Monday, April 6, 2009
April 16, 2008 A Memoir In Progress As one of June’s neighbors on Hillcrest Avenue in Darien for thirteen years, I will always have fond memories of the many conversations we shared; the sparkle in her eyes, and the infectious zest for life she unabashedly displayed on many occasions. I particularly enjoyed our common interest in genealogy and the passion we felt for preserving family history through pictures and the written word. June’s life experiences and memories during her childhood years in the nineteen-twenties on a chicken farm in Petaluma, California after her parents separated in 1924 proved interesting reading, and I enjoyed the journey. Those hardships faced and surmounted made for excellent reading, and she did a fine job of recounting the various and alternating episodes of disappointment and lifts of spirit. I admired her tenaciousness in researching and assembling this material, and writing this memoir for her family, their families and the succeeding generations to come. The research, pictures, newspaper clippings, documents and dated outline of events and obituaries, including her family history, proved most helpful as I finished reading her manuscript, and reflected back upon her life. I remember June telling me that her daughter, Susan Jean, who was also my age (I was born January 15, 1948) passed away not too long ago, and I was so sadden to see her listed in her obituary pages, and how she had died of cancer. Still, June told me how instrumental Susan had been in helping her put together her journal -- this, despite her poor health. Perhaps, as June said so elegantly in her memoir when she was referring to her earlier life, “You know, this was God’s plan all along," and perhaps it may have brought her comfort as she reflected back upon her life and Susan’s untimely death. It sounds like your grandmother could handle just about anything,†I said to June one day. “What your family went through and their ability to survive was incredible. It must have been awful for your grandmother to discover her husband’s lifeless body that early morning in June 1911.†Having lost my father when I was only three years old, I could easily identify with how frightening it must have been for June and her siblings to have their father leave them at such an early age. I couldn’t help but wonder if her mother’s decision to abdicate her motherly responsibilities to June’s grandmother so early in her life must have felt like a betrayal. As I read June’s memoir, I could feel the pain of her loss because I often thought almost those exact same words when she said: “What would my life have been like in those years, when as a youngster, I did not have a choice.†But, it was also reassuring to hear June say, “ . . .as children will, we soon developed our own lives through friends at the Wilson Country School.†What I particularly liked about June’s memoir that made for interesting reading were the descriptions of her childhood years, experiences, and the people who influenced her life. In so doing, June consciously or unconsciously employed back-story and flashbacks in her writing as she reminisced about Friday nights listening to that “spooky radio program,†The Creaky Door, and Mr. Doescher taking her to the First Christian Church for Sunday school. And of course there were those moments when June closed her eyes and could still see the “. . . glistening leaves on Aunt Mable’s popular trees across the road from her house, and smell the fragrance of the freshly mowed alfalfa.†She went on to say, “I can feel the dry desert air on our rides in a Model 'T' Ford to Grandpa Pitt’s cattle ranch.†June cleverly used the senses in her writing like seeing, smelling and feeling, and her descriptions came alive. They helped me visualize her earlier life and the feelings she was experiencing at that moment. There were other scenes too that I enjoyed like the looks of those little things swimming in the milk as June sat at the dining room table. And there were those Sunday drives her mother took June, her sister and brother on as they picnicked along the Eel River in Mendocino County “ . . . where her mother fried freshly caught trout rolled in corn meal,†and how she, Billy and Betsy ate the “ . . . crisp fish right out of the pan. . .†And of course, there were those times with Uncle Frank who would peel a big red apple, and cut it up into small pieces for the kids as they sat around the stove, and he told them stories about living on the prairies during the 1800’s. All of these experiences, including the one of June and Uncle Frank going to San Francisco to have his eyes tested provided the reader with a fuller picture and understanding of her life. June’s short manuscript could easily be the beginning or foundation for a memoir in progress, and as I read it, I couldn’t help but think of Carol Shields book “The Stone Diaries†that was a National Bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book and Pulitzer-Prize winning novel that embraces all of the elements and qualities of a memoir. I would like to express my condolence to David, Dennis, Brian and Terri Reilly, and their children in the loss of their mother and grandmother.
