Having a much-loved, much-anticipated grandbaby in the family brings back memories of my mother. Mother was a mover and shaker who kept us very busy.
“The girls need dance and piano lessons and weekly trips to the library. I will start a Brownie Troop and volunteer to be a room mother.” Mother was enthusiastic and accompanied with a cadre of friends just as eager. Life was never dull.
Scruffy sisters Judy and Cindy at our grandmother’s farm on the Tennessee River. We are proudly holding up fish we thought we’d caught! Turns out our parents spent all day catching two fish, putting the poles back in the water, taking us down to the river and telling us our lines were bobbing. When we pulled up our lines, we each had magically caught a fish!!! Oh, those parents!
A good friend of my mother’s was Virginia St. Clair. Judy and I loved to go to her house because she had four daughters who stair-stepped in age from Mary, one year younger than my sister Judy, to Beth who was my age, to Charlene and lastly, Paula.
There was a beautiful grand piano in the house, and a big backyard where the girls showed us how to catch a June bug, tie a string around its back leg, and watch it fly circles around you. It was astounding. We not only loved the girls, but loved Mrs. St. Clare who let us have cokes, a rare treat at our house, would talk to you as an adult and taught my big sister how to ride a bicycle.
Hamilton County, Tennessee, hosted a huge fair every year. Daddy was an agriculture teacher, FFA club sponsor and farm agent. Consequently, he was always a livestock judge. Daddy’s FFA club’s fair booth won first place for 21 years in a row. One year he was the fair’s superintendent. The authorities placed an official looking seal on the windshield of our black car and for years people thought we were an unmarked police vehicle.
Every year Judy and I would go with daddy as the fair was being set up and run all over the place. We loved the fair.
One year Mother and Mrs. St. Clair decided to dress all six girls in identical dresses and take us to the fair. Mrs. St. Clair often did this to keep up with her girls and Mother, Judy and I loved the idea. Imagine what a sight we would make!
Off went the mothers to Picklers, the local dress shop, bringing home dresses with tiny black and white checks, lace at the collar and red underskirts that peeked out from under the hem. The girls would be adorable and we girls, plus our proud mothers, couldn’t wait to see the fair attendees’ reactions!
I’m sure we made quite a splash, six little girls trooping along, and we undoubtedly heard many fine comments, but the ones that we all remember best and laughed about for years, were the ones made by several people who stopped and asked if we were an orphanage! Oh dear, not the anticipated reaction. And those dresses? Everybody except me outgrew them but I wound up wearing one size or another of them until I was in the fourth grade.
Memories, unintended consequences, young mothers – the stuff of family stories and friendships. I mentally raise a glass to our mothers; those lovely, enthusiastic, creative women. What thought they put into their families, what love they invested in us. They tried so hard and did so well.
*Apologies to songwriters Rodgers and Hammerstein, creators of “Hello Young Lovers”
Cindy Arp, teacher/librarian, retired from Knox County Schools. She and husband Dan live in Heiskell.