A TRUE RETRO MODERN HOMEMAKER AND MOTHER

My retro homemaker ideal would be my mother. It isn’t that she was the best household manager I ever knew. It’s that she had a wealth of knowledge and skill, and as my mother, she was willing to be my mentor. That’s the way it is with a mother.

But I think of someone else when the retro ideal is mentioned. She passed away six weeks ago after a relatively short illness, leaving her family devastated. As I listened to them share their grief while pictures of her wonderful life played in the background, my own memories of her flowed into thought.

In the mid-‘70s when I first knew her, she was one of a vanishing breed: a college-educated woman whose career was her home and family. When I married Mike and joined him in the 1920’s cottage, her house, larger but of the same vintage, was right next door.

Her house needed some major maintenance as old houses do, but it was a lovely “Cape Cod” and she made it look like a million bucks. As a skilled homemaker, she was also a gourmet cook, an accomplished flower gardener, a gracious hostess. She set a table worthy of “Traditional Home” and she did so whether serving her family or guests. Anyone privileged to spy the interior of her cupboards marveled at her organizational skill. They say she was a natural on the ski slopes and she was a natural at homemaking as well. She did her own house and garden work, and she didn’t need a system of lists or cards to know where she stood. She was attractive and her outdoor activities brought an enviable glow to her skin. As a new wife already feeling inadequate, living next door to this paragon didn’t help – neither her fault nor mine. (It also didn’t help that our houses were quite close; my bedroom window overlooked her patio.)

I suspect (though I don’t really know) that she kept life’s distractions to a minimum. No one said, for instance, that she was an avid reader or a student of anything.  She wasn’t a church-goer or a community activist. Her style of homemaking didn’t extend to the rural home arts, such as sewing, quilting, knitting, or even growing vegetables, but if she had espoused these endeavors she would have done them well. Instead her house and family came first, and nothing was too much work or too much trouble for her family. As they put it, she served but was not subservient.

I had my frustrations with my proximity to this ideal. Fifteen years older than I, twenty years ahead of me in homemaking experience, her goals and skills were well-established while I struggled to define my home and my role in it. Her three children were outgrowing the nest while mine were being born. I felt so homely by comparison. I admired her management style, but what seemed effortless for her was a trial for me.  

Before my third child was born, her husband insisted they move to “trophy house hill.” Though she understood, I don’t think she was pleased. The distinctive old house was an excellent backdrop for her talents, and it had become her identity. It was the place where she had raised her children and her tulips. Above all, she loved it there. But the maintenance issues could no longer be ignored. Their last child having left for college, her husband was ready for a different experience. But just looking at the new house, I thought it wasn’t right for her.

So I watched from my bedroom window early one morning as she vacuumed her dining room, empty of furniture, one last time. She had been up all night to make sure the house was spotless for the new owner. She later admitted she was crying. “A lot of memories in that house,” she told me.

The impression she made in that old neighborhood is still remembered today. In fact, the family admitted (a bit sheepishly, I thought) that on the day of her memorial service they had visited that old house, walked around it, peered through the windows. In that vintage place she had undoubtedly done her most memorable work. KW