Category: memories

memories, nostalgia, remembering, Uncategorized

The uncles

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Some people have uncles that were awful people, creepy people, uncles that no one liked, uncles that were hard to be around.

Not me.  I had wonderful uncles, and I remember them, along with all the rest of the ancestors, often.  While they did not say it – ever – I knew that there was love, or at least affection, in them for me.  

Uncle Pete, my mother’s youngest brother, was full of himself.  Like all the others who are full of themselves, he took up all the space in a room.  He had a large presence, a sort of charisma, I suppose.  His dark eyes danced as if he had a joke to tell.  He could tell stories from three wars – “Pete fought in three wars,” the men in his neigborhood said as they made room for his wandering, his memory loss, in his later years.  Pete, my handsome uncle Pete, who walked silently to the car with me on a visit I made to the military hospital in Oakland to see Aunt Athalie, his wife.  Then, he seemed shy even, as he carefully saw that I was in my car and had driven safely off.    

Sometimes as I got older, he’d ask me a question he should have asked my mother; “ask my Mom,” I’d say, without saying more.  He didn’t press me further.  Did he ask my Mom?  I don’t think so!  Like many families, differences were not worked out directly between the siblings.  They had to trust in the passage of time to take away old hurts.

Uncle Johnny was the eldest brother, a hero to my mother and her other siblings, Mike, Anne, Pete.  He was older than the next one in line – Mike – by 9 years, and it was safe to say that he had been born in the Old Country, Ukraine, although the family lore held that he was “born on the boat.”  When he went off to work, he showed up at home to bring Christmas to his siblings, knowing that his folks would not come through for them – ever.   

Uncle Johnny was smart, well-read, an atheist:  an uneducated intellectual, the condominium he shared with Aunt Dani filled with piles of magazines and books.  His brother’s eyes were full of pride when Johnny spoke; my mother’s, too.  He was a quiet one – like Mike and my mother, to Anne’s, to Pete’s extraversion.   In his later working years as a machinist, he was a union man, his democratic socialist leanings lived out in his own life.  He was our hero, too. 

Uncle Mike was so quiet, so much part of the background that I have few memories of him.  Did he ever speak to me?  He married Alice, a British woman he’d met when he was a motorcycle-riding soldier in England during the War.   When I was a young woman, Alice would call me from time to time, and she’d take me to dinner, where she talked and talked.  After Mike died, Alice finally got a phone for their little home in a town north of Milwaukee.  I last talked to Alice when she happened to call my mother in the days before we moved Mom to live out close to us in the Bay Area.  My mother’s memory was already poor, so when my Aunt Alice identified herself to Mom, she handed the phone to me, probably thinking the call was for me.  

**

Dad was one of nine siblings, one of only two who’d left Door County, Wisconsin, to live in the city; Dad settled in Milwaukee, Uncle Norman, his youngest brother, in Queens, New York, where he worked as a police officer.  And so I had a string of aunts and uncles on the Bahlert side.

Clarence and Ray were Dad’s older brothers, Ray, a farmer, Clarence, a retired Coast Guard officer who worked the wild waters of Lake Michigan, all the way north to Washington Island, off the tip of Door County.  When we stopped at Clarence’s house in Baileys Harbor – a cottage close to the shore of Lake Michigan – my Dad and Clarence stood outside talking for a long time, two brothers, separated by time and distance, by different lives.

We stood on the grass outside of Ray’s house, too, Ray, a quiet man – “one of the quiet Bahlerts,” with a quiet wife and a quiet daughter, my cousin Terri.  By the time I remembered seeing Ray and his place, my cousin Roger, Terri’s elder brother, was married and gone, with a daughter of his own.  Not until years later did I come to know Roger, after I’d retired.   After a time of talking – my Dad did the talking, Ray the listening (I’m sure) – we’d walk around to the back of the property, to see the raspberry bushes, to taste a few, and to take a quick look at the outhouse, still in use, on the property.  My family in northern Wisconsin were rural people, kind, gentle people.  I loved them – love them – for that.

My dad told us a story about Ray and him, the two of them riding a Model T down the Sister Bay Hill that wound right down and into the main street of Sister Bay, on the Green Bay side of the peninsula.  Young men, they yelled “Betsy Ross!” – a slang of the day, as they started down the hill, and as the driver shouted, he pulled the steering wheel right out of the steering column and held it high in the air until he realized what was happening, then poked that steering wheel right back where it belonged, and continue to navigate down the long Sister Bay Hill!  Every time I go down that hill now, I think of them on that day, and I think of my father’s face, his voice rising, as he told the story – as he’d lived to tell the story.  

Uncle Fritz was next in line, younger than my father.  He was Dad to my cousin Bobbie, like Terri, a bit younger than me.  Like the rest of the Bahlerts, Fritz was a worker, coming home from a day in the shipyards in Sturgeon Bay to butcher at the store he and Aunt Goldie operated near the north point of the Door County Peninsula.  The only time I went as fast as 100 miles an hour in a car, I sat with Bobbie in the front bench seat of my uncle’s pickup, watching that speedometer go faster and faster!  Fritz was quiet, too, and I don’t remember a conversation with him, although he was closest in age to my Dad.  

Uncle Norman, the youngest, married a woman from the East Coast and raised his family there.  My only memory of Uncle Norman was when he stayed with us overnight on the way to Door County to see his mother, my Grandma Bahlert, in the days before her death.  I was a little girl, and I watched with big eyes as my handsome Uncle Norman came into the kitchen.  Every year at Thanksgiving now, Jeff and I celebrate the holiday by sitting around the table with Uncle Norman’s eldest son, Norman Bahlert, and his family – children and even grandchildren now, and Cheryl, Norman’s wife.  Pictures of the Bahlert’s from generations past look down on us all, seated around the long table, as if guarding their progeny.  

So these were the uncles, distinct, kind, a part of the framework of family who peopled my life, then – and even now.    

Vlas Markowski (Srebny) with Mike to his right, Johnny standing behind, and Pete, the little boy with the hat, at his mother’s knees. Photo, circa 1921-1922, Milwaukee, WI.

memories, nostalgia, Uncategorized

“I said some words

Mary Elyn Bahlert

to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept”. - Dylan Thomas, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”

Jeff and I have a quiet and lovely custom that we bring to life each Advent, that sombre season of waiting, of anticipation, before Christmas. Each year, on an evening in December, we sit on the couch with the lights of the Christmas tree shining into the darkest days of the year, and we watch again “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Thomas’ memory and gift to the season, recounting his days as a boy growing up in Wales, remembering those Christmas Days – when it always snowed. 

Although we do not have snow here where Jeff and I live in Northern California, we have the longer nights, and every season, I note the changing light, the darker evenings that give way to the longer hours of light, beginning with the first day of winter – that day marked by the calendar.

Every evening though, when we go off to bed, I, too, say some words “to the close and holy darkness” before I sleep. My custom goes back to bedtime as a child, where my mother taught me to say the child’s prayer: ”Now I lay me down to sleep…” and when I said that prayer, I began the practice of adding prayers for those I loved. Later, I would learn to take my own cares to that holy darkness, praying – sometimes again and again – for relief from some worry, some troubling situation. A wise monk at a retreat encouraged me to pray – “for yourself,” he had said. And so I do. 

I pray and pray until that moment – that holy moment, sometimes in the darkness, sometimes not – when I surrender to that holy moment, as it is, as it will be, as it has been. Freedom is there, and a kind of certainty. 

When I settle in for the bedtime prayers – added to the prayers spoken at odd moments of the day – I remember that I am held by some magnificent, benevolent awareness, some living, breathing Self that is greater than me, and certainly greater than any of my own troubles.  And when I remember that awareness, I know for a few moments that larger Self, always present, and so often forgotten. 

The days are getting longer now, minute by minute, day by day, and moment by moment. Time passes so quickly, I often think. Time has passed so quickly, my life has passed so quickly, I think.

Saturn and the Moon, 12/17/2023, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert

beauty, memories, reflecting, remembering

Christmas time on the Bering Sea

Mary Elyn Bahlert

In the fall of 2015, Jeff received a note from a District Superintendent he had met while working on his books in Alaska. The message was that a little church in Unalaska, on the Bering Sea, was without a Pastor and wanted someone to be with them to celebrate Christmas. I think of myself as a “city person,” one who feels comfortable in cities, wherever they are, but I had traveled to Alaska on several occasions with Jeff, most notably to Nome, where we had had an intimate gathering with the Elders. And so, as soon as I heard the word that a church on the Bering Sea wanted a Pastor, I said: “Yes! Here I am! – Send me!”

And in the middle of December I traveled from San Francisco International Airport to Seattle, on to Anchorage, where I spent the night in a hotel before boarding a small plane with a direct flight to Unalaska. The flight that day was uneventful. I heard stories of flights that needed to be cancelled because of the winds that rise in that place. “Unalaska” is the Inuit word for “birthplace of the winds.” I listened with some anxiety to a story of a flight that had to emergency land along the slopes to the south of the flight’s path until the wind passed and the fog and snow allowed safe passage. And I watched with anxiety and awe as we landed, the cliffs close to the left side of the plane that gave way to the landing strip at Unalaska, with a cliff overshadowing the runway to the right of the plane. I disembarked and was met by the Chair of the Pastor Parish Relations Committee, who took me on a short tour of the Island, introducing me to the one large supermarket, one or two restaurants – always full – and to the church, and the parsonage, a large house whose front windows looked out over the Bering Sea.

As we drove up to the house, several eagles fluttered down from the roof as if to greet us. The church folks had set up a small, artificial tree, complete with lights, in the living room. I kept those lights on 24 hours a day during my stay. The kitchen was well equipped, the bed made, and we turned the heat up when we entered the house. All was well.

The Birthplace of the Winds, indeed. One night I was awakened by a wind, wind so wild that it sounded as if it would pick up the big, cozy house in which I slept and carry it out over the water. The wind surrounded the house, wailing and whipping, louder and louder, until at last – it passed. I was a witness to the winds, then.

I preached for two Sundays before Christmas and met with the musician – a professional piano teacher who had married a native man and lived on the Island, where she raised her family – a worship leader, and one or two other folks who were active in the church community, to plan Christmas Eve worship. We filled our plans with music, the Christmas Story, and lights. Each Sunday of my time with the people in worship, I celebrated Holy Communion, because they did not have a regular pastor to be with them.

During the week, I spent part of my days in the library on the Island, where I became friends with the native man who worked behind the desk. I checked out books and movies to watch in the evenings in the big house, alone. I woke each morning to darkness, and at ten AM, as if by some magic, the sky was light, daylight again. When I could, I called Jeff; we never allow a day to pass without our speaking, even when we are separated.

On Christmas Eve, the sanctuary was full of lights – and people, who arrived from all over the Island to hear the Christmas music, to hear the Christmas story, once again. The music was wonderful – a concert of beautiful Christmas music, led by an artist. At the close of worship, we lit one another’s candles, and sang “Silent Night” to the darkened sanctuary, reverent before we went out again into the cold and the wind.

Jeff arrived on New Year’s Eve, and we watched the fireworks fly across the sky on the Bering Sea from the front window, at midnight. On New Year’s Day, I worshipped with the small band of people in the little church, and after lunch, Jeff and I drove the car I’d been loaned – Alaskans share cars freely with one another – to the little airport, where we were able to make the flight back to Anchorage that day. Jeff’s flight to San Francisco left earlier than mine, and I had a few more hours there, taking time to let go of my sacred days in the Birthplace of the Winds.

Over the Bering Sea, December, 2015, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert

memories, nostalgia, remembering, Uncategorized

Thanksgiving

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I love the holiday season, which begins with Thanksgiving Day. When I was pastor in downtown Oakland, the congregation marked the day of thanks by offering a wonderful, complete Thanksgiving Dinner to anyone in the community who wanted to join. Homeless folks, people who did not speak English, people without family or even friends, joined the day’s gathering to sit at a table and to be served by other grateful folks. For many years, that tradition became part of my personal Thanksgiving, as I looked out at the gathered people and said to myself, again and again: “these are my people!”

And Jeff and I mark the holiday every year now by arriving at Norman and Cheryl’s cottage on a hill in San Francisco, climbing the narrow stairs to the top of a hill, our arms filled with pies – our contribution! – and to sit at the long, narrow table filled with an assortment of Bahlert-related people every year. As the day progresses and the dusk and darkness come, families with little ones begin to gather their belongings and leave, with much ado. The tiny kitchen which produced the feast we’d all enjoyed is full of helpers bumping into each other, cleaning up, continuing the dinner-time conversation. And then – just like that! – we all descend the steps and walk to our cars on the quiet streets and drive home, mentioning to one another moments from the day, who had grown, who talked to who, how much older everyone is (except for us, of course!), and probably feeling a bit of sadness that another holiday has passed.

In the Midwest, the shorter days and long evening of dark and cold have begun by this time of year. There’s a sense of “cocooning” that we don’t know in the same way here in California. And missing now, also, is the childhood sense of a quiet and light filled season, beginning with Thanksgiving, that won’t end until after Epiphany, in January.

My mother honored the season of holidays each year by hosting Thanksgiving Dinner at our upper flat, and by creating for my sister Suzie and me a holiday tradition. In the 50’s and 60’s (of the last century), the holiday season did not officially begin until Thanksgiving. On the day after Thanksgiving, my mother and Suzie and I took the 23 bus from the North Side to downtown Milwaukee, now mysteriously decorated with lights and ribbons along Wisconsin Avenue, still a booming shopping district at the time.

We’d step off the bus at 3rd and Wisconsin to walk through the Boston Store, which anchored the downtown at that time. My mother held tightly to each one of us as we walked through the crowded store, the lights and music having followed us from the street into the store.

Then, we’d walk, first to the Wisconsin Electric Company, and then to the Gas Company, to take in the cookie displays at each one. My mother made sure that at each place, she was provided with 3 copies of the new cookie book published by each company each year. She loved to try new recipes, and she loved to re-create those that had been her favorites – or dad’s favorite, or mine, or Suzie’s. Unknown to me, she wrote notes as she baked: “a favorite,” “takes a bit less powdered sugar than called for,” “makes a big batch!”

I didn’t discover the notes until years later, when I had my own apartment in Green Bay, and when Mom presented me with the collection of cookbooks she’d saved, just for me.

I’m not a great baker, although the family in San Francisco allows me to bring pies as my contribution to Thanksgiving. My mother loved to bake: “that’s the fun of it,” she’d say. And I expect she envisioned some sort of future for me and for my sister, based on her own life. Neither of us grew to have quite that future, I expect; it was her dream for us, regardless. The year after I retired, I baked a few batches of cookies, looking for a new way to fashion my life after an adulthood of work, often in a “man’s world.” That’s the year I reached high onto the kitchen shelf reserved for our cookbooks, and retrieved the cookbooks Mom had saved so carefully for me. And that’s when I saw her notes, in her particular hand-writing, written with me in mind, written with the relationship between the two of us holding us together.