Christmas Magic

My mother was an expert at making much from little. Nothing demonstrated this more than Christmas. My mother's Christmas trees were a work of art. After my father draped the colored lights around the tree, every fragile glass ball and bubbling bird were carefully hung from the branches by my mother or my sisters. Then the real artistry began as my mother delicately draped the tinsel, strand by strand, until the tree looked to be covered with shimmering icicles. Finally, she created magic under the tree with a small lighted church nestled in 'angel hair' snow next to a small frozen pond (mirror) alight with graceful sparkled ice skaters. I loved to crawl under the branches and gaze at that tiny village in the snow. This first photo is of my brother Bob and I, Christmas 1957. This is taken at my grandmother's house: artificial tree, a chair from the sun porch brought inside for the winter. It appears that this is the year I received a toy skunk for Christmas; I remember the skunk, he had a molded plastic face. Plainly, my mother has given me a home permanent for the holidays. My brother and I are dressed in our best clothes and I'm sure we have been warned to be on our best behavior. My grandmother's house was not a place for children and we were severely warned by our mother, "Don't make any noise; don't touch anything..." Christmas would have been a long day of sitting quietly on the scratchy navy blue sofas, highlighted by a formal dinner at the long white tableclothed dining table. The finale would have been my grandmother's famous apple and pumpkin pies. One Christmas, as the dessert dishes were being cleared, my grandmother asked my sister Barbara what she thought of that pie. My sister honestly answered, "Good, thank you, but I like my mother's better." Time stood still as the room came to a silent halt. "What was that?" asked my grandfather in his gruff Swedish voice. My grandmother gave my sister a piercing look, then turned to the kitchen to continue the dinner clean-up. My grandmother had perfected the passive-aggressive cold shoulder, and pity the person who suffered its intent. My mother hustled us home early that Christmas, packing the station wagon to the roof and bundling us against the driving snow.
The two photos below would have been taken in our own Fairview, Pennsylvania home. In my mind, Christmas was a grand production in our home that couldn't possibly be matched in any other place. My parents grew Christmas trees and sold them, choose and cut, from our property. Our own tree would have been one unwanted by paying customers, so perhaps a little crooked, or with a gap in the branches that needed to be hidden next to the wall. The photo of me as a baby would have been 1953, the other one also me, 1956. We would have received only one or two gifts for Christmas. My mother worked very hard to make it seem like more. I usually received a doll from Santa, or perhaps a doll cradle. My mother would have brought out all my dolls and stuffed animals on Christmas Eve and placed them around the tree. I would come out Christmas morning, excitedly searching for the new face amongst the toys. Our other gifts would be wrapped, a pair of lacy socks, or warm mittens. Sometimes she would wrap things that we already had; a mended sweater, or a repaired bracelet. Money was very scarce, but my mother still managed to make Christmas magic at our house. One year I received a muff made of white rabbit fur, and oh how I adored that gift! I felt like a princess.( a muff is a cylinder shaped object to keep a girl's hands warm, usually wrapped with fur on the outside, and lined with wool and satin) The gift I remember as the most magical was a battery operated bear, a mother bear in a dress and apron sitting in a rocking chair, feeding a bottle to a baby bear in her lap. As the mother bear rocked, she would pull the bottle away from the baby's mouth and he would let out a squeak, then she would put the bottle back to his mouth. It was my most treasured possession. One Christmas, when my brother was about 5 or 6, he asked for a Casper the Talking Ghost. He loved the Casper cartoon on TV, and that year they were advertising a Casper doll, with a ring at his neck to pull and hear one of 3 phrases. It was all my brother talked about, but it was an expensive item, and a doll (although it was more like a stuffed animal), so my mother decided that a truck would be more appropriate and it fit the budget. She was sure he would forget about the Casper doll by Christmas. Well, my mother was wrong; my brother ran excitedly to the tree Christmas morning and then burst into tears. He was inconsolable. Tears popped from his little blue eyes (his tear ducts are misshapen). The whole family stared in disbelief at this heartbroken little boy as he cried his eyes out. So, I quickly made up a story and told him that Santa ran out of Caspers after he gave them to all the poor children and the little children in hospitals, but he was already working on making more Caspers for next year. Amazingly, he bought the story (I guess he didn't know we were the poor children) and he didn't forget it. The next Christmas my mother, lesson learned, scrimped and saved to put a Casper the Talking Ghost under the tree. My father just shook his head; a doll, for heaven's sake.
Once we moved to Illinois, my mother started another tradition: lunch under the Christmas tree at Marshall Field's downtown Chicago. Marshall Field's had a restaurant in the center of their store, and it was open to the ceiling four stories above. Their Christmas tree filled every bit of that four storied space. My mother and I would dress in our best dresses and coats and take the Illinois Central to downtown. After walking for what seemed like miles in the sharp cold air, looking at all the animated Christmas scenes in the blocks-long windows of Field's and Carson Pierie Scott, we would have lunch together next to the Marshall Field's Christmas tree. In the first years it was my sisters, my mother, and I, but as my sisters went off to college, on this rare special occasion I had my mother all to myself. More of my mother's Christmas magic: in a large and busy restaurant, she had managed to reserve a table for two right next to the tree for a glamorous, and extravagant luncheon.
My mother told me once that when she was young, she would receive a single orange in her sock for Christmas, no other gifts. I suppose that's why it was so important to her to create a magical Christmas for us. We all carried on the tradition, and have created Christmas Magic with our own children, sometimes taking the magic a little too far and spending far too much, but always with the tree and decorations and traditions of Santa. I'm sure my mother made unbelievable sacrifices to make sure we had something under the tree Christmas morning, the beautiful Christmas tree she so carefully decorated. Today, as another year slips away, I will disassemble our own lovely Christmas fir. With every ornament and decoration I carefully wrap and put away for another year, my mother's Christmas magic will be in my heart.

Goodbye Christmas

Christmas has come and gone, and with it my beautiful girls. I anticipated this Christmas with such excitement, I wanted to slow its coming, in order to slow its departing. All my girls were with me for Christmas, and we all knew that it may be the last time. But Christmas rushed in so fast, as it does, and rushed out again. Whitney left two days ago, flying to San Diego on her way to her new life in New Orleans. I didn't think my heart would ever stop breaking; it took everything in me to let go of her and watch her walk out the door. And now Kerrie and her family, Jamey and Karsen, have gone down the driveway, headed for Seattle as I waved and waved to them, tears streaming down my face, their car smaller and smaller until it turned onto the highway and I couldn't see it at all. Oh my goodness, how I miss them so! This is what I have wanted for them since the day they were born: happiness, love, success, adventure, fulfillment...but I didn't realize the sacrifice it meant for me; that for them to fly, I would have to let go of them. I didn't know how much the letting go would hurt. I didn't know how hard it would be to keep from calling out, "Wait, don't leave me behind!" Selfishly, I wish I could go back and change the things I said or did to encourage them to be independent. Why did I have to push them so, and expect so much of them? Why was it so important to me that they reach for the stars? Why couldn't I let them settle for what was here and safe and close at hand? Thinking that, I am all too aware that it is entirely possible that nothing I said or did to sway them or otherwise damage them would have any effect on their choices in life; that it is possible, even probable, that they would have become the fabulous people they are in spite of my fumbling mothering. Just the same, I wish it had been different; that time had moved more slowly, that I had been less busy, and less worried; that I could have savoured it more, or remembered it well. I once had a friend, long ago when Kerrie was in preschool, who told me about the day her daughter was born. Her own mother came into the hospital room soon after the birth and asked, "What do you have, a son or a daughter?" "A daughter!" she was beaming, but her mother began to cry. When she asked what the tears were for, her mother told her, "Your heart will break a thousand times." I think of that story often, whenever my heart is breaking.

Road Trip Dad

There was nothing my dad liked better than a road trip. It wasn't about the destination, it was about the planning and the drive. He researched everything down to the last detail and travel was no exception. My dad would have loved the Internet; and GPS- he would have been among the first to buy one. I doubt he would have had much use for it, though; once my dad read a map or traveled a highway the route was retained in his brain forever. He never met a road he didn't like, and he never forgot a route.

Here he is with my sister, Barbara. Perhaps he's making vacation travel plans, or maybe a visit to one of his brothers. My mother would have chosen the vacation destination; it would have been to some place of historic significance. A visit with relatives would have been my mother's decision, as well. My dad's job was to work out the travel details and do the driving. If we didn't have someplace to go, he would just take us driving. Almost every Sunday was spent doing the "Sunday Drive". Mom and Dad in the front seat with one of my sisters in the middle; my brother and I in the back, with a big sister in between to keep us from killing each other. We would spend hours touring the countryside looking at cows. We didn't have seat belts then and we'd hang out the windows like dogs, letting the wind blow into our mouth and yelling, "Mooooo!" We didn't have air conditioning then, either so if it was warm weather the windows were all the way down and the wind roared through the car. One of my favorite drives was to O'Hare Airport. We never traveled by airplane, but O'Hare had an observation deck and we loved to stand out there with our fingers in our ears, smelling the exhaust and leaning into the wind created by the jets. My brother and I would pretend the noise deafened us and say, "What? I can't hear you," when our parents would tell us it was time to go home.

Like other dads, my dad would never stop for directions, but I don't think he needed to because he was never lost. Also like other dads, he didn't like to stop for bathroom breaks. Our family had strong bladders from all that waiting between rest stops!

I wonder what my dad would say about today's gas prices. The price of gas was never an issue when it came to the Sunday Drive. Whatever the cost, it was a small price to pay for a day of family entertainment. Weekends were family time; go for a drive and have a picnic at the Forest Preserve, or play croquet in the yard and barbecue hamburgers with the neighbors. We didn't play sports or run from activity to activity like today's kids. We didn't play soccer, we played the 'ABC' game using billboards or competed at out of state license plate spotting. I don't know if my dad's excursions did anything in the way of preparing us for life, but to this day I can remember the state slogans and color combinations on the license plates...and I'm betting my sisters and brother have taught their own children and grandchildren how to play the 'ABC' game and have even gone on a Sunday Drive now and then. Thanks Dad, for making happy memories.

Christmas Card

The Bowes family Christmas card, 1959. Clockwise from top left: Barbara (15), Becky (18), Richard, Patricia (19), Christine (6), Edna, and Bobby (3). This is the only time I can remember having a family photo Christmas card. It must have been a very extravagant thing to do at the time. The reason we were able to afford it was because an African American photographer had moved to our small Illinois town, and was having a tough go of it. A neighbor recommended him, from his church charity work. The price was right because, well, he was the wrong color. His family was living in a rental, a shack really, not near our house, for heaven's sake, but down the road, back in the trees. His son and I, both about 6, got a ride home from school from the neighbor occasionally. I actually told the boy once, "My mom says your dad's a good photographer, for a colored man." I thought I was paying him a compliment, couldn't understand why he looked so mad and was so anxious to get out of the car and away from me. I don't even know if that was something my mother had said, or something I just made up because I thought it would be a nice thing to say.
So, here we have the Bowes family in their cut-rate Christmas photo. Of course, Pat isn't really a blood relative. She was a neighbor of one of my father's brothers in Pennsylvania. One day while Pat was visiting our cousins, my sisters were also there, excitedly telling their cousins about moving to Chicago. Pat said she thought that was just about the best thing that could happen to a girl and my mother said, "Come with us then," or something to that effect. Pat's parents said, "One less mouth to feed," or something to that effect. She really wasn't their daughter, anyway; she was a foundling, just like you hear about, a baby left in a basket on the doorstep. They were a poor coal miner's family, but they took her in and raised her as their own- until she came with us to Illinois. She left Pennsylvania and never looked back. My mother also said, "Come with us then," to her mother-in-law and one of my dad's nephews, and they came, too. The farm was sold and we all moved to a little brick box of a house on a dusty highway in flat, wanna-be-suburban, ex-cornfield, Marcum, Illinois. Nine people moved into that three bedroom, one bathroom, less than a thousand square foot house. It was a new, modern development house, nothing like what you'd see in the farm towns of Pennsylvania. There were 5 model homes on the highway, and we were lucky enough to get one of them before the developer went broke and skipped town. My dad's nephew soon returned to Pennsylvania and went into the service, but everyone else stayed; we had arrived. Yessir, look at those Bowes people, they moved to Chicago and got their picture on a Christmas card. Well, aren't they somethin'.

Thank you, Bud and Irma

Here I am with Bud and Irma. It looks like I'm about 7 years old, so this would be about 1960. The photo with the pony looks to be a year or two later. Sadly, I don't remember exactly who Bud and Irma are. If my sisters were still here, they could probably tell you all about Bud and Irma. I only have a dim memory of these people who were once so important to me.
I can remember each of their voices; I think Bud had been in the military, and I know they lived in Pennsylvania. They were not relatives. The reason Bud and Irma are important to me is because they liked me. Everyone adored my brother, who was three years younger. He was always the crowd favorite, with his dark hair and fair skin, freckles across his nose and bright blue eyes. He was active and noisy, and everything he did was hilarious. Even I thought so. I was skinny and too tall for my age, with brown hair and eyes. I was shy and quiet, afraid of almost everything. Everyone loved Bobby. Bud and Irma loved me. I loved Bud and Irma. After we moved to Illinois, nearly every family or holiday vacation meant traveling 500 miles to Pennsylvania. We would stay with our Grandma Palmquist and Robert (her husband since the 1930s). My mother would drag us around to visit relatives, or the local historic sites, but for me, the highlight of the trip would be a visit with Bud and Irma. They always had a little gift for me, a cupcake or a tiny doll. One time, knowing my love of horses, Bud arranged to borrow a neighbor's pony for me to ride. How I loved Bud and Irma! I don't know when or why we stopped visiting Bud and Irma. I think they moved to another state, but that could have been just a story my mother invented to pacify me. I'm sure Bud and Irma have long since passed, but I have held their love in my heart for more than fifty years. Thank you, Bud and Irma, you meant the world to me.

if wishes were horses...

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," my mother would say every time I begged for a pony. I don't know what that had to do with anything; my wishes were for horses. There wasn't a birthday or Christmas between ages 6 and 16 that I didn't jump out of bed in the morning and check the backyard for a pony. Backyard empty, I'd check the garage, just in case... For several years my birthday gift was a Breyer horse. I treasured them, and still have them, but it just wasn't the same. I longed for a horse with an unwavering passion. I pleaded my case, "but Becky and Barb had a horse!" Yes, they did. The mighty steed, Trigger, shown here with Barbara in the saddle. Sold when we moved from rural Pennsylvania to suburban Illinois, I remembered Trigger as the most majestic horse to grace the earth. I was too small to ride him before he was sold, but he was magnificent; tall and strong, handsome and brave. Roy Rogers would have been envious, probably would have wanted to trade his pitiful palomino for our princely paint. I lost my first tooth to Trigger. Well, almost. Actually, my sister Barbara was instructed by our mother to take a sack of fresh corn out to the barn yard to shuck. And she had to take me with her. Begrudgingly, she trudged out to the fence surrounding our state-of-the-art barn (think henhouse with a lean-to addition), me running behind to catch up. She gave me brief instructions: pull off the shuck, throw it over the fence, put the naked ear of corn in the basket. Trying to prove my usefulness, I pulled off the husk and held it up for her to see. She nodded, unimpressed. Then I tossed the ear of corn. Over the fence. I looked to my sister, she looked angry. After telling me what I already knew- that she didn't want to bring me and she knew I couldn't do it, etc., she told me to go through the rails and retrieve the ear of corn. O. K., I could do that. I slipped through the two lower fenceboards easily, grabbed the corn, and turned back. About that time, Trigger heard the commotion and the "food!?" lightbulb went on in his head. He trotted for the fence, leaving the two hens, Calico and Pinafore, who had been napping on his back, flapping in mid air. Panicked that the mighty stallion (overweight gelding) might trample me, I dove between the fence boards, whacking my head in the process. "Your mouth is bleeding," my sister said calmly. Immediately I began to cry. Howling, I was dragged back up to the house. After a brief inspection, my mother diagnosed the problem, "You lost a tooth! You can put it under your pillow tonight and the Tooth Fairy will come and leave you money!" "Where's the tooth?" she asked my sister. Door slamming behind us, my sister dragged me by the hand back down to the barn, where Trigger had his head through the fence rails, happily munching corn husks, the ones with the corn still inside.

"Now look what you did, this is all your fault and I'm the one that's going to get in trouble," my sister grumbled. "But look, there's my tooth!" I said happily, pointing to the corn husk covered ground between the pony's front hooves. "Well go get it," she commanded. I shook my head, no. "It's just a pony!", she said angrily. I shook my head, no. Really fuming now, Barbara ducked under the rail and retrieved the tiny tooth. Pushing the tooth into my hand, she instucted me to go back to the house. I skipped all the way; I'd lost my first tooth, and I didn't have to shuck any more corn.

Richard and Edna, Lake Erie, 1949

Lake Erie pier, Pennsylvania, 1949. My mother, Edna Wescott Bowes with my sisters Rebecca Ann and Barbara Jean. Here a formidable Lake Erie, where the cold wind never stops, meets the equally formidable Edna. Her given name was Jessie Irene. Hard to imagine anyone would choose to be called Edna; who gave her that nickname? We all grew up knowing that our mother was like no other. She was a stunning beauty who wielded a power over those around her like no other mom we knew in the neighborhood, or even on TV. She was a movie star without a movie. I thought she was Lucille Ball, without the loud voice and the Cuban husband. She never wore a housecoat or put her hair in a ponytail. She was never seen without make-up and heels. Dress or suit, stockings, earrings, nails polished and red hair done, she was the first up and about in the morning, and the last to turn out the light at night. Unlike our friends' moms, our mom was always a working mom. She always had a job, or maybe two. Whatever she did, she was always the best at it; she took her career very seriously. She was small, but mighty. Her fierce blue eyes could burn a hole right through you. She loved us just as fiercely. She was the head of our family, there was no doubt, and we knew to never, ever cross her. Hell hath no fury like the wrath of Edna. She was a whirlwind of activity, 24/7; a powder keg, dynamite with a short fuse. We feared her and loved her, and spent our lives trying to please her. Some of us fared better than others, or at least we each believed "Mom liked you best" about the other. But what I didn't know, until I was married and had children of my own, was that my mother had dark and frightening secrets. Some secrets were revealed to us slowly, piece by piece, in her later years. Some will never be known to us.

... and my father, Richard Arden Bowes, with his first two daughters. A slightly built man of few words and little ambition. He was content to work at Sears or Montgomery Ward's, selling appliances. He didn't smoke or drink, play cards or golf. He hummed everywhere he went. On Sunday he would take a nap on the couch. My mother would say, "Dick, when you are dead and gone, I won't need a picture to remember you by. I will remember you just that way, asleep on the couch."My father was handsome. As I remember him, he always wore a moustache. I thought he was Clark Gable, or maybe Dennis Weaver. My father was brilliant. I loved to watch jeopardy on TV with my father; he would say the question for every answer, before the contestants could hit the buzzer. There wasn't anything in our house that my father couldn't fix. We never had a repairman of any kind come to our house, never took the car to a garage to be fixed. I didn't know, until I married, that there were men in the world that did not know how to fix everything that was broken. While my mother wished only for a son, my father loved having daughters, even having three daughters. He had a quick temper, and not much patience, but was also quick to laugh. While much of what my sisters and brother and I did was exasperating to my mother, the same antics were humorous to my father. He loved us at arms length; he never said, "I love you", but I knew that he did. My father probably had secrets too, but he was a contemplative man and didn't share much about himself. I wish I had known him better; I wish I had asked the questions I want to ask now.

Becky

I love this photo of my sister Becky. Like many photos of Becky, it includes a dog. When I was small, there were two things I knew about Becky: she loved animals, and she loved me. Becky is 11 years, 361 days older than I. I'm sure she didn't ask for the job, but she was my mother much of the time. Perhaps our own mother was preoccupied with our baby brother, or her career, or just putting food on the table, but I can remember being dressed and fed by Becky, waiting at the door for her to come home in the afternoon, and climbing onto her lap and wrapping my arms around her neck. Becky was always laughter and smiles, chatter and more laughter. She made me feel wanted and loved. Her mothering was an art she cultivated early, and practiced her entire life. Long after Becky was a mother of two and I was a mother of four, I would still call her when I needed mothering. More than just a good listener, she offered practical advice with a large dose of sympathy, followed by encouragement, optimism, and a good strong ego boost. Money couldn't buy better therapy than a chat with my sister. I still hear her voice, full of excitement as she comes to the phone. It could have been the most awful day for her, but she never gave any indication. She would make me feel as if my phone call was the best thing that could happen. I know by her voice that she is smiling and her eyes are dancing. She wants to hear everything I have to say; I feel as if I am the most important person in the world to her. "Oh, Chrissy!" she would say. No one could ever have been as blessed as I have been with sisters. Oh Becky, I hope that before I said goodbye, I remembered to tell you how much I love you.

in the beginning...

...of course I don't remember this. I am the infant. The almost 9 year old, my sister Barbara. The year is 1953. What I like most about this photo is that my sister looks so happy. Proof that someone was happy about my arrival-- parents are almost always happy about a new baby, even if they (or at least my mother) had hoped for a boy. 3 times. But for the child who has just been displaced as the youngest, and therefore the most likely center of attention, my sister Barbara looks genuinely thrilled to have a new little sister. And that's how I always knew her to be; never grabbing the spotlight for herself, almost embarrassed by the attention her beauty attracted, and very much taken with babies. She was what we would today describe as a "girly-girl"; loving dresses and dolls, having tea parties for her doll-friends, and cutting paper dolls from the Sears Catalog. One of my earliest memories is of Barbara setting up the paper doll house on her bed. The furniture was cut from the catalog, the rooms were defined by belts from our mother's closet. The large, well-dressed family came from the catalog pages where they modeled clothing. There were appliances, toys, and family pets, all in black and white, wobbling on the chenille bedspread. And there were horses, always horses. Cut from coloring books and carefully decorated with crayons, horses galloped and reared in their belt-made barns and pastures. I loved watching my sisters unpack the paper family and its furnishings from their shoebox, sliding the children into their beds through the slit cut where the paper pillows met the paper bedspread. I was repeatedly instructed by my sisters (Becky would play too, if Barbara let her have first pick when choosing family members from the box) to watch, but don't touch. There came a time when Becky was not at home to play, or perhaps felt she was getting too old for paper dolls. Out of desperation, Barbara allowed me to play paper dolls with her. I was given a few family members; a mother missing an arm where she had been separated from her husband by the scissors, a boy looking back over his shoulder at the hip pockets of his jeans, a baby, grotesquely large-scale and permanently sleeping. I was patiently reminded several times not to touch her dolls or house. It must have been all too tempting for me because I remember Barbara dragging our mother by the hand into the bedroom, where apparently I had committed a crime. Our mother listened patiently while her middle daughter produced exhibits A, B, and C: paper people, crumpled by tiny hands. Trying to sympathize, and to hide her smile, my mother suggested that I be given additional family members and furnishings, and belts to make a house. Exasperated, but obedient, my sister shared a few of her treasures, then packed the rest into the shoebox and put it up too high for me to reach. I can't remember seeing her play paper dolls after that; a couple of years later she gave me the coveted shoebox. It wasn't the same, though. My houses were never as cleverly designed as hers, my paper families were never as beautiful, their furnishings were never as flat and unwrinkled. I wasn't even able to cut new dolls from the catalog with the careful precision of my sister. I kept trying though, because I wanted to be just like the most clever, fun, most perfect person I knew, and the best paper doll cutter in the world; I wanted to be just like Barbara, my big sister.