My grandparents had a child’s rocking chair when they lived in Elgin. Generations of children sat on it and I really wanted to own it someday for my own children. It went to my Aunt Ginny, the only of my mom’s siblings who didn’t have children. I think I did ask her for it when Clare was born, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. After she died it sat in storage until last April when Dean and I picked it up in Mississippi. So while I have no photos of my kids in the chair, I do have some of my granddaughter in it.
I don’t think there are any photos of my grandfather in the chair, but here he is as a child in the arms of his mother, Jessie, and standing next to her mother, Nettie McCornack.
My aunt Ginny was photographed sitting in the chair, however, in this photo taken on the porch of 501 Raymond in Elgin. L-R: Uncle Dick, Aunt Nancy, Grandpa Green, Grandma Green, Mom, Uncle Bud, and Aunt Ginny in the rocking chair.
We celebrated Mother’s Day in Bethesda shortly after returning from Mississippi and had Lassen try out the chair. She wasn’t impressed.
A few months later she liked it better.
I love this chair and its history. Hopefully it will be used by more generations.
Until 5 minutes ago I thought the type of design of this butterfly barrette was cloisonné. I was mistaken. I don’t know that it has a name. But that’s neither here nor there. This. now broken, metal butterfly barrette is one of a pair that I wore in my late teens. It’s important because another student in my college freshman botany class had the same barrettes. She seemed popular and well-known to the teacher. I admired her from afar — I am pretty sure she didn’t know I existed. I thought she was beautiful.
After that class I don’t know that I ever saw her at school, but I remembered her and I remembered her name. I was devastated when, one morning the following winter, it was announced on the local radio station that she’d died in a car accident.
That could have been the end of it. I might have kept the broken barrette and maybe wondered why I did so when I came across it nearly fifty years later, not remembering the young woman from my botany class who wore an identical pair of butterfly barrettes in her youth. I’ll never forget her because a little over two years after hearing about her death I met a man at a bar who, when he told me his name, I asked if he was related to that girl who died. He said she was his sister.
He and I married a few years after that.
An epilogue to the story is that our daughter sometimes looks like her Aunt Debbie. I once mused that perhaps what attracted me to Debbie was based on a premonition of what my daughter would look like as a young woman.
Is it too early to talk about the masks we wore to protect us and others from Covid-19? I’m talking about the earlier days — the fabric masks. The handmade ones, the ones that suddenly appeared on Amazon. The ones that really were not that effective.
To be clear, I was happy that we were not expected to wear masks when out and about at the very beginning. I’d seen people wearing masks in my day and I was happy I didn’t need to do that — it seemed so odd and embarrassing. I just didn’t leave the house — so I didn’t need to worry about getting Covid-19. I was completely devastated for many reasons when it was announced that the general public should begin wearing masks. To begin with, I didn’t know where to find a mask. The good ones were reserved for doctors, nurses, first responders. A FB acquaintance even went so far as to shame anyone who was able to get N19 masks. I don’t recall her exact words, but they were sharp and scathing and she didn’t back down when some people explained that they had N19 masks left from house projects or dealing with forest fire smoke.
Another reason I was terrified to wear a mask was because I didn’t know how to and I felt uncomfortable about doing so. I thought they were ugly and bothersome.
My first concern was eased by someone on our neighborhood email list who offered to make masks for people in exchange for a donation to her favorite charity. I made a donation and stopped by her house one day and picked up my mask on her front porch with the instructions to wash it in hot water in case she was inadvertently passing on Covid germs.
My first mask
My second and third concerns were eased only by experience.
A local women’s group held an outdoor mask sale to benefit their non-profit and I bought one or two masks there. I bought more on Amazon, two through King Arthur Flour, and a few from the company that made KA Flour’s masks. I gave some away for Christmas that year as well. My friend Catherine who’d just moved to Seattle sent us one that had ‘VOTE’ on the front. I gave that to Dean because it was too big for me.
Dean modeling my VOTE mask
My favorite mask was my Kate Bush mask that featured a woman in a red dress standing in various poses with ‘You know it’s me — Cathy’ written on the bottom. Unfortunately that was just for looks because the material was too porous. I wore it over another mask when I was out and about.
My Kate Bush maskDaughter’s IG story about my mask
Most of the masks were too big for me so I bought beads to string on the ear bands and hooks to wrap the ear bands around my head.
Eventually we were able to easily purchase N19 and KN19 masks and the fabric masks became redundant. I even have unused masks left over.
I’m keeping my fabric masks for the time being. Not that I think I’ll need them, but because, in a way, they make me feel a little safe.
Clutch Cargo Lips 