Conflict – Page 6 – Plain and Fancy

Purple Passages II with Pictures

August 10, 2013August 10, 2013 marianbeaman14 Comments

Purple Passages made its debut on July 10. Here is the August 10, 2013 installment.

My stack of journals minus the fatter one on my nightstand

Why people read

1.7.94 We read books to know we are not alone. William Nicholson

Love to children

4.2.89 The love you give your children is like black paper: it absorbs and you can’t see it, but you know it’s there. Mary Kalegis

Patio pose, little readers frozen in time

My Hometown

7.27.91 Jacksonville . . . an Oz of blue-green skyscrapers, a city of dreams at the end of the pine-green tunnel . . . shines from a number of angles like a jewel being turned in your hand. John Updike, Rabbit at Rest

On Relationships

10.21.91 Relationships with the opposite sex reflect our efforts to find answers for problems with our parents. Relationships with our friends represent our efforts to find solutions for problems with our siblings. (Quoted by Shirley McLaine, who undoubtedly quoted from someone else.)

On Sanity

7.19.92 It occurred to her that her sanity was becoming intermittent, like a sudden stretch of intact road in an abandoned region. Or radio music, blatant after months of static. K. Braverman, Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta

On Birthdays

2.10.96 The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose the other ages you’ve been. Madeleine L’Engle

On Angels

5.8.97 Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. G. K. Chesterton

On Hope

7.11.95 As long as matters are hopeful, hope is a mere . . . platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength. Like all Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

Make one of your own!

Well, you can coin a new quote, but you could also begin or continue your own journal of purple passages:

White pages would be easier, or computer pages with a pale purple background. How about it?

PT – Prolonged Torture – “freshly pressed” from Traci Carver

August 3, 2013August 3, 2013 marianbeaman1 Comment

PT – Prolonged Torture.

Wonderful post from a favorite blogger, Traci Carver. Check out her torturous visit to the physical therapist as she prepares for a trip to France.

Mennonites and Uncle Sam

July 27, 2013January 30, 2015 marianbeaman9 Comments

The Martin clan gathers together for large family meals at my Grandma Longenecker’s house because Grandma, the oldest in her family, is a wonderful cook and has an enormous kitchen. Everybody likes Grandma, my dad’s mother. Grandma Fannie was a Martin and the Martins are Brinsers, formerly a part of a plain sect called the “River Brethren.” Source

They are not nearly as plain as my mother’s side of the family, except for Great Uncle Joe’s wife Bertha whose covering is cut squarish. Bertha and Joe have two daughters, Honey and Mary. I press my nose to the window anticipating their arrival. They look like peacocks, favoring vivid purples, blues and greens. And always with a floaty fabric like silk, crepe, or challis. I’m determined to be a fancy girl like them someday.

Aunt Ruthie with fancy Mary Martin Landis and husband

Just as important, though, is what they talk about around the table and afterwards: Politics! And with a pipe. After dinner, cousin Sammy and I will play our little game with Uncle Joe and whoever he’s talking to. We know that Uncle Joe nearly burns his fingers with a lighted match as he talks about the world going up in smoke. In our little game, we try to hold our breath without passing out while he lights the match, tamps down the tobacco, ignites it, and blows out the match. Sammy and I are perched on the stairs behind the mahogany banister to watch today’s performance. Right now below us Uncle Joe is talking to my Dad about old Joe Sta-leen, the Russian Premier.

Striking the match, Uncle Joe exclaims to my dad, “Ya know, Ray, I felt a little uneasy when Truman and the Democrats were in the White House, but now that Eisenhower has taken over, things are looking better for us.” Sammy and I both take a deep breath and try to hang on for the duration.

“Eisenhower is a good, old Pennsylvania Dutchman,” my dad says. “Did you know his mother was a Mennonite from Gettysburg?”

The match between Joe’s thumb and index finger is half-burned, and he has made no effort to light his pipe yet. “Jah,” says Uncle Joe, “That’s what they tell me. We can’t trust those Russians. They’d just as soon bomb us as . . . .” On and on he goes, but he’s edged the match close enough to the pipe tobacco to blow his breath in and out a couple of times. Sammy’s face is starting to look like a red balloon and I nearly start to giggle. If we can just hang on for a few more seconds, . . . our cheeks puff out more and more with unexpelled air.

The match is charred to the absolute edge of Uncle Joe’s fingertips. Any second now he’ll singe his fingers. I hear the slow ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, adding suspense. With one more deep inhalation, though Joe sucks in, touches the match light to the fragrant tobacco mix, blows out the fire, and a swirl of blue smoke entwines my dad and Uncle Joe in their version of politics.

With one second to go, danger is averted, and Sammy and I catch another deep breath, so we can take turns sliding down the banister again.

In spite of their fervor, my elders believed a myth: Eisenhower’s mother was actually not a Mennonite. Yes, she had Mennonite (River Brethren) ancestry, but she herself was a Jehovah’s Witness. Source

And further, their stance as Anabaptists and pacifists was politically ironic: the President they so avidly supported was a military man, a 5-star general to boot, so opposed to the attitude of non-resistance my people embraced.

A few years later, some of the rich farmland of northern Lancaster County was threatened by a proposed air base. A delegation of plain people including my dad, Grandma, and Uncle Joe, dressed up and drove to Washington D.C. to make their case with government officials.

Sadie Greider, Grandma, and Daddy

In the end, further investigation found that there were sinkholes (sinkholes!) on the farm land, making it unsatisfactory as a site for a military air base. The land spared, they thanked God Almighty.

Up and Down Anchor Road: Secrets Revealed

July 17, 2013July 17, 2013 marianbeaman10 Comments

Thumbnail: Home is on Anchor Road, connecting our house to Grandma’s house and neighbors in between. The story continues . . .

. . . . As we drive from Grandma’s past the Hoffers, I notice off to the right the weathered frame house of Mr. Heisey, who contentedly makes and fixes clocks. Then come our next-door neighbors, the Mummas, who have just opened the Clearview, a home-style diner on Route # 230, which parallels our road. Their old Lincoln Continental bobs in and out of their driveway early and late. Owning a restaurant is slavery in more ways than one, Mom says. Our mother likes Edna Mumma, who like Mom has a brood of kids to worry over.

Before the restaurant took over all of her time, Mom used to enjoy Edna’s Spencer parties (like Tupperware, but with metal stays and elastic, not plastic), specializing in heavy-duty corsets for well-fed Lancaster County bodies.

Sometimes Edna calls up my mom and asks her to help out on chicken “dressing” days. Together they kill the chickens, pluck their feathers and chop them up into separate pieces for cooking. I can hear one half of their conversation on the phone:

“Sure, I’d be glad to help . . . just say when.”

“No, I don’t want anything for it. Remember, you gave us 4 or 5 pullets the last time I helped. . . . “

“You daresn’t look on turns like that. . . .”

“Okay. I’ll be over as soon as I’m done making applesauce.” Working together, they often dress thirty or forty chickens at one time.

Lancaster County farm women are always busy. Why, the day before my sister Janice was born Mom was dressing chickens. Before Jean was born, she was canning peaches, and before I was born at home, she was hoeing tobacco.

A mixture of gravel and grass connects our house to the Mummas, only a 1/2 mile from Grandma’s. Out in front of our white frame and green-shuttered house, there are two leafy maple trees and a forsythia bush, which puts out spiky, yellow blooms in April. Until we get too heavy, my sisters and I can climb all over the red Japanese maple beside the house. Our porch, flanked by four evenly spaced posts, sports two painted metal chairs in the summertime and a swing from where we can count cars on a Saturday afternoon or hope for Uncles Landis, Leroy, Clyde, Abe or Aunt Verna and our cousins to visit on Sundays after church.

The Rentzels live next door and on the corner the Gromolls, whose clothing is two degrees plainer than ours. I believe they’re black bumpers, an ultra-conservative branch of Mennonites, who paint their bumpers black to avoid showing off shiny chrome. A small street separates their house from Wolgemuth’s Tavern, where we surmise Betty Rentzel finds some of her clients, lured by the glowing red porch light. Daddy calls the tavern a beer joint. Every so often he has to rescue a drunken driver from the wreckage of a car that doesn’t steer well enough to stay on the road in front of our house. One Saturday night it was Charlie Oberholtzer, who still can’t look Dad in the eye.

Rounding off our neighborhood is a huge, grey farmhouse, sheltering two families: cheery, loud-spoken Eva Gebhardt and the Hilsher family with a gang of boys who feed the pigs, cows, and chickens on the farm and help their dad plant corn in the acreage across the road from our house.

Strange neighbors are not unusual. What interesting neighbors do you recall from your childhood?

Yodeling and Duets with Daddy

July 3, 2013August 20, 2014 marianbeaman12 Comments

“Keep your hand upon the throttle and your eye upon the rail,” my Dad sings in his top-of–the-lungs baritone, the volume of his voice amplified by the force of his hands on the keyboard. Every Saturday night Daddy sits down at our mahogany Marshall and Wendell upright piano in the living room and reviews songs in his repertoire. Fresh air is blowing through the open windows. Probably the whole neighborhood can hear.

Now he’s moved on to other tunes: “Turn Your Radio On” and “On the Jericho Road, on the Jericho Road, there’s for just two—no more and no less, no more and no less, just Jesus and you, just Jesus and yooooo. . . .”

I’m in the dining room studying my ninth-grade Pennsylvania history. “Marian come in here and sing a little,” he begs.

“Oh maybe after a while,” I half-promise and flee to the kitchen where my mother is standing over the stove, making salmon casserole to put in the oven while we are at church tomorrow. Even washing gooey dishes looks more appealing to me than competing with my dad’s loud volume and heavy-handedness. He attacks the piano keys like he’s hammering a bent piece of metal at his shop.

Now Janice is walking in the door, and Dad pleads, “Come on, just sing the second verse.” He wants her to join him on the long piano bench that holds piles of family photos bulging from the compartment under its lid. She sits down with him for a little bit, and I hear a soprano with a lot of tremolo join in with Daddy’s lower notes on another song: “Under His wings, under His wings, Who from His love can se-ver? Under His wings my soul shall abide, Safely abide for-e-ver.”

There’s still another sister, and when Janice moves off the bench, Jean keeps the bench warm and Daddy happily singing “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling.”

Now Daddy has moved away from the piano, gotten out his shiny Gibson guitar and starts yodeling. My sisters and I think he is acting goofy: “Yodel-ay-ee-oo, yodel-ay-ee-ooo,” he bellows out joyfully as he strikes the strings of his guitar.

Click for yodeling audio

In spite of his noisy outbursts, I like the silky red cord attached to the instrument with its sunburst design veneer and the variety of colorful picks he’s accumulated. They remind me of funny-shaped tiddly-winks. Dad sure does like music. I don’t think he’d object to a piano at our church, which deems “it improper to employ instrumental music in worship and church activities.” (Article III, Section 2, Public Worship)

Last year at the beginning of eighth grade, Daddy came home and out of a clear blue sky presented me with a violin case. Looking as pleased as punch, he put the faux-leather textured black case on the dining room table, gesturing for me to open it.

“It’s for me?” I look puzzled but start to fiddle with the metal clasps on the case.

“What do you mean, is it for you? Of course, it’s for you. Why do ya think I put it here in front of you. I paid only $ 70.00 for it. Noah Klaus, up at the music store wanted more, but I told him that was my best offer. I wasn’t gonna let him horns-waggle me.”

Slowly I open the lid and see a gorgeous violin inside, a caramel-colored wooden instrument, its curvy shape tapering to a fancy scroll. I peer inside the S-shaped openings and see a paper tag with the label: Copy of Antonius Stradivarius / Handarbeit / Garmisch bei Mittenwald – Made in Germany.

“Now I want you to take lessons, so you can be in the orchestra at school. You play the piano pretty good. I don’t imagine a violin would be a whole lot harder.”

“Well, . . I don’t know about that,” I hear my voice trailing off.

I wonder why Daddy kept these plans and dreams for me to himself. I would have liked to go with him to the music store and have seen the other choices. Why does he always leave me out of decisions like this? He makes choices for me just like he plays the piano, loud and heavy-handed. Yet he seems so pleased with his purchase; I’m sure he imagines that I’m just as thrilled. Anyway, I start taking lessons from Mrs. Santeusanio.

True to his inclination, mechanical themes ran through much of my Dad’s repertoire, songs of railroads, highways, and ships (Let the Lower Lights Be Burning). Why even the radio he sang about is a mechanism.

My musical preferences are more eclectic and include classical, pop and contemporary. Yet, I see that however clumsy his efforts, Daddy was transmitting to me his love for music. Often a melody or song floats through my head as easily as my Dad’s music did out our living room window. You might say the sound of music has masked some of my Dad’s missteps as a parent. For that I am thankful.

Statement of Christian Doctrine and Rules and Discipline of the Lancaster Conference of the Mennonite Church, 1968.

What interests or hobbies did a parent or close relative instill in your life? Was your experience a positive or negative one? Tell us about it.

Stinky Joe

June 26, 2013September 9, 2014 marianbeaman10 Comments

“Get out! Get out!” For heaven’s sake, that is my mom’s voice yelling at someone at the door. Why would she scream at a neighbor? But it wasn’t a neighbor. It was Stinky Joe. On a cold winter’s day, he had opened the door to the wash-house and was starting to come into our home to warm up.

There were tramps, there were hobos, and then there was Stinky Joe. One vivid image from my childhood was a man in brownish tatters sitting on our grey porch bench eating from my mother’s table on a china dinner plate: meat, potatoes, a green vegetable and coffee; he always asked for coffee. But he was never allowed into the house no matter what.

One day my sister Janice was sitting at the dining room table doing homework when Stinky Joe peered into the window scaring her out of her wits. She didn’t know where Mom was and too scared to scream she hatched an escape plan: run upstairs, climb out a window to the porch roof and slide down the maple tree out front. The maple tree is now gone but the memory is fresh.

We named him Stinky Joe for a reason. In the absence of an insulated vest, Stinky stuffed cow manure into his shirt for warmth: you’ll have to do the calculation on how this works, but I’m sure it involves nitrogen and body temperature.

Summer or winter, with or without cow manure, if Stinky came to our house, we put Vicks VaporRub up our nostrils to stanch the odor. Menthol vs. cow paddy—which scent would you choose? Other smells are not as vivid, but for certain Clorox was involved in the clean-up after he left.

Yes, Stinky Joe filled us with fear and disgust. Remember, this was the 1950s. Maybe now such a man would knock on the door of the rescue mission, clean himself up enough to sleep under the roof of the Salvation Army. I am sure he is long since dead and gone, but I see him differently now. Yes, he was a misfit, an outcast but once he must have been his parents’ hope. One of God’s creation.

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Another Valentine, a Different Romance

June 22, 2013June 23, 2013 marianbeaman11 Comments

Valentine’s Day conjures up images of hearts, flowers, and boxes of chocolate for most, but not for Yost. Yost is the father of Valentine Metzler, an ancester on my mother’s side of the family, born on Valentine’s Day, 1792. This past weekend, nearly 500 Metzlers from far and wide gathered near Ephrata, Pennsylvania to celebrate this special Valentine. He, like many of his descendants, was in love with God’s green earth, a grateful steward of fertile land where his roots grew deep.

Valentine Family Crest: all green background mid-left

The Attraction

Born in the Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland, young Valentine with his family, left the homeland. Bearing the memory of earlier religious persecution during the Thirty Years’ War in the 1600s and needing more land, the Metzlers, Anabaptist Mennonites, emigrated from Switzerland to the Palatinate of Germany with the promise of religious freedom and fertile farm land.

Bumps in the Road

Caught between the warring French and German troops in the early 1700s, Anabaptists and Mennonites from Switzerland, who settled in the Rhine River region, left Germany. They had had enough. Tired of being caught in the cross-fire between the warring French and German troops, they looked to the New World. They packed up, floated up the Rhine to Rotterdam, Holland, where wealthy Mennonites assisted them with money and provisions to set sail to America via Cowes, England. Exposed to rats, disease, thirst, and starvation, many did not survive the voyage across the Atlantic to Philadelphia.

The Courtship

In 1677 William Penn had visited Germany to entice people to come to Pennsylvania, assuring the Swiss transplanted to Germany that there were many similarities between Pennsylvania and Der Pfalz including the beauty of the Poconos and Alleghenies.

Later, the family of Yost Metzler, Valentine’s father, along with others, responded to the lure of freedom to worship freely and own land, become successful farmers and make Lancaster County blossom.

Marriage: Struggle and Prosperity

The 275th anniversary at Metzler Mennonite Church (June 14-15, 2013) commemorated the young Valentine’s immigration in 1738 to America. He married Anna Nissley in 1749 and prospered on a 90-acre farm in Manheim Township, raising an exemplary family of nine. Along with other peace-loving Mennonites, Valentine had a non-combatant stance during the Revolutionary War. Thus, he was viewed with suspicion by both Patriots and the British. Yet early Pennsylvania records show that he donated horses and wagons to the colonial army.

Valentine, nicknamed Valti, was a weaver, farmer, and in the 1760s he was ordained a minister in the Mennonite Church, later becoming a bishop.

Fraktur by Henry Metzler, Artist . . . . . Birds, I imagine, symbolize loving symmetry of faith & family

Henry Metzler, Valentine’s fourth son, was a Pennsylvania farmer with an artistic flair. The homestead is now a dairy farm operated by Amish near Strasburg, Pennsylvania.

Anniversary & Rejoicing

At the 275th Anniversary Celebration, plain and fancy Metzlers from Lancaster County, all over eastern United States, Wisconsin, Oregon, and even two provinces in Canada met, visited, ate, and sang together.

With my favorite cousin Janet Metzler Diem

Voices blended in 4-part harmony, erasing the boundaries of time and distance. “Faith of Our Fathers” at Metzler Mennonite Church:

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But it never fails to fascinate.

“The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Psalm 16:6

Facebook: descendants of Valentine Metzler
Blog: http://www.themetzlerfamily.wordpress.com

Relatives, Reunions, and Forbidden Drink: Part II

June 19, 2013June 20, 2013 marianbeaman2 Comments

Lititz Springs Park

At the reunion, Uncle Clyde walks over to my mother and Aunt Cecilia to say something. We’re nosy and so we move closer to get within earshot. “Ruth, I believe Uncle Monroe’s and Uncle Herman’s bunch think you’re serving wine and won’t come over to the table.”

“Oh, for goodness sakes: I don’t believe it. Don’t they know us better than that!” Mom exclaims to Uncle Clyde.

“Shall I tell them what’s in the punch? Maybe then they’ll get in line,” Clyde suggests.

“Cal-lyde, they shouldn’t act so dumb . . . tsk – tsk! Ach, well, I guess you’d better tell them then,” she finally agrees.

Uncle Clyde walks over to the other two tables, and I see a lot of heads nodding and bobbing up and down. In a minute or so, Uncle Monroe and Uncle Herman’s families lead the way to the party table, and the others follow meekly behind like sheep behind a shepherd.

“Why in the world would they think we’d put wine in the punch? Why, that would be a sin,” I think. “And why wouldn’t they make sure what it was before they decided they couldn’t drink it?” I reason. Acting like that doesn’t make any sense to me. Why, the way they were behaving might even make my Grandma Metzler feel bad too.

Cousin Janet and I feast on angel food cake, more peanuts and bubbly gold punch. We act goofy and pretend we’re getting tipsy. Mom comes over to shush us up. “Quit acting so dumb; what do you think the others will think!”

“Why does it matter so much what other people think?” I wonder. Isn’t it all right to do what we want to do now? We’re just kids, not stuffy old people.

Do you believe the what-will-people-think mind-set is a thing of the past? Or does it persist? What about your family?

Relatives, Reunions, and Forbidden Drink: Part I

June 15, 2013February 16, 2015 marianbeaman4 Comments

I can hardly wait to go to the Metzler reunion in Lititz today. At Lititz Springs Park on the 2^nd Sunday in July, I get to play with my cousins from my mother’s side of the family. My mother’s father, Abram, and her two uncles, Monroe and Herman, form the three branches of our Metzler family tree.

Grandpa Abram and Grandma Sadie who died when Mother was 9

On the way to Bossler’s Mennonite Church this morning, Mom told my Daddy that he can’t talk long with the men after the service because we have to get home to load up the food in the car before we can go to the reunion. Yesterday I helped my mom make Aunt Verna’s potato salad with lots of celery. After I went to bed last night I smelled the sweet, rich aroma of angel food cake baking in the oven for the special surprise for Grandma Metzler.

The whole family is packed into the 1949 blue Studebaker again: Daddy behind the wheel, Mommy up front, and Janice, Jean, and me in the back. We all keep our church clothes on, so we can show how plain we still are. Daddy wears a white shirt and dark pants, and Mom and Janice and I have dresses with capes and sleeves to the elbow—Jean hasn’t gotten saved * yet, so she’s still a cute, curly-headed girl with regular clothes. All the Metzlers are Mennonite and notice the details of our dress, I imagine.

About a mile or two from Lititz, I stick my head out of the left rear car window and sniff, “I bet I can smell the Wilbur Chocolate Factory.” Now Janice and Jean lean out of the right window and say they can smell Lititiz Springs pretzels, but I catch a whiff of the rich Swiss chocolate aroma just before we reach the town limits.

Soon we’re on Broad Street, and we cruise past neat, two and three-story brick and stone townhouses. Like us, people here don’t lock their doors either, unless maybe when they go off on vacation to Atlantic City.

Lititz Springs Park is our playground. As our car rolls to a stop, we all fall out and head for our cousins. Mom calls us back to help carry stuff, of course. From a distance I notice Aunt Clara uncovering her Bavarian Cream dessert, and Uncle Leroy with his bags of peanuts for the peanut scramble about three o’clock. All my aunts look like pears, and my uncles like apples except for Clyde. And, believe me, my uncles have mirth to match their girth. Each of my mother’s brothers can do something funny or strange. Uncle Landis can click his false teeth up and down on his gums clickety-clack, Uncle Leroy can wiggle his ears, both at the same time, Uncle Clyde’s hand-shake includes a tickle with his index finger on the palm of my hand, and Uncle Abe can play his harmonica with no hands.

After my sisters and I make the rounds of our crazy uncles, we match up with cousins our own age. I play with my favorite cousin, freckle-faced Janet who has glossy, bright red hair. Janice and Jean play with spunky, brown-haired Ruth Ann, Anna Mae, Gerry and Dorcas. Rachel too.

Soon, Uncle Monroe rings the dinner bell and all the young ‘uns come running. He’ll say grace in his high-pitched voice, and we’ll stuff down our food so we get to play again. Under the roof of the pavilion are three sets of long, wooden picnic tables, arranged parallel to each other. The Uncle Herman family branch sits along the first row of tables: the women and girls mostly wear pale-colored dresses with capes that have such tight necklines and wristbands they seem to cut off their circulation. I would just die if I had to wear thick, black stockings and shoes like they do, but I never hear them complain. And as hot as it is, some of the men are still wearing their buttoned-to-the-neck shirts from church.

The next bunch of relatives, the “Monroe” branch of the family are a little looser. They let their young girls wear skirts and blouses, and everybody else pushes their sleeves as high as they will go. When Mary, Monroe’s daughter got married, tongues wagged because her bridesmaids wore pastel satin fabrics on head bonnets to match their dress color. Later I realize she got that out of her system then;. Her plain dress complies with tradition now.

My Mom’s side of the family, the “Abram” side, is the least conservative, except for Clyde’s family because he is a preacher, and Abe’s family because they take pride in sticking to tradition.

In a few minutes all the cousins tumble off the benches for the peanut scramble. I make a basket out of the skirt of my dress and scoot around madly trying to fill it with roasted nuts. Soon we sit on the ground and stuff ourselves with peanuts, all except Clair who is kneeling by the springs floating his plastic boat, first prize in the contest.

Now I see Mom, Aunt Verna, and Aunt Cecilia arranging another table for the birthday surprise. Out come the cakes and the punch-bowl which is soon filled with white grape juice and ginger ale, all gold and bubbly. In a few minutes, Uncle Herman rings the bell again. “It’s time for our surprise. Annie is 75 today, so you’s all come on and have some cake and punch.”

Our family is not bashful, and so we rush to the head of the line, after Grandma Metzler of course. The table looks so pretty. Someone has brought a garden bouquet of daisies and roses with a lace tablecloth. Cousin Janet notices that the relatives at the other tables are not budging. “Why aren’t the others coming over?” She wonders out loud to me.

I don’t know. Maybe they’ve just eaten too much to move, I surmise, but I do see the older folks whispering among themselves and wonder what they’re saying. What happens next? Part II

* ARTICLE VI, Of Salvation: We believe that man is saved alone by grace through faith . . . in Christ; that through the new birth he becomes a child of God, partaker of eternal life. Statement of Christian Doctrine and Rules and Discipline of the Lancaster Conference of the Mennonite Church

Hats, Fire and Ice

June 5, 2013January 17, 2015 marianbeaman7 Comments

The dusty, brown Pennsylvania Railroad train clatters along the tracks behind the woods as we approach Grandma’s house. Mame Goss, Grandma’s cousin, sits close to the bay window with a bag of hats. I notice her merry eyes and smile lines, but Mother comments on her wrinkled skin, skin made so by too much makeup. Mame’ll let my sisters and me see inside the bag, but not before she chats with Grandma over a cup of garden mint tea. Mame Goss clerks in Laverty’s Millinery Shop, a store I’ve never seen but which shimmers with forbidden delights in my mind, nonetheless.

Janice, Jean, and I think our older girl neighbors are allowed to express themselves properly. When I go down to see “Howdy Doody” on the Rentzels’ TV (Mennonites didn’t have TVs back then), I notice that Sissy Rentzel has a parade of nail polish bottles lined up on the windowsill of her bedroom: bright red, baby pink, orangey red with Tangee lipstick to match, darker red, hot pink, and a bottle of clear polish like Karo syrup. I’d love to experiment with what’s inside, but I don’t now. I feel uncomfortable asking Sissy Rentzel to try some.

Anna Martha Groff, Sis Groff to us, is another story. And she is so grown-up, we think. I see her palette of lipsticks on her vanity table, one of them Revlon’s Fire and Ice. She’ll probably let me try some on. I could become a siren in red or an ice princess. So I experiment and cavort around in her bedroom with the painted lips of a hussy. Soon I’ll have to rub off the evidence with tissue before I go home and hope nobody, especially Mom, notices. My sisters and I are crazy for color. Out by the rose bushes in summer, we paste bright, velvety petals to our lips. Banned from the world of bright lipstick and matching nail polish, we improvise with natural blooms. We act silly.

We’re back in Grandma’s kitchen again. Mame is one step closer to revealing the treasures in her bag now. Soon we lay eyes on the partly smashed trousseau of hats, left over from the spring season. We fight over who gets what, of course.

“Here’s a straw hat with a polka dot bow, “ I say but cast it aside. Janice and Jean don’t pick it up either. They are eying the red satin bows and lavender netting attached to other headgear.

“Hey, I want this one,” Janice and Jean tussle over a swoopy hat with pink flowers. Jean finally picks up a white thing that looks like an upside-down, flat-bottomed boat with a wad of blue tulle tied in a fluffy bow in the back. Janice’s is flat and round and dark, not my taste, with black-eyed Susan circling the straw hat. I get the best hat, I believe. It is flat and round too, but navy, and studded with azalea pink silk flowers around the edges. Best of all, I can pull a dark blue net over my face. Instantly, I become a woman of mystery and allure.

We take our new-found treasures up to Grandma’s bedroom and indulge in more fantasy. The space between her marble-topped vanity and tall headboard becomes our runway. We take turns prancing in front of her vanity mirror with wavy glass, cocking our heads just so and smiling at our reflections.

Later back at our house, Mom takes a picture of us in front of the garden of peonies and zinnias in the back yard. She holds the black square Kodak camera firmly with fingers plump as the butter she loves. I stare at her blue and white checked feed-bag apron over a matching home-made dress, so I don’t blink. In an instant, the shutter freezes our fashionable images at ages 3, 5, and 8. There’s plenty of time later to coax our long braids into the Mennonite style, pinned tightly to our heads with black wire hairpins.

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