proud

of a doll whose smooth porcelain face

shone pinkly beneath her chestnut curls

twinkling blue eyes that went to sleep

 when Opal laid her down

Dressed in rosy dimity

dainty with a fine lace peplum

her bonnet matched

Modesty satisfied, her sheer skirt

 hid crochet- edged petticoats and pantaloons

Tiny socks and shoes, a precious

embroidered velvet pouch

on a chain to hang on her wrist.

When I was a little girl

the doll lay in what was left of her box

wrapped in an old white sheet

stored in Mother's quilt chest

I begged to see her, fascinated

 by her age and her outfits

oh, so many!

 handmade by Grandma Terrell

and Great Grandmother Curley,

my French great grandmother.

full length coat with buttons

made of blue twill and paneled -

soft pink rose patterned percale.

folded in neat stacks: print dresses, tucked bodices,

 gathered skirts, nightgowns, a cap and a blanket

all discolored by age and smoke

 from a family house fire.

Why didn't I ask her name?

When my granddaughters ask

to see the doll, they are intrigued

 with the story, awed

at how old she is

They feel sorry that she lives in a box

I am glad no one asks her name

but I am trying to follow instructions

written in flowing pencil script

on the tattered piece from her first box:

“Take Care of Her”     Santa Claus

  ~ Mary Ann Parker, written March 2013

Ladies Day at the Spa

When any one of my granddaughters is here, we have fun. But when all 3 of the younger girls get together, there is never a dull moment.  I may leave a few prompts or props for them to find (new stuff in the dressup trunk, empty boxes, beads and shells with the art supplies, and plenty of fresh fruit and veggies for creating snacks), but the ways they come up with to use those things never fail to keep me laughing.

Last weekend we were grateful for heavy afternoon rains on both days.  But climbing trees and dancing in the rain changed to indoor play when thunder and lightning deemed it necessary.  Undaunted, they retired to the bedroom where the dressup supplies are kept.  A few minutes later, when I checked on them, I found Skye with her turban wrap reclining on the chaise lounge and was told they were having a Spa day!  Furthermore, they needed cucumber slices for their eyes.  What's a grandmother to do but slice up a garden fresh cucumber and deliver?

, 

Maddie and Jordann added their veggie beauty aid and lounged on a mountain of pillows.

But apparently the under 10 set does not require lengthy lounging.  In fact, it makes them hungry!

So they ate their cucumbers, which probably beat anything else for a refreshing treatment!

I love being a grandmother! Who needs a day at a real Spa?  I don't need cucumbers to make me glow!

Tea Parties

This tiny china tea set has been mine since I was a little girl. I don't remember when I got it,but  most likely it was a birthday gift or a Christmas present. My granddaughters have loved using the tea set for birthday tea,  princess tea, and tea parties for no special reason at all other than our delight in each other. Lauren  wrote invitations to the little girls next door and we set Grandma's table with a cloth, made tea sandwiches and cookies and poured tea out of a teapot.  Skye has had countless tea parties with me, her PapaJoe, her Duckle Ben, and her best friend Anna.  Maddie has tea parties when she comes to stay, and Jordann has tea parties with her sister and cousin now.  I was proud that Maddie wanted her 7th birthday party to be a family tea party!   (See post for March 21)

One Cat

This is our cat Angel, who loves to pick a pretty spot and pose.  We have had other cats like that. Once we had a Persian cat who loved to pose on our only Turkish rug. Another cat preferred to curl up in an antique wash bowl with a turquoise rim that matched his eyes.

A few weeks ago, Angel's playmate, our cat Bella, disappeared - we looked and looked but there is no trace of her.  We miss her but for now, Angel is our one cat, and I think she likes it that way.  Goodbye, Bella.  If Angel knows where you went, she is not telling.

Legacy

The roses covering this arbor are Peggy Martin Roses, also called the Katrina Rose, because this rose was the only one of hundreds owned by Peggy Martin and her husband before the flooding and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Surviving after being submerged under 20 feet of salt water, this plant endured.  It reminds me of the quality of endurance I consider my legacy exhibited in my great grandmother's story.


    I have included stories about my great grandmother, Ernestine Curley, in past blog posts, but recently wrote this poem.  I believe her legacy of  deep faith, strength, perserverance, and fortitude showed in both my grandmother and mother.  I am thankful for them all.


 Legacy of Endurance

Clara and Bienvenue Paschal Augier boarded a ship in the south of France

Sailed with their children to the port of New Orleans,

 Charles, Josephine Antoinette and little Ernestine Matilde

who began to speak English when she was three

Her mama never learned

Her papa was a saddle maker

trapped in a burning building

he jumped to his death

then the family moved -

 Old Finn Castle, Henderson County in Texas

Ernestine went to school

with a handsome boy named Matthew

October 30, 1872 they were married.

Six children were born

William, Charles, Ozark and Osro who were twins

Othinet Josephine they called Jessie,

Matthew Ann

this youngest a baby girl with a boy's name

December 1979, Matthew, shot

while on a hunting trip by his best friend,

never saw his youngest.

His dying request was that the baby

Ernestine carried be given his name,

and, if born a girl, to be given to

his sister Victoria.

Young, widowed, with

6 little children

Ernestine married again

a man rumored to have been

a fugitive from justice

Three more babies conceived

When James Curley died

six years later, once more

Ernestine again buried her husband

 while preparing to birth another child.

Two husbands, neither of whom lived

to see their last child born.

She moved the the

five living children from her first marriage

and three children of second, pregnant again,

to her sister's home.

She knew about endurance.

While these battles happened in her life,

she witnessed  traumas of her adopted country:

 the Civil War,

 Reconstruction

the Spanish American War

World War I

Hitler's invasion of Europe

Ernestine's strength and goodness shone

One son said she was the best woman

he ever knew

With so many children, there were

many grandchildren.

She was present at the birth of every one.

Bringing hand stitched caps and blankets.

When Ernestine could no longer live alone,

she moved in with her youngest daughter, Clyde

She knelt at her prie dieu everyday

Treasured a tiny holy water font

She patched and mended pants, shirts, and socks

turning collars and darning heels

Her tiny stitches could hardly be seen.

She taught her granddaughter Opal to say

Yes Ma'am and No Sir

She rocked her great granddaughter Mary Ann.

Tribute

The year 2006 was a year of both great loss and great gain for me.  My mother died in September of that year, which is a loss I am still acutely aware of.  But in the months before her death, even as I helped to care for her and ease her transition from this life to the next, I received two immensely important gifts, gifts of sight. Only a few months earlier I was diagnosed with a degenrative corneal disease which quickly robbed me of a great deal of my functional vison.  I had Fuch's Corneal Dystrophy, for which there is no treatment or cure.  The only option was to have my own corneas removed and replaced with corneas from a donor:  cornea transplants.  This week marks the 7th anniversary of my first gift.  On May 15, 2006, I had surgery to receive my first cornea, in my left eye.  Two months later, in July, I had the same surgery for my right eye. I am eternally grateful to the families whose choices made that possible for me, and I urge all who hear my story to consider electing organ donation and making that known to your family.

The very first realization I had that my surgery had indeed been successful came as I sat in the shade by the little fish pond in our garden. All landscape had been blurry for long enough that what happened was quite like pointing my camera lens, zooming, and focusing.  I suddenly became amazed that I was seeing with brilliant clarity, and the object was a small purple iris a few feet away.  I was and am so thankful to see. In tribute to my donors and to all who are challenged with impaired vision, I am sharing some more garden photographs with you.  These flowers grow in the gardens at Antique Rose Emporium near Brenham, TX.

        

Magnolias

When the Magnolias bloom again each year, I reach to pull a creamy cup down and inhale its sweetness. I may cut a few to bring inside and float in bowls, but they brown and wither soon.  They show off best in their  boughs of waxy green leaves.  They remind me of the trees that lined the edge of my elementary school yard, which happened to be adjacent to my own yard.  We often played in the shade of the trees, loving the spectacle of their blooms.  When the petals dropped, leaving cones with scarlet seeds, we played with those, creating, imagining, giggling.

In 1963, a bank of magnolia leaves was the only floral decoration at our December wedding. Many years and many places later, I stood by a Magnolia tree in the gardens of a sultan's palace in Bogor, Indonesia, and wondered if its twisted trunk and sprawling branches flowered.  Now, once again, my yard fills with the fragrance of Magnolias in Spring.  They seem to grow sweeter each year.