Tag: family

Legacy Writing 365:112

It’s a rarity to find a photo of my mother with all her siblings. Though she has several group shots of them–including with their parents–she’s usually not in them, a drawback to being a military wife. It wasn’t until after my mother died that my sister told me that she could remember hearing, as a little girl, my mother cry and cry when she received a call telling her that her father had died, not only at the news, but because my parents didn’t have enough money for her to go home for his funeral. It’s a heartbreak I never remember her talking about.

Though I do know some of the hardships and challenges she and her family faced, that was never what we heard at reunions, like this one sometime in the late 60s/very early 70s.

Back row: Grover, Winnie, Verble, Bernell, Flora, Arliss, Dorothy
Front row: Terry (called Buster), Lamar, Buford (called Boots), John, Gerald

If you think this aging group might have been somewhat staid and–well, elderly–you would be wrong. Together, they reverted to the kids they used to be and would tell stories of growing up that would leave them all hollering with laughter until they had to wipe away tears. Even the sweetest of my aunts and quietest of my uncles had wicked senses of humor. While other kids might run and play, I stuck close to this bunch of storytellers ’cause it’s where the best action was.

As kids, John and Gerald were called Mutt and Jeff after characters in one of the first daily comic strips. By the time I came along, I don’t remember anyone calling Gerald “Jeff” anymore, but they did often still call John “Mutt.” He was apparently among the wildest of the boys, and for a period took to wearing a Tarzan costume, jumping from trees, and wielding a knife.

One afternoon an elderly lady–we’ll call her Miss Elizabeth–came calling on my grandmother. They were sitting in the parlor drinking ice tea and talking, unaware that outside a battle was being waged between Uncle John and one of his brothers. His adversary snuck inside the house and made it to the parlor, hiding behind Miss Elizabeth’s chair without being spotted by the women. John came barreling in with a Tarzan yell, saw his brother, whipped out his knife from his loincloth, and said, “I’m going to KILL you” as he lunged toward Miss Elizabeth.

Over the years in the retelling, Miss Elizabeth’s reaction varied from fainting to hysterics to having to be escorted home by the repentant boys. What never changed was Uncle John’s blatantly false look of remorse as the story came to its dramatic conclusion, and the sly glance of pride he’d send my way.

Legacy Writing 365:110

I’ve glanced at this photo from my mother’s stash several times without thinking much about it. She wrote on the back:


Irma, Gerald, Mitchell, me

Irma is holding a rake, Gerald is holding an axe, and Mitchell and Mother are holding hoes. They appear to be standing in a field that includes Queen Anne’s Lace, a wildflower that grows wild all over the South. (I don’t know if this is Alabama, Mississippi, or Tennessee, and I have no idea who Irma and Mitchell are.)

When I decided to scan it, I looked at the back again, and the hair on my arms stood up, because I realized she’d also put the date on it: December 7, 1941.

For a while, I doubted her. Would there still be even a smattering of wildflowers that late in the year? And would people be outside in shirtsleeves in December? So I did some research, reading reminiscences of people who were alive and aware of the events on Pearl Harbor Day. Many people were enjoying leisurely afternoons and would only gradually hear the news as they turned on their radios. Winter came late to Mississippi that year, and one woman remembered how the mild weather drew people outdoors.

So I believe my mother’s date, and here’s the story I read from her photo. My mother was fifteen. She was out goofing around with her favorite brother and friends on a Sunday afternoon. None of them knew how their world was about to change, or that within twenty-four hours their country would be at war.

I think that’s a pretty amazing “before” photo to find in my family archives.

Legacy Writing 365:109

April 18 is a crap day in our family history. It’s the day we lost my father. I wasn’t where I was supposed to be that day, but as it happens, I was where I needed to be. Strange how things turn out sometimes.

He wasn’t a perfect man or husband or father. Thank goodness for that, because he was real. He had flaws; sometimes when I see those same flaws in myself, instead of beating myself up about them, I can just appreciate knowing that I’m his daughter.

A man doesn’t have to be perfect to be a good man–or husband and father. What I appreciate most of all was the unshakable love he had for his family: parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. He loved my brother, was proud of him, and was so often tickled by David’s wit. He adored my sister; Debby was his little girl until the day he died. And oh, those grandkids–a constant source of joy for him. He also loved his daughter-in-law and sons-in-law.

Perhaps the greatest gift he gave his children was the way he treated our mother–and expected us to treat her. Of course they had problems, like any couple. Sometimes they really annoyed each other. But it was a love story and remained one even after he died that April day while she sat next to his bed.

I love this photo, though I know nothing of its story.

Daddy’s the one on the right holding a cup in one hand and a beer stein in the other. I’m guessing it’s in Germany–not during the deployment when I was born there, but a later time when we were still in the States. (See edit below.) I love the laughter and look of camaraderie among these men. The guy in the lower left is Don Draper (Mad Men) handsome. I like a time when men who were normally in uniform dressed in suits or sports jackets.

When I first began painting small canvases in 1997, I had no idea why or what to do with them. This is one of the first: a tribute to both a favorite painter, Mark Rothko, and a favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. I can’t count the number of times after my father died that I read this poem and understood it in a way I never had before.

This is the Hour of Lead.

ETA 11/13/12: I love that my brother and sister can fill in blanks for me–another advantage to being the baby! David pointed out that Daddy has all the fingers on his right hand, which means this photo was taken before he lost his little finger to blood poisoning. Since that happened between his German tours, that makes this his first post-war deployment to Germany. David suggested that he was drinking coffee, rather than beer, because he knew he might have to go to the hospital any time. It took me a while to get his meaning: Maybe the photo was taken when my mother was pregnant with me!

Legacy Writing 365:108

Do you have your report cards? I have all of mine except, mysteriously, from third grade. Maybe we moved before I could get it. I think my mother made it easier on me to keep up with that stuff by giving me this book somewhere along the way.

It has pockets for every year, kindergarten through twelfth grades. There are places to put information about the school year: pets, best friends, extra-curricular activities, favorite teachers and classes. For a long time this is where I kept the school pictures other students traded me for mine until one year when I put those in albums. But the report cards are still in there, along with a few little souvenir items from my final years in high school. I recently took out my report cards to look at my grades. They were pretty good except for some bad years in science and math; sadly, most of that was about being boy crazy. I don’t even remember some of my teachers from those years.

For some reason, I turned the report cards over, and year after year, there’s my mother’s signature: either Mrs William D Cochrane or Mrs Wm D Cochrane.

Then in tenth grade, that abruptly stops. There’s a story that signatures don’t tell.


She signed on the wrong line the second six weeks of my sophomore year because I wasn’t in that school the first six weeks. So a little arrow is drawn to show where she should have signed. Thereafter, my father signed. It’d be easy to say that’s because we were in the same school. I just walked the report card down the hall to his office, asked him to sign it, and returned it to my homeroom teacher. But the bigger story is that my mother and I basically didn’t interact that year. I was in full-fledged rebellion, furious at her for making me transfer schools, so we were on a break. She got her first grandchild in early November, a happy distraction for her, and I stayed in my bedroom for nine months. How lucky was my father to be caught between two stubborn, angry females!

By eleventh grade, a truce had been declared. However, I clearly forgot to take my report card to her at the end of the first six weeks.


Because that first “Mrs Wm D Cochrane” is a total forgery of her handwriting by me. I undoubtedly took my report card to my father the second six weeks and said, “I probably shouldn’t let her see that I forged her name last time,” so he signed it. From then on, it was back to her. I’m glad we got along that year, because she suffered a couple of stunning blows when one of her dearest friends died, and shortly after, Uncle Gerald, the brother to whom she was closest, also died. That year I remember going home in the middle of the day for some reason and finding her sobbing in her bedroom. She didn’t tell me why, and I wanted so much to do something. It would be a few years before I realized that sometimes when women are alone we just need to cry and we don’t need anyone to try to fix anything for us.

My senior year, she’s the official report card signer again. I had almost all “A”s that year, so who knows why I forged her signature the fourth six weeks. Maybe she and my father weren’t around. All I know is that I can spot the fake from across the room. I wonder if my teachers knew?

Legacy Writing 365:107

Among the pictures I used for my masthead collage is this one:

James had asked for more information about it. This is when we lived in Columbus, Georgia. I can’t be sure, but I suspect this is the first time my parents bought a house. They’d lived in student housing at Bama, then when they left Tuscaloosa and my father was teaching (and I think being a principal) at a tiny rural school, I can’t imagine they had enough money to buy a house. [ETA: My brother has told me that my parents did buy a house when my father got that first teaching job. The Columbus house is actually the third house they ever bought, because they also owned a house for a few months in Colorado, where Daddy was stationed after I was born and we returned from Germany.]

After my father went back into the Army, they usually lived in quarters or would have known any civilian housing was temporary so it was best to rent. But for whatever reason, between my father’s stints at Fort Benning, when he was deployed in Korea, they not only bought this house in Columbus, they were involved in decisions related to its construction.

This shot really is a slice of American life from that time. Mother’s giving Dopey a bath in the front yard, probably on a Saturday afternoon. She’s looking into the sun, and we see the long shadow of the photographer. My sister thinks the photographer is my brother, and I’m sure she’s correct. Other small ranch houses are visible across the street, a station wagon in one carport. It’s a scene probably taking place in a million front yards across the country, as neighborhoods were springing up to house the exploding baby boom population.

Many of the neighborhood men were overseas. When I read the section of The Women’s Room in which suburban women spent their days sitting in one another’s kitchens or in the yards, as their kids played around them, it was entirely familiar because of Columbus. Very few Army wives had jobs other than being homemakers because, again, military life was transient, and who hires someone knowing she will be leaving in a year? But my mother found a way to make extra money. She approached the developers who were throwing those houses up as fast as they could and contracted to clean them after they were finished but before they were sold. She spent hours scraping stickers off new windows before washing them, as well as removing the other dust and litter of construction. The money wasn’t great, but it helped her afford “extras” like Scouting dues, plenty of gifts under the Christmas tree, the portable swimming pool she put on our patio behind the house. My mother had a hard childhood, and like so many parents of her generation, she wanted to give her children a better life.

Here’s another photo of Dopey and Mother from the back yard of that house. It shows more of her industriousness.

The garden is something I don’t remember at all. Gardening is hard work, but knowing her, I understand how much she must have enjoyed working in the dirt, growing vegetables to supplement our groceries. She loved to cook and knew how to fill a great Southern table. Both my brother and sister inherited her gift for growing things. Though I did not, I do have a keen sense of the good life she and my father provided us–not with material things, but with stability and security and with a sense of pride in and commitment to whatever work we undertake.

Legacy Writing 365:101

What? It’s Siblings Day? I just happen to have a couple.


This photo was taken in Germany. I don’t know if I was born yet. My parents told me that when he found out they were expecting another baby, David worried that they wouldn’t understand me. He thought I’d arrive speaking German. Debby looks as if she might have been considering that, too, and is teaching herself sign language.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that whenever we traveled by car, I was mentally filing away directions from our house to our destination. I’d memorize street signs, highway numbers, and town names. Frankly, that was kind of exhausting for a little kid. But somehow I was given the idea that when we traveled, if I got out at a gas station to use the restroom, or if I lingered too long in a restroom or inside a country store, I’d be left behind. I don’t know who might have given me that idea, DAVID AND DEBBY, but for once, I thought it was pointless to be The Snitch. After all, it was my parents who were in charge, so clearly they were the ones who’d leave me behind. As I got older, I even secretly scribbled down directions on scrap pieces of paper and receipts.

No, really, I don’t hold grudges, so happy Siblings Day, David and Debby!

And remember, if you’re a step, an only, a foster, or an adoptee, I believe family isn’t always about birth. It’s about love. Hold whoever you think of as a sister or brother close in your heart today. And if they’re younger, don’t let them learn about Google Maps, MapQuest, or GPS. It takes all the fun out of sibling terrorism.

Legacy Writing 365:100

I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted to reminisce about today so I did a random pull–of a photo album from among many–and flipped to a random page. And… it’s not a time in my life I enjoy remembering much. But here we go.

This picture is from about ten months after my father died. My mother and I were living in an apartment together in Montgomery. I was working there and commuting to Tuscaloosa to teach and take classes. I was in and out of a bad relationship–I think the man in question was still living there, though he would be moving. We’d all be moving eventually, but that year everyone and everything seemed stalled.


We’re dressed for an evening out. Terri treated Daniel, Mother, and me to a night at a dinner theatre. We saw Carousel. I don’t remember a thing about it, except I’m sure I was happy to be spending time with them. Now whenever I hear or see the words “dinner theatre,” I can think of nothing except Death of a Salesman in Soapdish, one of my favorite movies, and it makes me giggle (DOAS being such a hilarious play, and all!).

On the same page in that album is this photo:


I think it must be Cinderella’s Golden Carousel at Disney World, and I tucked it there to go along with the theme of the musical. I’m glad I went to Disney World once, but like so much of that time in my life, the memory is tainted by association with that ex-boyfriend. Too bad I didn’t go there with Terri, Mother, and Daniel; we’d have had fun.

The best thing about bad memories is realizing I don’t ever have to be there again.

Legacy Writing 365:99

Here are a few more from when we lived in Colorado–these were selected to celebrate today’s holiday.


Apparently somebody thinks he’s too old for the Easter Bunny. Meanwhile, my focus is exactly where it should be–CANDY!–and my sister’s being pretty stoic for a girl who has a telephone pole growing out of her head.


“Wait a minute,” Little Me says, “I don’t have to share with these kids, do I?”


“Tell them to get their eyes OFF my Easter basket.”

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you may remember this story about the last time my mother surprised me on Easter. I still have the bunny.


Happy Easter, y’all!

Legacy Writing 365:98

I’m still struggling to find the right way to work on these old photos. Tom found a Mac-friendly version of the software that came with the old scanner that I can purchase. The company offered a free trial version, which I downloaded so I could experiment with it again. Only it won’t save high quality versions of the photos I edit–I guess they only allow that if I pay for it? Which seems counter-intuitive. If I were a new user, shouldn’t I be so dazzled by everything the software can do that at the end of fourteen days I won’t be able to live without it?

Whatever. The photo above is a rare one. As I’ve said before, my mother gave David and Debby the albums she created using most of her photos of them. So I have limited pictures of my siblings. This is Debby and her first husband, the father of her three children. It was taken in April of the year they married (in June). It occurred me at some point that many of Mother’s photos from that period were taken to send to my father, who was deployed in Korea. That was confirmed when I found this photo of a wall from his headquarters:


He was the Sergeant Major, and in this case, I feel certain he didn’t paint those signs. I know his work well, and these are not up to his standards of lettering perfection.

It’s possible that photo of Debby and her fiancé was one my mother sent Daddy to say: Here’s what your future son-in-law looks like. This is the man who’s STEALING YOUR BABY!

Maybe that’s why Daddy sent this one back to Mother:

I kid! My father and his son-in-law got along fine. Even if some of our spouses later became “outlaws,” giving my parents the grandbabies they adored meant we all stayed family.

Legacy Writing 365:97

Houdini peeping out of an empty toilet paper roll.

This is another of the photos I’m grateful to have found in my mother’s collection.

She was living in an apartment on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa (I think that entire complex might have been destroyed in the tornados of 2011). Tom was still at Alabama, and I was living and working outside Huntsville. So I’d drive to spend weekends with her and get to see Tom, too. In this photo, I’m still in my pajamas and clearly have not brushed my hair–so Tom must have showed up early in the morning. We’re playing with my hamster, Houdini, who I usually called Dini.

For such a small animal, he was loaded with personality. I was living alone, and he was the best company. I’d walk in the door from work and start talking to him and he’d run like crazy on his hamster wheel. For some reason, I wasn’t using my antique bed then–maybe I didn’t have a double mattress and boxsprings–so my bed was two bunk beds pushed together to make a queen-sized bed (Terri will remember them; they were hand-me-downs from her stepsons). I’ve never liked being alone in a place when I sleep, so I’d put Dini’s cage on the other bunk bed and fall asleep to the sound of him running on his wheel, shifting his bedding around, or playing with his toys. If I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie on my side and tell him stories, and I swear he understood every word I was saying. I never dreamed I’d have a friend from the rodent family, but he was incredible.

Houdini was the reason I gave Keelie a hamster in A Coventry Christmas, naming her hamster after my late dog Hamlet. I didn’t know until my friend Lynn B told me that writer Janet Evanovich had already beat me to the hamster pal idea by giving her character Stephanie Plum a hamster named Rex. I considered changing Hamlet to a different animal, but my loyalty to Houdini stopped me. Instead, as a nod to Rex and his creator, I let Keelie stumble on one of Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books and tell Hamlet about him.