Category: nostalgia

memories, nostalgia, remembering, Uncategorized

The outfits

Mary Elyn Bahlert

There was always room for a sewing machine in our upper flat. Looking back now, I see how cramped those working class houses were, their windows covered with curtains to keep out the cold of the freezing winters in the Midwest. But there was always room for Mom’s sewing machine.

Well, it was Mom’s sewing machine until Suzie and I learned to sew. Then, if I was working on an outfit with a Simplicity or McCall’s pattern, chances are that either Mom or Suzie was working on something too, and when I stepped away from the machine to get another piece of fabric, carefully looking at the directions – I’d find a spool of thread in a color that didn’t match my material already in the machine. The sewing machine was ours – the three of us.

Like a lot of mothers over time, Mom was happy to have two daughters for her to make homemade clothes from the patterns. She must have worked many hours when we were at school and when Daddy was at work in the steel mill. And because she was happy to have two daughters, she was extra happy (I expect) to be able to make them matching outfits. To make us matching outfits – Suzie and me.

One Easter, Mom made Suzie and me matching dresses, including capes lined in pink fabric. She bought matching Easter hats – “in your Easter bonnet…” and Suzie and I were models, standing together on the front lawn of the flat, looking into the camera.

Mom made us matching outfits, that is, until I told her at some point that I didn’t want to be dressed like my little sister. Thankfully, Mom agreed – or at least understood – because I heard her tell the story to my Auntie Anne not long after. And so the days of matching outfits came to an end.

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We are well into the 21st century now, and those days in the cramped flats – winter and summer, and fall and spring, when the fragrance of lilacs in the huge bushes in front yards that adorned the streets wafted down to walk with us – are well in the past. It’s interesting that some of the feelings remain, filtered through the grief at remembering all those who are gone now, and how they loved us, each in their own way. How their dreams still live in us.

And I’m grateful for my mother – coming from poverty and abuse – and how she crafted the best life she could for us, for us all. How she protected us, to the best of her ability, how she made a home for us, and how happy she must have been to sew Easter outfits for her two daughters.

Suzie and me, circa 1954

memories, reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

Grandma Bahlert

Mary Elyn Bahlert

My most vivid memory of my Grandma Bahlert is seeing her – tall and thin – as she opened the door of the little cabin that Uncle Erdreich had built for her and Grandpa, right behind his and Auntie Irene’s house, on the road in Baileys Harbor that led from Highway 57 to a gravel road deep in the woods, a swamp.

Daddy and I had made the long drive from Milwaukee to Baileys Harbor on a Friday night, and we had left Momma and the baby and Ronnie back at home in Milwaukee. Momma and Daddy must have agreed – and known – that this was to be an important trip, and so Daddy drove the four + hours along Lake Michigan when darkness had already descended, to see his Mother. I didn’t feel well on the way, and so I lay down in the back seat, and when we entered Door County, I watched the shadows of the trees that stood, tall and deep, dark, along the highway. Daddy drove on.

When we arrived at the house, Daddy and I walked up to the door of the cabin, and Grandma Bahlert stood at the door to “greet us,” she would have said.

Auntie Irene’s buoyancy, her love of children, must have greeted us first. Later that evening, I would lay on a couch in the living room of the pieced-together house that Erdreich had built – a house that grew longer and more filled with furniture and knick-knacks as the years passed. And when I couldn’t get to sleep, Auntie Irene went next door to get my Daddy, who lay with me cuddled up against him as he fell asleep on the couch.

In her letters – written in a primitive, elementary school handwriting – to my folks, my Grandma Bahlert had mentioned, again and again, “my little Mary.”

A few months later, she was gone. Auntie Edna – who always took charge of such things – had called us on the telephone, and when Daddy came back to sit in his chair, he cried.

Years later, I would ask to see Grandma in a dream, before I fell asleep. She didn’t come for many nights, but then I had a dream! I was standing at a grave, Grandma Bahlert’s grave, and I was alone. When I awoke, I knew the message of the dream to me: “she’s really dead.”

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From where I sit at the dining room table where Jeff and I eat dinner together every evening, I look out onto the beautiful trees that fill my sight at the dining room windows. In the center of the windows, on the counter on which I place beautiful things to enjoy, I have placed two black-framed photos, both in black and white. The photos are old, and the manner of dress attests to that. On the right are my Grandpa Markowski, Grandma Markowski, John – Ivan, about 4 years old – standing in front of them in an old-fashioned sailor suit. They are not smiling, as seems to have been the custom when taking pictures at that time.

To the left is another photo, a photo of the Bahlert family. They were good-looking people, all. The year was 1910, judging from the ages of the children. On my grandmother’s lap is a baby with big brown eyes, looking, like the rest, into the camera. The baby is my father, Frank. His twin, Carl, had already died, only a few months old. Grandma has a small smile on her lips as she holds her baby. Maybe it was for the picture, or perhaps she was happy to be surrounded by the little ones she loved so well.

I think of them often, I remember my Grandma Bahlert’s love for me, always. When I return to Door County, filled with tourists now, I go by the quiet, less traveled roads to the graveyard at the Sister Bay Moravian Church, and I always stand at the graves for many minutes, thinking of them having come to this place, at the end.

A few years ago, I messaged my first cousin’s son, Eric, to tell him what I remembered of his Grandpa, my Uncle Johnny – Ivan – my mother’s eldest sibling. I told Eric how his Grandpa had loved him so much. To my message, Eric replied: “I remember the love.”

Grandma: I remember the love.

Grandma Bahlert, circa, 1930’s

beauty, nostalgia, reflecting

Shedding the tree

Mary Elyn Bahlert 
In sadness the lively tree is shed of color,
gleaming ornaments 
      carefully, safely wrapped in soft paper,
      paper that wrapped them safely when I was young.
With each one wrapped, a memory:
      a smile, 
      a tick of sadness arrives
as I lay them to rest for another year.

These days, I lay them in their boxes
with a wave of grief at how many Christmases have passed,
how few festivals of Light there are to come.

     Mary Elyn Bahlert, 1/2025
Beautiful Christmas companion, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2024
memories, remembering

Sheepshead

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I loved – still love – the season of holidays. As a child, holiday time meant a time for the cousins and aunts and uncles to gather at our house for the holiday meal – which was followed by the dining room table being cleared as quickly as possible, the tablecloth removed, and the cards ready to be shuffled and played. Of course, the women had already finished the clean up time in the kitchen, the men had had another beer – or two, sitting together in the living room – and it was time to play Sheepshead.

When I explain this ritual now, folks are usually stymied by the name of the game – Sheepshead. It’s a trump game, I tell them, and almost everyone in Wisconsin plays Sheepshead. The original name, schafskopf, is a German name and Sheepshead is a German card game. The full deck is not in use when playing Sheepshead. And the highest card in the deck is the Queen of Clubs. Besides the basics, it’s hard to understand Sheepshead, to get its allure, and to understand why it was a part of every holiday – unless you play.

When I was little, I convinced myself that I’d never play that noisy, rowdy game. The hands were dealt and played quickly, and there were loud voices and complaints that accompanied every hand dealt. Daddy and the uncles pounded on the table, even though money was not involved. When they played Sheepshead, and as the day – and the playing – went on, the loud voices and the pounding on the table seemed to get more fierce. “What could be fun about that”? – I must have thought.

Until I learned to play. Mom taught me, when I was eleven. First, I had to learn what was trump, she said, as she lay all the cards on the table, right side up. Then, I had to learn the rest of the suits, in order. Then, I had to learn how to arrange the cards I was dealt in my hand. Then, I had to learn to count trump as it was played – a necessity for proper strategy. Mom was a good teacher. Soon, I was playing Sheepshead, too.

And soon, I was hooked. Ever after, I could join the shouts and complaints at the table. The shouts and complaints didn’t seem as big as before, and maybe the shouts and complaints seemed necessary, once I’d started to play.

“Sheepshead! I can play!” Here in Oakland, Jeff and I have taught a few people to play Sheepshead. This past year, we taught our friend Jim, who is sure to impress his German relatives when he makes a trip to see them. The rules may be different, we tell him, but you’ve got the basics down.

Our house is a lot quieter on holidays than our house growing up was, and that suits me. Our holiday meals – after we’ve finished and have moved to the living room to sit next to the Christmas tree – are followed by long conversations with good friends, and Sheepshead seems to be something in the past now. We have taught our nephew Rainier and his wife, Lia, to play. I hope they like it, too.

” …after we’ve finished dinner and have moved to the living room to sit next to the Christmas tree…” – photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2024

memories, nostalgia, remembering, Uncategorized

Facing the dark – entering the deep of the year…

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I grew up in the Midwest. There, the darkest times of the year also heralded the beginning of the coldest times of the year.  Now, since I have had the pleasure of living in a Mediterranean climate for many years, I hope for rain to quench the dry land as winter approaches, I watch with interest the days grow shorter, and I watch the final red of sunset linger over the Bay, sink down beyond San Francisco into the Pacific.

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Here in Germany to visit friends and to visit Christmas Markets – the Germans know very well how to do Christmas! – I am reminded of how the darkness shapes this season, and I remember the Festival of Lights that is Christmas, and the lighting of candles that honor Hanukkah, fall always during these darkest days. Here in Germany, darkness comes on early as the temperature hovers just above freezing.

As I walk through the Christmas Markets of Regensberg this year, I see the same trinkets again and again, and sometimes, a treasure shines out from the rest, and I stop at a tent covered booth to look closely. Will this be a good gift for Joanne, I think? Can I carry this lovely toy in my suitcase without breaking it?

Christmas music playing from speakers hidden somewhere in the eaves of the buildings that circle the Market adds to the festive flavour of the season. Sometimes, the cold air sweeps me away again to those dark December evenings in the Midwest, marching over snow covered ground to select the perfect tree from a well-lit city lot, the perfect tree that Dad carries back to the car and fastens securely with a rope for that purpose, into the trunk. Then, I’m back in Regensberg, as quickly as I left, turning round and round to see where Jeff has wandered, knowing he enjoys the music and cold and darkness and even the crowds, as much as I do.

Yesterday, I learned that Bill, the widower of my good friend Sue who died so young, Bill, who made her so happy, has passed. Melancholy and memory seem to go well with the cold and the Christmas music.

Still, the holidays are here with their mixture of merry and melancholy. When I return home, after Jeff and I select our own tree from a lot in the city, I’ll sit across from the sparkling lights with a cup of egg nog, I’ll remember all those I love who are gone now, who I hold in my heart in the reflection of the lights.

Christmas-time in Wien, Austria. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2024