When I was a little girl, I saw my aunts as very old-fashioned. Their dresses weren’t stylish, even when new. Their hair was still kinked in curls that had relaxed somewhat in the world I saw around me. When LJ was born, I was not yet six, and my mother told me that I would be “Aunt Kathy.” I said no – I didn’t want to be his aunt; I would be a grandma with her. It took some time to convince me that being an aunt would not make me like Aunt Lynn or Aunt Ethel. I hasten to add that they were dear people; I just didn’t want to be like them.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading and presenting “my Ina character,” and I phrase it that way because in her letters a warmth comes through which was probably borne of her love for my dad. She passed away when I was eight and I did not have a positive relationship with her. If she loved me, she didn’t let me know, and I felt rather guilty for my lack of feeling for her. When I was a young adult, I said to my mother, “Grandma Dobson didn’t like me, did she?” Mother did not look up for a minute, so I knew I had touched the truth. Mother said, “It wasn’t that. She just couldn’t hear you.” Eventually we discussed this again, and Mother said, “I never understood. How hard would it have been for her to put her arm around you when you kissed her cheek?” It must have been hurtful to my dad, and I always felt I was to blame. I never discussed this relationship with him, and I’m not going to waste time regretting that. Perhaps it was best.
Though I didn’t talk about it much, all the while we worked on the farmhouse – Ina’s dream house in her day – it was difficult to think that this house was my house. I knew the Ina of my childhood would not necessarily be pleased. When I began reading and sharing her letters, I realized that I needed to drop my childish feelings. Perhaps my dad saved those letters because of the depth of character and caring that came out. So, I call her “Ina” and she is someone I never knew.[This photo of Grandma Ina Dobson with her granddaughter, Kathy, and great-granddaughter, Patty, was taken at Christmastime, 1952, when I was two. Patty was two years older than I.]
4 comments:
You know, life on a farm had to be EXHAUSTING. At the end of her life, I would imagine G-ma Ina had to have been tired. Living in that cold house alone without the amenities of the time was surely tiring as well. It's probably true that she couldn't hear you, but it's also probably true that she didn't have the patience for young children after such a hard farm life.
I like that photo. You are so cute!
I don't think it's at all true that she'd be unpleased either. You're a mature woman today of discriminant pragmatic taste, much in keeping, I think, with your ancestry. You're children are the final progeny of Ina's, all other lines are dead, or will be. It's right and it's fitting that it should be yours. You honor her in your thoughts and your actions, few of her generation are so well remembered or even ever thought about anymore.
Even if she didn't like you then, I'm sure she would now. Tickeled pink, in fact, that her home is still in family hands and that they remember her.
Is it possible that she didn't like you mother much, and there was some transference of distaste? Grandma was a bit of a premadona, though I loved here dearly, and Ina might have thought her a bit assuming, she could be stuck up. Perhaps especially to a simple farm wife who's family didn't have the good fortune of your mothers family in those hard years of the depression. Jealousy? You were much you mothers daughter, but I think your grip on reality is better now than her's ever was, and perhaps, while you were you mothers little girl you're now your grandmothers girl to a greater degree. -mvw
It’s certainly one of my goals to know more about my family and the factors that influenced their lives – especially those of Ina’s generation. It isn’t just the character of the people and it isn’t just history. I want to know about life in that time. There must be a word for this study but I don’t know what it is. I could liken it to a PBS documentary. I think the availability of photographs to the study of people has made it seem so much warmer.
You are correct in much of what you say, mvw. But, you know, we just don’t walk in someone else’s shoes. I don’t know all the factors that influenced my parents’ decision to marry or all the factors that influenced Ina’s disapproval. Sometimes I can’t even remember all the factors that influenced my own decisions in life. Mother took much comfort in Ina’s affirmation before she died that Mother had been a good daughter-in-law.
When it comes to my mother and my dad, it’s harder for me to be objective, so I don’t intend to go there. But I can represent Ina’s life on the blog for the benefit of all.
See the chair Ina is sitting on? I wish I had that chair. I know exactly what happened to it, too. In the 1960s Aunt Lynn decided to get rid of some things and burned it up together with a few other treasures. It probably wasn't very comfortable, but it looked great. KW
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