Tag: connection

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

Uncategorized

“A man must be coming!”

Mary Elyn Bahlert

At this time of year I remember – always – the days of the New Year in 2001, after my Mom had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer, and as she spent more and more time in her small, much-loved room at the Mathilda Brown Home in Oakland. She had loved living at Mathilda Brown almost since the day she arrived, in August of 1998. And for that, I was grateful. She needed the assisted living care she received there, and the home was big enough for Mom to find a good friend with whom she could spend time. And small enough for her to feel comfortable, to know everyone. She was safe. She was happy. That was enough.

In December of 2000, she was diagnosed with the cancer, and after a final visit to the physician, Jeff and I had taken her back to her room and alerted the staff that she would now be on hospice. The staff at Mathilda Brown hurried into high gear, understanding that my mother would be receiving the care she needed from hospice, and that they would provide her basic living needs, as always. She grew thinner and thinner as the days went on. But she could still be lively, and fun – forgetting that she was ill.

One day I sat with her as she lay in bed, and we talked. She asked me then: “what is wrong with me?” “You have cancer,” I told her. Even hospice care had noticed how honest we were with one another. And this time, when I answered, she said, immediately: “we’ll fight it!” Slowly, looking into her eyes, I shook my head, “no.” A sadness came across her, then. And in another moment, it was gone, replaced by another thought, another mood.

Now, remembering, it is hard to believe that only a few days before she died, Jeff and I took my mother and Mildred, a woman for whom Jeff was caregiver, to stay overnight in a place overlooking the Pacific, in Half Moon Bay. But we did it. I don’t remember much about that trip – except that we did it. It was a lot, caring for the two elders. But we did it. And we returned them both safely to their homes.

Suzie had been to visit Mom, Ronn had been called and alerted to her coming death, a friend – a colleague – had stopped to visit with her.

The week before Mom died, I had an idea. One morning, I picked her up at her home and we drove to the neighborhood where Jeff and I lived. I took Mom for a manicure and pedicure. She chose the colors – she always liked pastels – and we spent an hour chatting together and with the women who worked in the shop. When their work was done, and as we were getting ready to leave, Mom held a hand to her face, admiring the freshly, carefully painted nails.

“Hmmm,” she said. “A man must be coming!” The shop women giggled along with Mom and me as she glowed with delight.

“A man must be coming!” Indeed.

Mathilda Brown Home closed, several years after Mom passed. We live in the neighborhood, close to the Home, and sometimes, on my way to other errands, I drive past the building, the grounds still beautiful, although its original use as a residence for single women and then as an assisted living facility is now its history. I always remember how happy Mom was to be safe at home there.

Mom and Me, Mathilda Brown Home, circa 1998

Uncategorized

Seeing the Mother-land

Mary Elyn Bahlert

1988. The times were very different from these times. The world was changing – quickly, it seemed. I was in my fourth and final year as the Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church in downtown San Jose. And I had learned about a trip sponsored by the World Council of Churches to travel to the Soviet Union to honor the 1000 anniversary of the introduction of Christianity to Russia.

The congregation I was leaving gifted me – through the donations of several folks – what was needed to travel to the Soviet Union as part of a delegation of Americans sponsored by the World Council of Churches. I was grateful – and very excited – to see what was part of my family’s homeland. My mother’s parents – my maternal grandparents – had immigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1914. They had held onto the hope for their people, even in the New World, expecting that the formation of the Soviet State would bring freedom. History would prove otherwise, of course (once – having received as a gift, a large volume about Stalin’s time, I’d had to stop reading when Stalin’s slaughter of the Ukrainians numbered well over 10 million people – primarily in the 1930’s). Their hopes did not correspond to the life they had here.

The trip began with several days of study of the Soviet Union and the Orthodox Church tradition in Brooklyn, New York, before the group made the journey to Moscow. Since we were guests in a Communist country, our group had been assigned to travel to events in several cities, and without our consent, the group was divided into smaller groups with different itineraries when we arrived in Moscow. I traveled to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and to Odessa, a beautiful city on the Black Sea.

In the Soviet Union, the time had received the name, perestroika – restructuring of the economy. The people of the USSR – and the world – had hopes for the new Soviet Union. It was an exciting time to be in the USSR as a foreign visitor; indeed, the WCC trip coincided with the visit of Ronald Reagan, the U.S. President, to the USSR.

I was as close as I would ever be to “my people,” the people of Eastern Europe. As the years have unfolded, I have learned that my family – who had broken with “Church” by some turn of events in Ukraine, before emigration – must have been Catholic, a common faith and practice in Ukraine. Still, I was grateful for the introduction to the Eastern Church, the Orthodox Church. For me, traveling with the WCC was a doorway into a deeper look at life in the USSR – one doorway among many.

And so I was privileged to see the homeland, over fifty years after my grandparents had left their home. My privilege was reflected in another way; I told my mother about the trip, and invited her to join us, to finally secure her passport, to see the place where her people had lived, and where some still lived. She couldn’t see herself traveling that distance, and out of the country, and so she did not join the trip.

I’ve been inside many churches in my lifetime – to be sure. And there in the Soviet Union, I saw some of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. The high arched ceilings, the iconography, the beauty of those places touched me. Even more, the babushkas – the poor women who came to the church with their prayers in their hearts, who bowed, again and again, standing before the saint to whom they gave their prayers – touched my heart. I carry their devotion with me, even now.

We learned that the Soviets – atheists – had protected the churches through all the years of the USSR, since 1917. They, too, had been moved by the beauty of those places. When the anniversary of the Orthodox Church was being planned, minutes from the organizing included these words: “Members of the Bishops’ Pre-Council Meeting gratefully consider it necessary to note the positive attitude of the Soviet Government to the questions put forward by the Hierarchy of the Church.” In other words, the government had agreed to allow the celebrations.

When we were not in churches, my roommate and I walked through the streets of the cities we visited. And in Kiev it was that I saw “my people.” The faces, the eyes, the way the people carried themselves – I recognized. They are forever “my people.” The days we were in Kiev were beautiful spring days. The lilacs were in blossom. The people felt the freedom of the spring as well as the changing times – as difficult as the present and the days to come – like all the days in the past – would be.

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When I read the news these days, the world hears rumblings again coming from that Eastern place, now called Russia, again. I often think that Putin, President Putin, has never lost his history as KGB, and so he rattles the chains to control the people of his country – and the people of Ukraine, a sovereign nation. We may see the lock-down, the disappearing of that place as a free land – again.

On the back of this photo, in my mother’s hand: Vlas Markov Srebny Feodosia Maksuda Srebna, Ivanka (Ivan, little one) Srebny, 4 yrs. old . Photo circa 1914.

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