GMBB WO (1) LETTERS TO VIRGINIA--DEARBORN, MICHIGAN
Oct 12 '02
The Bottom Line It had to start somewhere. Why not here?
For the Granniemose Birthday Bash write-off, I decided I would post one review to every 10 that has been posted, until there are 80! That way, it will be easier for you to read, not so much to digest all at once! (If your submission is in two parts, you get credit for 2.) I just read #10 submission so here goes nothin’!
***
Mom, I love you. This is fiction. Do not try to correct me.
***
This is an attempt at healing, or maybe ‘putting things right’ is a better way to state it. The time line is from Mom’s own memory. The characters are partly from my memory, and for the rest, entirely fictional. I never knew my grandfather Elmer. I knew my Grandma Faye pretty well.
My mother was born in Dearborn Michigan on October 28, 1922. Her mother, Faye Russell Ortmayer had, in her life before marriage, been a schoolteacher, even teaching George McGovern (former political hopeful) third grade. In her later years, she would say, “he was a scamp in third grade, and he is a scamp now. Don’t vote for him.”
Her father, my grandfather, Elmer Ortmayer was an architectural engineer by training, and would be a civil engineer, part of FDR’s great rebuilding program of the WPA, specializing in bridges and Dams. When she was born, Virginia had an older brother, Russell, and an older sister Allison. Both children, and their mother were somewhat surprised by this later addition to their family. Elmer, however, was delighted. Fay, who thought her days of diaper washing and baby tending were over, at first resented Elmer for his part in her pregnancy, and then resented Virginia, for holding her back.
Faye was a woman with better things to do than raise children for all her life. They were on the verge of becoming “successful”. Elmer’s years and stock in the railroad offered them financial security, and Faye wanted to be part of the group of women who attended political meetings, went to lectures, and were known as the movers and the shakers in the world they lived in. She wanted to wear the latest fashions, not be bloated with pregnancy. She groaned, thinking of how long it would take her to get her figure back. This child would put her back 6 years, waiting for her to be old enough to go to school. They could afford another child, but only by giving something up.. They would have to postpone their traveling plans, and that house they were planning to buy.
And Faye already knew that the youngest child (especially by six years) would be in danger of being spoiled rotten, so even in moments of weakness, when she indeed saw into the soul of her most sensitive little girl, and her heart softened, she deliberately kept herself from comforting too much, or showing any favor. She felt she was helping Virginia to be strong. She could not know it left the child feeling unloved and unwanted, from one of the most important people in her life, her mother.
Elmer though, saw into the soul of his youngest daughter and loved her as only a father can. He saw in her the best of her mother, his wife, whom he loved dearly, and himself, who he did not love so dearly, although he had a strong sense of who he was. My grandfather was a hard worker, and quiet. Elmer was a man of great compassion, complementing his wife’s almost cold independence and somewhat unforgiving nature. When the young Virgilia cried, Elmer was there to offer strength and love. When she gave a gift, he knew it was from her heart, and the greatest gift that any could give. But I am getting ahead of myself.
****
Faye was 33 years old when Virginia was born, Elmer was 45. Childbirth, in those days, was a dangerous event, and everyone knew it. Anesthesia was not really in use for local housewives, and childbirth was not a family affair. It was women only, the men were relegated to waiting- boiling water and pacing, smoking cigars. They missed the mess, the pain, and for some at least, (Elmer for one) , the joy as well. Elmer wanted to be with his wife She would have none of it. The children Russ, and Allison, were off with a cousin, and would not return until Mother was on her feet again. She did not want them to witness her in pain or in weakness, believing strongly that being a role model was one of a parent’s biggest responsibilities.
Faye worried about this birth. Her last one had left her nearly at death’s door, because the child was very big (Dowd said over 8 pounds), and there was a lot of blood. The first one, Russell, had been easier, for some reason. She hoped this one would be a boy, because she thought that boys were easier, from her own experience. Besides, there would be more that Elmer could teach. Faye recognized to herself, if to no one else, that her strength was not in cuddling, or “loving out loud”. Her strength was the mind, and discipline, and those skills that children would need to be articulate, and successful in the world. Hugs were not her thing, especially in public. She thought it a sign of bad breeding.
Faye hated for anyone to see her weak, or without perfect composure, so she sent the men out when the first pain hit. Her brother Bill, then 22 and full of fun, had come to keep Elmer company, having a day off from Ford Motors where he worked. And she endured the pain as silently as she could, the stoic Anglo Saxon blood strengthening her resolve in ways she could not have recognized as instinctual. Mrs. Dowd, a midwife, stayed with her, preparing for the birth, and all that goes with it.
Grandma Ida Russell, Faye’s mother, was home with her younger boys finishing up the farm chores, and the dishes in Vermillion South Dakota. There were no telephones. She knew that Faye was with child, but that was nothing new. Ida herself had given birth to a baby every 18 months, from the time George, the oldest, was born. Faye’s sisters were off somewhere with their own lives, and Faye was here in Michigan, alone with her own family. She thought, between the wrenching pains, how she had never wanted to be like HER mother, tied up with cooking and caring for a family, feeding the farm hands, her only comfort a corncob pipe, hidden in the waistband of her skirt. That pipe of her mother’s was disgusting.
**
The pains came regular, but they were not as bad as she had remembered. But it was just getting started, and she had no way of knowing, like all women learn if they pay attention, that each and every birth was unique, and that every life that enters this world enters in his or her own way. The old superstitious midwives always said that it meant something about the personality of the child, and the life of the person the child would become, but Fay didn’t believe that. Not for a minute.
In a few hours, when the pains were becoming unbearable, Mrs. Dowd told her to push. She placed her hand on her belly and got ready to bring the baby out. She had a look on her face of surprise, but Faye missed it. Her eyes were closed tight, with tears of pain and sweat stinging if she opened them at all gasping for air, so she kept them shut tight. She was soaked. The girl Elsie, Mrs Dowd’s daughter, mopped her face, and put a cold rag to her head. She rubbed her shoulders, and comforted, even when Faye pushed her away.
"What IS the matter? Why does it hurt so BAD this time?"
She vaguely remembered that with her other children , this was the part that felt GOOD! Mrs Dowd was silent, but checking , with routine efficiency, the position of the baby.
"What IS it, is something wrong?"
"No Ma’am....next time, you just need to push harder, just as hard as you can. "
Faye did, and with one long agonizing effort, her daughter Virginia was born, her right hand extended over her head, greeting the world with her fingers before letting the rest of herself out into the world.
Mrs. Dowd had nothing to do for Virginia. She was pink, she was screaming, and she had an inch of blond hair, fine and faintly curling. Mrs. Dowd had cleaned her off with the towels, and sent Elsie out to find Mr. Ortmayer, who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, not having moved a muscle since he heard that unmistakable baby noise coming from above.
Mrs. Dowd spoke quietly as she wrapped the baby in a blanket.
"You aren’t going to believe this, ma’am, but this little one shook my hand. She grabbed my fingers hard, before she came out. Her hand was out in front, reaching around for some hand to hold onto."
Faye opened her eyes wearily, but she was exhausted.
" You mean it is a girl? "
"Yes Ma’am, and she is beautiful."
Faye smiled a tiny brief smile at her daughter as Mrs. Dowd put her in her arms.
" Well little girl, we don’t even have a name for you. We only picked a name for a boy. You have an older sister who is going to be jealous of you. "
The midwife put the baby to the breast as midwives have always done , and mother and baby for this moment, anyway, were content with each other.
Elmer came in, and looked at the two of them , realizing at this moment that nothing could have made him happier than his wife and his daughter . He sat by the bed, and touched the baby’s soft skin. Eyes as blue as the morning sky searched for the source of that caress, and seemed to focus right on him.
" She’s beautiful Faye."
The baby sensing his hand reached her fingers to him, never missing a single beat of her work at nursing, and held his finger tightly.
"Elmer, she looks like your mother."
Elmer remembered his mother’s long blond hair, and her sweet gentle face. He remembered her kindness and her hugs when he was hurt, and he remembered her pride when he graduated from college.
"She could do worse. "
She did not get her name, Virginia, until a cousin suggested it a week after she was born.
***
And so, on October 28, the year that AT and T decided to go public with the ‘telephone’, New York Baseball teams led in Both the National and the American Leagues, Buster Keaton was America’s favorite movie star , Isodora Duncan danced at Carnegie Hall, and Mussolini marched on Rome, Virginia, otherwise known to some of us as Granniemose, came into the world. And we are all of us better for it.
***
Letter from Celestial City, no street address
Mrs. Dowd, formerly Midwife, Dearborn Michigan.
Little Virginia, I am, not really writing you a letter, because God doesn’t let us write here, at least not to send you a letter by mail! But I wanted you to know some things. Because you were special. A special baby in every way. First, did you know you were the first baby my daughter Elsie ever saw me deliver? Well you were! She thought you were a miracle..even more than most babies, with your big blue eyes that seemed to look right at you, (even though we know better). She became one of the first lady doctors in Michigan, and I wanted you to know you had a part in her decision.
You were the only baby I ever delivered in 20 years that shook my hand before I delivered you! Like you wanted to see who was out there! You were the only baby I ever delivered that made ME feel better when you came! Like somehow, you were MY friend. I guess that is the strongest impression of you that I can give you,Little Virginia, because that is what I remember.
I heard your Mama up here telling everyone how she told her girls to they should wait to until THEY had babies to decide what pain was! Well just between you and me and the lamp post, I have seen far worse pain than your mama had, birthing you. Still, I sure did know it hurt-it always hurts! But hers was only bad for that last couple of minutes, and she didn’t bleed much, this time.
When we had babies at home those days, nobody ever weighed them. But I always wanted to know. I took care of you and your Momma for a week after she had you, so I weighed you myself, down in the kitchen, and you weighed 7 pounds and 15 oz on the second day after you were born, give or take the weight of a diaper. And another thing you probably didn’t know. Your Uncle Bill? Well he was a very nice young man, (and the reason that Elsie came along that day, in hopes of seeing him) and he thought you were an angel, the most amazing thing he had ever seen. He saw you the day you were born, waiting down there with your daddy, but he was afraid to hold you, afraid he’d drop you I guess! Your Daddy, though, he was as sure of himself holding you as any man I have ever known!. I wasn’t worried about you when he was holding you!
As I remember I had to leave the house early, on that week visit, became your Momma was driving me crazy , and that is the truth. When she got up to wash the dishes before I could put them on the tray and bring them to her, well, I figured my time was best spent elsewhere.
But I know that isn’t the question you want me to answer. Here is the answer to that question you have wanted to ask all those years. Yes, Virginia, your Momma loved you. She just never showed it like you would or I would. It’s a gift, honey, and she didn’t have it. But she held you, and loved you just like any Momma. She was happiest when she was nursing you, and you seemed pretty happy too. It was only when you got older that she forgot how to tell you or show you.
Maybe I didn’t help you, little pretty blond haired baby ( I see you as I saw you then)- but I just dropped in here to say you are special. You always have been.
signed,
Mrs. Elizabeth Erlenger Dowd, Midwife 1881-1956
***
(Other submissions will follow dates in Mom's life. None of this is true. But it all COULD be.)
Anyone still interested in joining this write-off, please e-mail me. For other entries, there is a link on my profile page to granniemose.
.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
artbyjude
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: jude paxton
Location: In a state of confusion
Reviews written: 699
Trusted by: 459 members
About Me:
If I'd known TODAY was to be my TOMORROW I woulda done better YESTERDAY.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.