Bringing Back Good Memories...

A teenage Barbara Fish reading in bed

What brings Christmases past to mind so vividly? For some it's the memory of a special Christmas gift.

My mother wrote this is January of 2024:

"Another memory: the small square stand by my bed, made in the late 1930s by my Dad as a Christmas gift for sister Pat and me.

"We had modified four-poster twin beds and Dad copied the turning pattern of the bed posts to match for the table legs. He included a drawer and a shelf so it was very serviceable and – icing on the cake – also included was a small radio that brought in many shortwave stations.

"One of our favorites was WQXR out of New York City that played many classical music programs - symphonies, opera etc. as well as soap operas and mystery shows. A wonderful Christmas that year!

Barbara and sister Pat. The nightstand is seen on the right.

"Not sure where those beds ended up - I think they got a good home - but I kept the nightstand and now it's with me at Cole Manor, bringing back good memories."

Mom had written this piece in a notebook she kept in the pocket of her recliner. The pictures I came across in an old photo album - the kind with heavy black construction paper pages, the memories secured with little maroon corners.

"Twixt That Darkness And That Light"

I’ve gone to church nearly all my life. As a child, it seemed everyone went to church - except for my mother's father. All my friends went to church, mostly to my church, the Presbyterian (a hard word to spell) Church or to the Methodist Church just up the street. My family - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - went to the Presbyterian Church too.

We dressed up to go to church - the whole family. The boys wearing dress slacks and sport coats and ties, the church togs growing a bit tired by the time they passed along through the three older boys. Paul escaped the hand-me-downs for styles had changed and he could get away with a nice shirt and slacks.

My dad had two suits - a winter suit of wool and a summer suit, likely of some kind of synthetic fabric like Dacron. And we girls - my mother and I - wore dresses and hats and gloves. In winter, I wore tights under my full skirts and in summer those nylon ankle socks with ruffles at the top and patent leather shoes.

I first remember Dr. Todd standing behind that oak pulpit, tall and gruff.  His wife, with her rouged cheeks, substituted the word Hades for Hell in the Apostles’ Creed week after week. 

Rev. Loughborough was the one whose singsong voice almost lulled me to nap, sitting in the Heimel pew between my grandparents, Aunt Betty slipping me  lifesaver from time to time. Grandma didn’t nag at me for squirming like my mother did, who cautioned me with a little pat on my thigh or even a little pinch.

Rev. Baker, with his perky wife and pesky children, came next. He didn’t stay very long, but long enough to put his signature on the Holy Bible I received after completing third grade Sunday School.

And then came The Reverend Robert B. Merten, bringing liberal thought as he delivered his sermon each week and, after hours, opening the staid manse to a whole generation of Coudersport youth.

His ministry was unorthodox and reached far beyond the four walls of the Presbyterian Church. He was a controversial and outspoken figure - both within the church and the community. He questioned the place of the traditional baccalaureate observance in the local high school and even the branding of Potter County as God’s Country. His letters to the editor, addressing one or another of the social ills, appeared frequently in the local paper.

I’ve been thinking often of The Reverend these days, these days when I feel my faith in God shaken. These days just before Christmas when that man, that wretch of a human being who is President of The United States, stands up front of a jungle of greenery and faux gold ornaments, the lies tumbling from his crooked lips. These days when it seems as if saying God Bless gives permission to do profoundly ungodly things.

It was at another time of deep unrest in our country - the Vietnam War era and Nixon's disgrace - that The Reverend one Sunday sat down at the organ and played a tune known as Ebenezer to begin his weekly sermon, carefully and deliberately charging us to hear and absorb, line by line, the words of this hymn "Once To Every Man and Nation."

I've never forgotten that sermon and I believe James Russell Lowell's words have much to say to us today:

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, some great decision, off’ring each the bloom or blight,

and the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.

I think I'll request this hymn for the next Hymn Sing and ask Chris to pull out all the stops!

Here is the full text to Lowell's poem. 

The Bureau

I have my grandmother’s bureau, the last piece of her bedroom suite that occupied the upstairs south-facing corner room in their foursquare house on North Main Street. Once there was a chifforobe and a double bed frame and a vanity to match, all with  dark walnut finish, dating from the 1920s perhaps. 

Opening its drawers, I can still catch a whiff of the scent I remember when this grandmother - my mother’s diminutive mother – moved through my early life. 

This grandmother was called Danny, after my mother’s plan for my elder brother to call her Granny (the moniker she claimed to despise) came out of his toddler mouth as Danny. This grandmother is the one I remember in a cloud of cigarette smoke, l’Origan perfume and Beeman’s gum.

Danny worked part time in Rosenbloom’s Men’s & Boy’s Store, one of the clerks along with Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Rosenbloom. They wore tape measures around their necks, at the ready to custom fit inseams and sleeve length.

At the time when going downtown included stops at the many shops along Main and Second Street, I carry vague memories of Danny moving between the large flat cases with shelves displaying the sweaters and shirts, and Lee jeans and Hanes underwear, The blazers and suits hung on racks suspended on the perimeter, along with slacks with zig zag bottoms, waiting for custom hemming. It seemed cavernous with its mysterious back room where the men went to the fitting room and the clerks went to the bathroom. 

My mother once told me Danny used the money she earned working at Rosenbloom’s to be able to buy beautiful things. Danny loved beautiful things, coveted beautiful things. After she died, I helped my mother sort through the clothing stored in the bureau and the chifforobe and the vanity. The silky undergarments and soft nightgowns, cashmere sweaters, pleated wool slack. And hanging in the closet, dresses for any occasion, including a stunning slip dress in a green and ivory paisley pattern with a floating overdress, its shoulder pads stiff with age. My mother claimed a spring coat from that closet, a buttery yellow color with the tags from Moren’s Dress Shoppe still attached.

Danny loved china and crystal and snowy white  table linens. We carried a tote full of Danny’s Ermine Blue Spode china to its new home with Danny’s great-granddaughter Kate on one of our cross-country road trips. Kate sets the table with it for special occasions as I remember family gatherings with Danny and Granddaddy at  the head and foot of the long dining room table..

The mirror on Danny’s bureau is getting hazy, the two wide drawers have been repaired repeatedly and lately have begun sticking again. It’s likely time to let it go, to let it all go.