These stories of my boyhood that I am posting every Friday began with an essay about my father.  Perhaps it's time you met my mother.

I Remember Mama

We were walking toward my new school, Saint Jarleth School in Oakland.  We had just moved back to California from Chicago.  I was in the second grade.  I didn’t want to go.  I was shy and as we walked up the steps and into the great hallway of the school I began whimpering and holding my Mom’s arm a bit more tightly.

We walked into sister superior’s office where Mom enrolled me.  My whimpering turned into  sobs.  By the time Mom and sister superior got to the class room I was crying.

Mom told sister superior that we had better wait until tomorrow.  

Mom took me back home and I spent the rest of the day setting up my windup train and playing with it on the living room floor.  Mom never said a word about what had happened at the school.

The next morning we walked back to school.  This time the sobs and crying did not work.  Mom kissed me on the forehead and I walked into the class room still sobbing.  The sister walked me to my desk and I sat down and just stared at the desktop.  I was afraid to look up.  

Then the recess bell rang.  I followed the other members of my class into the schoolyard and a girl came up to me and said, “You’re from back east aren’t you?”

That is one of the earliest memories I still have in detail.

Mom was ordinary and unique at the same time.

She had been born in Antwerp Belgium.  During World War 1 she was a refugee fleeing the Germans and wound up in England.  Later she immigrated to the United States and lived in New York with my aunt and uncle.  I don’t know how she ended up in California where she met and married my Dad.

The next year we moved back to San Francisco, the city in which I was born.  I entered the third grade at Saint Brigid School without the trauma of the second grade.  My brother Leon entered the first grade.

Mom was a typical housewife in the 1940s.  She shopped for groceries every day.  Our refrigerator was small and home freezers were still an appliance far in the future.  So for fresh pork chops and peas in the pod that had to be shelled were shopped for each morning after the house cleaning was done.  She did the laundry almost every day in the old washing machine on the back porch with the wringer on top.  Clothes were always hanging on the clothesline in the back yard.

After doing today’s laundry yesterdays laundry had to ironed and folded and put away in the dresser drawers or hung up in the closet.  Then it would be time to put out the milk and snacks for Leon and I when we came home from school.  By then she would be shelling fresh peas on the kitchen table and getting ready to make dinner.

In that sense Mom was an ordinary housewife.

But she was also a party girl.  No holiday was too insignificant for her to celebrate.  On Saint Patrick’s day the living room would be decorated with green crepe paper streamers and Leon and I would drink green milk, colored with food coloring.

Likewise Halloween would be orange and black streamers and orange milk.  A life size cardboard skeleton hanging from the middle of the ceiling.  After dinner she made sure our trick or treat costumes were properly fitted and gave Leon and I each a kiss as we left for out trick-or-treat foray through the neighborhood.

The Fourth of July was also Leon’s birthday so it was special.  Red, white and blue streamers and red milk.  And a red, white, and blue birthday cake.  This was one of the holidays for the whole family; Aunty Mit and Uncle Bob, Cousin Emile and his wife Elsie, and Grandma would be there.

Thanksgiving too.  Orange and brown streamers decorated the living room with a large cardboard turkey hanging from the middle of the ceiling.  And a turkey feast for the extended family.

People always feel sorry for me when I tell them my birthday is on Christmas Day.  “Oh, you only get one present.”  Not true.  I always got both a Christmas and birthday present and it was the one holiday Mom indulged herself.  My birthday cake was always her favorite.  A rum cake.  I can still taste it.

The Christmas tree was in the corner with all the presents under it and manger scene with statues in the other corner on a small table.

After dinner the family would sit around the Christmas Tree and Cousin Emile would be Santa Claus and hand out the presents among the voices saying, “Oh, just what I wanted” or “You shouldn’t have.”

Then after all the presents had been handed out and we had finished surveying all of our loot and Mom and Aunty Mit and Cousin Elsie had carefully folded the Christmas wrapping to save to use for next year (although it wouldn’t be) Mom would come into the room wearing her coat and a hat.

She would take Leon and I to midnight mass at Saint Brigid Church.  The priest had on his very best robes and the choir sung Christmas songs in both English and Latin.  Mom was the only devout Catholic in the family and made sure Leon and I went to church too.

But one day we came home from school and the living room was decorated with red, white and blue streamers and an American Flag hung from the center of the living room and small American flags festooned the house.

We asked her what the occasion was and she said it was a surprise.  We would have wait until Dad got home from work.

As soon as Dad came in the front door she ran to him and threw her arms around him and said, “I’m a citizen!”

She had been studying for weeks and this day she went downtown and took the test and was sworn in as a naturalized citizen.  

The hug became a group hug and Mom had a tear in her eye.  

Desert was a red, white and blue cake.

But there were two celebrations that were a bit different.  Yes, the house was decorated and there would be cake.  But Dad was not good at remembering birthdays and anniversaries.  So before Leon and I went to school those morning she would give us carfare to go downtown to Dad’s shop after school and remind him that it was her birthday or their anniversary.  So on the way home he would pick up a gift and when he went in the house he would hand it to her and say Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary.  And she would always throw her arms around him and say, “Oh Sig, you remembered.”

Another festive occasion was the Annual Big Game between the University of California and Stanford University.  Again it was an extended family affair and we listened to the game on the radio and cheered our teams.  Lunch was hard rolls (like those made only in San Francisco) spread with Kraft’s Old English cheese and filled with slices of salami.  I can still taste them.

Friday nights were special.  That was family night.  After dinner the family would sit down and we would usually play Canasta or some form of Rummy Mom liked.  Or we would just sit around and play verbal word games like “I’m thinking of a word they rhymes with milk” or twenty questions or simply just talk.  Mom and Dad would have a glass of wine and eat a small brick of Liederkranz cheese (an Americanized version of Limburger cheese).  I could never get past the smell to taste it.

It was not just for the family.  Our friends were invited to join in too and many times they did.  They were as comfortable with Mom and Dad as we were.  

Mom and Dad were also poker players.  But only with the extended family.  New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, or any weekend evening when they decided to play.  I began to learn how to play poker when I was about 11 or 12 years old.  I got pretty good at it but could never beat my Uncle Bob.

I recall one Friday I was in high school and for English Literature I had to memorize Antony’s speech after the assassination of Julius Caesar and was complaining about it.  Dad offered me a dollar if I could memorize it that evening.  It took about 40 minutes.  I recited it to Dad and he gave me the dollar.  And Mom came over and kissed me on the forehead.

Leon and I were her life.  She made sure we always had what we needed.  She fed the family well.  She was very interested in our education.  She always wanted to see our report cards and made sure our homework was done.  Dad helped out too, but Mom was the driver.

When Mom first came to America she taught herself English by doing crossword puzzles.  Before I entered the first grade she had taught me how to read.  She even made a game of it by making simple little crossword puzzles for me to do.  By the time I was in the third grade she was buying me easy crossword puzzle books to work.

But she was a very emotional woman too.  She cried easily.  She would faint whenever something happened to Leon or I or when she became very angry.  We learned how to handle the situation.  Prop her feet up on a pillow and put a cold, damp rag on her forehead.

I couldn’t lie to my Mom.  She always new.  I don’t know how, but she always did.

In the story I wrote about my Dad I said I owed what I am today to my Dad, Saint Ignatius High School and the United States Marine Corps.  That’s only partly true.  Dad gave me the motivation but Mom gave me the tools.

Mom was the typical housewife of the day.  Her career was her family.  And while that was a fulltime job in her spare time she would hand paint flowers on the corners of lady’s handkerchiefs for a downtown botique.  That was her pocket money although some of it sometimes helped out when the weekly budget got tight.

Mom was also a smoker.  She had a two pack a day habit.  I remember her favorite brand was Chesterfields.

She was almost 80 when she died of bladder cancer due to smoking.

When Leon and I were teenagers and at that age when smoking cigarettes was ‘cool’ Mom and Dad said it would be OK for us to smoke in the house.  I never did start.  I guess I thought if it’s not forbidden then what’s the point.

Sometimes Leon and I reminisce about Mom and Dad and how we turned out.  It always come down to Mom and Dad loved us and made time for us.  

Mom’s birthday was May 5th and after Leon and I left home to pursue our own lives every May 5th,  no matter where we were (except when I was overseas) one of us would call the other and say, “It’s Mom’s birthday, we have to go to the shop and tell Dad.”  And we’d laugh and laugh.  

Like the title of that wonderful old movie, I Remember Mama.

You and Leon are very fortunate men.

Bill W.

Noel, once again your story of Mama was delightful. In many ways, your Mom and mine were very similar in their outlooks on life. My Mom was a very devoted housewife, although she was evidently more outgoing with regards to being a volunteer.

She spent many hours in the early years as a volunteer at the Veteran's Hospital in Miami, and was also very active in the Ladies Auxiliary of the American Legion having served as National President for three terms. My Dad played a tenor snare drum with the Drum and Bugle Corps of the Harvey Seeds Post American Legion. Thankfully, he would practice the drum in his workshop, while he chanted "flam-a-diddle, pare-a-diddle" for hours on end... 😀

Again let me say thank you for the terrific stories!