The Little Red Book

One of the nice things about working part-time is that I have the ability to read. And I have been doing so, reading the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate.com, the Guardian, and anything else that comes in through my Facebook feed.  I have great FB friends who share things that speak to my interests and prejudices.  But I can’t keep doing this.  It feeds my anxiety and fears for my children, my country, and this beautiful world.  I am going to stop reading and start writing, at least for this afternoon.  We shall see about tomorrow.

Today’s topic is my mother. She died more than three years ago at age 93.  She was a quiet woman, always observing but rarely commenting. She was reserved and undemonstrative, but that’s not too unusual in a New England lady of her vintage. Underneath her unassuming manner, however, was a fierce love of family that showed itself in many ways.

For example, she was terrified of flying. She only flew to visit Wisconsin from Massachusetts when her grandchildren were born, otherwise taking the train, a strategy that resulted in much longer and equally frightening journeys.  Not surprisingly, she hated traveling in general, but drove with my father throughout New England and Atlantic Canada in hot pursuit of genealogical clues. She visited her hated stepmother in the nursing home every day because she had promised her father that she would. She was a woman who only left her comfort zone when it really mattered—for family.

Another angle into her psyche is her address book. She never created an online address book, but instead had a red leatherette 5 x 5 binder that must have dated from the 1970s.  I know this because it contained my 1976 New York City address, scratched out and replaced with subsequent locations that chronicled my travels from New York to Rochester to Poughkeepsie to Virginia to Wisconsin to Minnesota.  She treated her grandsons the same way.  She couldn’t keep up with one of them and sent his birthday checks to me instead for distribution.

Because she lived to the ripe old age of 93, many of her friends and family died before her. That created more cross-outs.  Sometimes she listed the death date, but usually the poor departed was simply excised from the land of the living by a big X in the red book.

What fascinates me most about the address book was her explanation for why a person was listed at all.  “George’s College Friend,” “George’s Best Man,” “George’s Secretary,”  “G’s Brown Univ Friend,” reflected her adoption of my father’s life when she married him in 1943.

She became even more descriptive when it came to her own extended family, which was vast—her father was one of 12 children, all of whom lived to adulthood.  I didn’t know very many of them but her notes in the address book explain their inclusion.  I seldom need to ask myself why she listed someone-- her notes tell all.

Take, for example, Jeff and Cindy Andrews of Cumberland, Maine. Mother describes them as members of the “Price fam. Via Strang desc. Of James³ Price.^”   There is the beautifully named Rev. Quentin and Carolyn Peacock of Rindge, New Hampshire, who, the notes tell me, was the “da. Of cousin Grace Moor.”  Robert and Jennifer Price of Lexington, Massachusetts, are simply identified as “3^rd cousin.”  How they were third cousins was not clear.  Did she not know, or was it so obvious to her that she did not feel the need to elaborate? However, most were like Jack and Alice Morelle of Moncton, New Brunswick, who were described as “Price cousin g.da. of D.S. Price’s oldest sister.” I think that means that one of them was a second cousin once removed.  She would have known.

There are a couple of references to unpleasant situations.  For example, Terry & Holly Sadler are described as “Alice’s grandniece Joan Price Erskine’s da.” What follows is the underlined word, “Divorced.”  The entry for Marion Chapman, listed as a “Simmons College friend,” has the ominous underlined note, “Christmas card returned.”

Then there was Mrs. Russell Bryant^.  The listing reveals much about mother’s Victorian mores.  It reads, “07 Mr. and Mrs. Russell Bryant (Mary)…Cape Porpoise, Maine. Mary (Zecchini) worked in Portland Public Lib. with me.” From this we can assume that Mr. Bryant died in 2007 and the friendship was of long standing—Mother worked in the Portland Public Lib. in 1944-45, when my father was serving in Italy and she lived with her parents. She clearly believed and operated by the notion that when a woman married, she became her husband, not only losing her family name but also exchanging her given name for “Mrs.” My mother made sure, however, that we did know Mary’s full name independent of Mr. Bryant—a radical step that she took in later years. Perhaps she was influenced by changing times and her daughter’s retention of her family name after marriage.  Who knows?

There are a few entries that require some guesswork. “Wishart, Burt & Bertha,” were probably cousins because they had a New Brunswick address. People listed as being in Worcester, Massachusetts, were most likely residents of the retirement community where my parents lived. But who was Margaret J. Parks of West Des Moines, Iowa? I have no idea.

Toward the end of her life, her beautiful handwriting deteriorated. One can see the effort it took for her to make sure that she (and I) understood the connections among the people she knew.  Was she anticipating a decline in her faculties that would require prompts that would allow her to remember why someone appeared in her little red book?   Who knows? As a proper New England lady, she wasn’t telling.