The prayer card handed out at Rose Anna Gilbert Plante’s funeral was in French. Even though she lived all but 14 years of her long life in Lewiston, Maine, Rose Anna still listed French as her spoken language on the census form every ten years. “A la douce memoire de …” means “To the sweet memory of …” Rose Anna lived to be 87. She outlived her “epouse,” Jean Vincent Plante by 29 years. (Jean was a brother to my…
Mom would be pleased that her poems – even those from long ago – are causing her children to research and reminisce. This poem was written in August of 1977 following the death of someone named Madeline. A friend? A relative? I checked first about a certain writer friend, but she spelled her name Madeleine and lived for three more decades. A search on our massive family tree on ancestry.com brought me – at last – to Madeline. Madeline Sturmer….
Well, I left something out in an earlier story. As much as I learned about Grandpa Vayo while researching “The Family Scholar,” I didn’t pick up on one important attribute. Sarcasm. Grandpa knew how to take a sarcastic turn in his writing. Here’s a letter Grandpa mailed to Dad on July 30, 1952. My father was in boot camp at Fort Dix, New Jersey, preparing to be sent overseas during the Korean Conflict. Dear Son: Guess there isn’t much news…
A few weeks before Dad‘s 60th birthday, Mom wrote this playful poem about her handy husband: Handyman Hal If you need a window lowered at nightOr somebody strong to switch on the lightOr the tablecloth straightened from left to rightCall Handyman Hal! If you reach him the key he will open your doorGive him a jug he’ll be happy to pourAll of these projects and many things moreHandyman Hal. If you want Christmas presents placed under the treeA wise man…
The year was 1934. The location was Utica, New York. Dad was four years old. And he was on the move. Dad wasn’t running away from home, he just had things to do and places to go. Dear Grandma had her hands full. With the lad who was called “Big Boy” at times and “Junior” other times, plus baby Jean (a year younger than Dad) and another sibling on the way (Aunt Janet), it probably took a few minutes for…
A few months ago, I went through a big pile of Mom’s poems. Little by little, I’m reading them and trying to sort them into decades and themes. I set this one aside. The carriage Mom mentions in this love poem to Dad wasn’t the type of carriage you read about in a fairy tale. Something as Bright What did you know of mewalking our children under the leavesand over the bridges of towns too smallfor memory. Shoes from the…
It’s been a weekend of sneezing and itching, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Treasures from the past are stored in attics. And attics get dusty. One document in particular is from 1952 and speaks for itself. Dad kept it preserved all these years in a small cedar box. A letter from his father. Mom and Dad met in 1943. Within a year, they promised to marry someday. They were just 14 at the time. Nine years later,…
Dad and Mom grew up listening to the radio. They loved it. My brothers and I grew up hearing them reminisce: “the Shadow knows” and “a pickle in the middle with the mustard on top … hoo, hoo, hoo, HOO!” From Jack Benny to Burns & Allen to a laughter-choked explanation of Fibber McGee’s closet, we were well-schooled in our parents’ favorite radio shows. When satellite radio launched a Radio Classics channel 20 or so years ago, I got the…
My maiden name is Vayo. Growing up, it was nearly always mispronounced as VIE-oh. We’d quickly respond, “Rhymes with mayo” and hope for the best. It’s an Americanized version of the French name Veilleux (pronounced vay-YEUX; that second syllable rhymes with deux, the French word for two). Vayo is not a common name. When we see it in use, my brothers and I pay attention and always wonder if we’re related. Yesterday, brother Bill sent us a link. He texted:…
We heard it every Sunday whenever there was a chill in the air: “Who wants a fie-oo in the fie-oo-place?” Dad loved to build a good fire, hear the crackling sound of properly dried kindling, poking the coals together in the late evening, and maybe even taking a snooze in a nearby comfy chair. It was only this week that I realized his obsession with building fires traced back to his youth. Way back Ever since posting about Dad’s college…