Tag: life

memories, nostalgia, remembering

Auntie Irene

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Suzie called her “the hugger.” Yes, Auntie Irene – one of the extroverted Bahlert’s – loved to hug us when we arrived at her house on Old Lime Kiln Road in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin. And she loved to hug us when we left. She was, indeed, “the hugger.” Like my dad, Frank Bahlert, Auntie Irene talked fast and kept on talking, no matter what. And she would cry sometimes, too. Her emotions came easily to her, and they couldn’t be kept quiet. It wasn’t quiet with Auntie Irene around.

When Dad had his two weeks off from the steel mill each summer, we’d drive up to Door County – 200 miles north of Milwaukee, a peninsula bordered by Lake Michigan on the East and Green Bay on the West – and spend a week.

Sometimes we stayed in a rented cabin, rented from the Kellstrom’s of Sister Bay, and sometimes we’d stay with my Uncle Fritz, Aunt Goldie, Bobbie and Susie. For several years, they lived on a farm East of Sister Bay, where they kept pigs. After a long day at the shipyards in Sturgeon Bay, Uncle Fritz, my Dad’s younger brother, would collect garbage from restaurants along the highway to feed the pigs. The fastest I ever rode in a vehicle – a small truck – was with Uncle Fritz. My cousin Bobbie in the middle, me on the passenger side, and Uncle Fritz at the wheel, he sped up to 100 miles per hour. I think I was too young to consider what could have happened at that speed – and without seatbelts. Uncle Fritz was one of the quiet Bahlert’s, like my Auntie Edna, Uncle Clarence, Uncle Ray, and my cousin Terry, Ray’s daughter.

Auntie Irene, like my Dad, was a talker – as well as a hugger. After college and after I had been hired as a Claims Representative in the Social Security Office in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I’d sometimes stay the weekend with Auntie Irene and Uncle Erdreich – others called him “Peggy.” They had an upstairs to their house, an upstairs reached by a narrow stairway built into the wall. I’d stay alone in one of the two rooms up that narrow passage, looking up from my bed at the trees that pressed against the windows as the wind blew. Food was always plentiful at Irene and Erdreich’s house. Auntie Irene would bring out dish after dish of good food, filling the table with her cooking along with her non-stop talking.

I liked to introduce friends to my family in Door County. Friends were always welcome. One day, I invited a friend who worked with me at the Social Security Office in Green Bay. We headed to Door County on Friday night. After we’d met Auntie Irene and Uncle Erdreich, Becky and I headed out for some adventure of our own. Becky surprised me as we pulled out of the driveway and onto the highway: “there’s no excuse for someone to be like that,” she said. My feelings about Auntie Irene did not change with her comment, but my feelings about Becky did. I had no excuse to be a friend of someone who judged these loving, kind folks so harshly.

Another friend traveled with me from California to Wisconsin, many years later. We, too, made the pilgrimage to Door County. In her way, Bonnie told me, “I’ve never met people like this before.” Together with my mother, Bonnie and I climbed the narrow steps to that simple upstairs room and stayed the night. We were recipients of a kind and gentle hospitality.

When I took my husband Jeff up to meet the Door County folks for the first time, his kind and open manner made him welcome from the start. He loved to meet the family I loved so dearly, and they welcomed him with kindness. Jeff gets excited about a lot of things – which is fun (but can be exhausting). Together with Auntie Edna and Uncle Werner, Auntie Irene and Uncle Erdreich, we went to take a look at the cabin that Werner used to house seasonal workers who came from the city to pick cherries every summer in his orchard. We walked through tall grass to the frame house, following one another on a narrow path. As we approached the house, Jeff was saying: “this is great! “

Behind me as we walked along the narrow path to the house, I heard Auntie Irene say, under her breath: “I feel sorry for Mary Elyn.” I can still hear her voice, saying out loud only to herself what she was really thinking…

I was hospitalized in the summer of 1996. Before Jeff and I had made the trip back to Wisconsin, I’d written a note to my beloved Auntie Irene, who was ill and in a care home. “Wait for me,” I’d written. When Jeff and I and my mother made it to Door County, Irene had already passed. I sat with the others in the narrow wooden pews of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. After the funeral, I stood on the steps of the church, looking over the heads of my Bahlert cousins, some of whom I had not seen for many years. I remembered what I’d written in my note to Auntie Irene. Auntie Irene had waited. And I had returned, just in time, as it turned out.

Irene Bahlert, circa 1923

memories, nostalgia, The Holy, Uncategorized

A dream

Mary Elyn Bahlert

My dad loved life. He loved my mother, he loved us, and he loved his life. After having been diagnosed with colon cancer in the year after he retired from his work as a steelworker at age 65, he was always grateful for the life he was able to live during the 10 years after. He came to realize that he could live much as he had before the arrival of the cancer, and so he returned as much as possible to the life he’d had before the cancer diagnosis and the colonoscopy. He rode his bike all around his neighborhood in Milwaukee, and he and Mom drove clear across the country from Wisconsin to visit my mother’s brothers in California. Mom and Dad enjoyed every moment of that trip, my father at the wheel, my mother pointing out sites and reading from the AAA trip-tick that guided their trip. Both my parents – my father had an eighth grade education in a country one-room school house, my mother had received her GED when I was in college – were interested in life. As I remember them, I count the quality of having an interest in life as important, not only to them, but to me, as well. I’m grateful.

My dad loved life. He spent many weeks in a hospital bed at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee, knowing he would not leave that room – ever. More than anything, he missed being able to ride his bike, especially now that spring was coming to the Midwest; it was April. He was 75; he would never make it to his 76th birthday. Now that I’m 76, I think of that fact – often.

Before I left his hospital room for the last time, before I traveled back to Pleasanton, California, where Jeff and I lived, I said to Dad: “Let me know you are all right.” I was clear: after he passed, I wanted a sign from him. As I said those words to Dad, he didn’t speak. He nodded. He understood.

The dream came some time later, months after Dad died in April of 1986. It was a simple dream, a clear dream. I saw my Dad, dressed in a suit, standing with a group of people, looking away from me. He had a humble look on his face as he stood with the others, his hands held together in a simple gesture, below his waist.

When I awoke, I knew immediately that Dad had kept his promise. He had come to me. And he had let me know that he was all right.

Uncle Johnny must be angry at Dad – he’s about to push him into the pool… They had fun together.
photo, circa 1983, San Jose, CA.

community, reflecting

Friends

Mary Elyn Bahlert

“You’ve always had good friends,” my mother once told me. She was right. I’ve always had good friends, friends I find interesting, friends who listen to me as much as I listen to them, friends who are readers and travelers, friends who have a keen interest in life.

As I get older, I think I value my friendships even more than I ever did. Or maybe I realize now that our lives are short – we don’t know when we will lose another friend, or when we might face our own demise – and so each moment, each encounter, becomes more important as the years pass.

A few years ago, I received an email from a former student at Clarke Street School in Milwaukee, where I’d gone to 5 and 6 grades. She had written as part of the outreach to let me know about an event honoring Washington High School in Milwaukee. “Did you go to Clarke Street School?” she had written. When I looked at the name, the signature said Fran xxxxx. I knew her as Frances, and I sent my email response right away. “Are you Frances xxxxx?” I asked. I’d found her, my best friend in the few years before we entered Junior High, before I entered the Pilot Program for “smart” kids, and she skipped a grade, instead. I’d often wondered about Frances, how her life had unfolded. A few months later, Jeff and I were privileged to have a meal with Frances – now she’s Fran – and her husband, Jakov, in Milwaukee. And our staying in touch has been important to me in this season of my life.

Some friendships seem to last a long time, other friendships seem to last for a season, a short time in life. My husband, Jeff, makes friends with everyone he meets. He’s an extravert, and there are times I’ve teased him about the easy and comfortable way he makes friends. He’s got good friends, as I do. I’m grateful to be married a man who values male friendships as much as I value my female friends. I like to tease him that he’s the world’s “most extraverted man.” That’s not an exaggeration! And I have to say that Jeff and I are good friends as well as life partners. That’s a gift in my life, to be sure.

I’m grateful now to be making new friends as the years unfold. I’ve connected with a woman pastor I’ve known for many years, and at our yearly clergy gathering, we make time to spend with each other. Another colleague – we went to seminary together – and I have decided to make sure to have lunch once a month. A woman I’ve known since the 1980’s and with whom I share an August birthday, have dinner together at least two times a year – before Christmas and during our birthday month. Just as we have for a long time, we each come with a small gift for our long time friend. One of my good friends is making end-of-life plans for herself as a single woman, carefully laying out what she wants and intends as she lives in her 80’s. I’m just one of the people she is bringing into her planning. Even though she is single, her friendships reassure her that she is not alone. Some of my friends are friends I share with Jeff – couples – and others are solo friends.

For a few years, I led a group at a local Senior Center in Oakland, which I called “Life’s Reflections.” Although the group has ended, the faithful members met for a Christmas sing-fest at my house during the holidays. And I count them among my friends.

Over the past few years, since a former parishioner and new friend to me, Margret, died suddenly, her widower Jim has been a good friend to both Jeff and me. Jim likes to cook, and he has Jeff and me for breakfast at his house once a week. We’ve never had a repeat breakfast in two years!

I can still see Joanne’s face as she sat at my desk in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the first time, in 1973, and asked me: “Do you golf?” I hadn’t golfed – still haven’t golfed – I told her I’d try to golf! – but Joanne and I have been friends ever since.

I have lunch dates a couple of times a week, even in my elder years. Lunch together is a good way for me to connect with my friends. I learn which friends text, and who likes to communicate via email. Or a phone call.

One or two of my friends are women I’ve met through taking part in spiritual retreats overseas. Sometimes we plan for a phone call or a zoom call to connect, since we live a long distance from one another.

I’m grateful for them all. As I reflect on my friendships, I see I could add others. I’m grateful to each one. And yes, I have always had good friends. Mom was right.

Jeff, Thanksgiving Day at the Bahlerts’ in San Francisco, 11/2025

Uncategorized

winter

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Winters were tough – cold, with lots of snow – when I was a child growing up in Milwaukee. Many of my memories include cold, gray skies, and snow. Although climate change has affected snowfall in later years, I recall vividly when I lived on Martin Drive in Milwaukee, in an apartment that came without a garage. Winter mornings, as I prepared to drive to Waukesha – west of Milwaukee – I’d often have to start the car, run the engine, and get out to scrape ice off the windshield before I drove away from the street – hoping I’d be able to get back into a car already warm, hoping that I’d make it to Waukesha without running into a pileup.

Ugh.

And as I scraped the windows, I remember clearly thinking, again and again: “who would live in this climate?” Maybe I was planning ahead – unknown to even me – for another future.

Today, a headline in the New York Times reads: Record Snowfall Slams New England as New York Digs Out.
Ugh. I can relate. And I’m grateful to have had a busy morning here in Oakland, running a list of errands as I enjoy a sunny day. Again. We’ve had a week of rain, and the forecast is for more rain this week. We’re always grateful for rain, even in years when the rain is unrelenting. The Bay Area is not “sunny California,” which I quickly learned during my first winter, 1981-1982, an El Nino year. Instead of sunny days, I walked all over Berkeley in the rain. I had my mother send a box of my clothes that I’d failed to pack when I left Milwaukee. I needed clothes suitable for rain.

But this winter we’ve had plenty of rain, and another storm is on the way. It’s about time for spring to arrive full force, as the neighborhood trees, already budding, call out.

I miss the snow, sometimes. I miss those wind-less snow falls, when the snow falls straight from the sky and leaves a blanket on the streets. In one memory, I watched late into the evening the snow fall, gentle, onto the lawn in front of my apartment building. Some memories of snow are gentle, like the snow.

And I don’t miss the times I skidded to a stop at a stop light – or even on the freeway, driving someone else’s car. Ugh. Ugh.

Spring in Oakland – photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2/11/2026

memories, reflecting

Cities

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I grew up in the city – Milwaukee, Wisconsin, specifically, the North Side of Milwaukee. I expect my love of cities began there. I have many memories of riding city busses in Milwaukee, beginning when I was little, in the company of my mother. I thought all cities were like Milwaukee, its streets set out on a grid, making it easy to follow house numbers. That made it easy to figure out where friends lived, from the time I was little and walked those three city blocks from my house – we always lived in rented upper flats, a family in the flat below us, a full basement even further down, and a full attic. And I expect my love of that place has shaped my love as an adult, as my world has grown – and grown – and I’ve been privileged to travel, both in the United States and in cities around the world – I expect my love of the place I am from has shaped my love of cities in other places.

“You learn something new every day,” was a maxim my mother lived by, and that she bequeathed to me. Cities are a only one way to learn something new every day, of course, but cities provide strong evidence of cultures beyond the one in which I grew to adulthood.

I prefer large cities. I proved that to myself when, after receiving training as a Claims Representative for Social Security in Minneapolis for three months in early 1973, I was sent to work at the Social Security Office in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I lived in Green Bay for almost three years before I transferred back to Milwaukee in my government position.

As a United Methodist pastor, I was sent as a pastor to places I might not have chosen on my own, but which I came to love. And I was grateful to have spent most of my ministry in large cities. “A city girl in a city church,” Jeff said in his remarks at my retirement from a church in downtown Oakland where I had pastored for 16 years.

My travels outside of Milwaukee had started during my college years. One spring break, my mother gave me the $200.00 for a week trip to New York City. I was in love! And what you can find in New York City! Vicki, who had traveled with me and was my roommate, and I had second row tickets to see “Hair” on Broadway when “Hair” was all the rage. We found our way to out of the way delis for lunch, We walked and we looked at everything with all the joy of young women whose world was opening up – even if we didn’t know it then. We made mistakes; one evening, as dark was coming on, we hailed a cab whose driver told us that “you girls shouldn’t be walking in this neighborhood” as he delivered us safely to the street outside our hotel.

*
Many years later, in 1988, I traveled to the then USSR – during the times of Gorbachev, when the country was beginning to open up. Communism was still in full effect, and our large group of faith leaders from the U.S. who were traveling to honor the 1,000th anniversary of the Orthodox Church, were divided into smaller groups upon arrival in the USSR, for the duration of our journey. Itineraries in each group were different. As often as I could during our stay, I walked with my roommate: in the streets of Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. I took the subway – the same system as BART in the Bay Area – in Moscow. I looked at the people as I passed them on the streets. In Kiev I carefully looked at the people who passed me as I walked, looking for the eyes, the bearing, the faces of my people. I found them there. I experienced some of the government control of the people when a citizen of the USSR who sat in the seat beside me on a plane, told me that the people were not allowed to travel outside the USSR, and when a small group of fellow travelers and I met to talk about our next outing in the hall of a hotel, we were told to disband our group by an employee of the hotel.

*

Over the years, I’ve traveled to many of the great cities of the world. I have not ever forgotten the privilege my life has been, how I’ve seen places that even my mother could not dream of seeing. Part of my travels is the simple joy of walking and watching, and I’ve done so in Paris, London, Washington, D.C., Seoul, Berlin, Dublin, Minneapolis, Chicago,Istanbul, San Francisco. There are many others. Each city has its particular feel, its own personality. Each city is beautiful, in its own way. Like the stamps on the pages of my passport, each city has left its own mark in my heart. I hope to be a guest in other cities in the next few years.

I’m grateful for the privilege that has brought me to this place, and to this reflection, to this time of easy days and remembering. And to the ancestors who traveled from their own places to bring me to this life, to this place.

From the kitchen window of our home in Oakland, I can see through the trees in our yard, I can see across the Bay, the sky and the skyline of San Francisco, as if it is framed by the trees. Each evening at sunset, the colors over the City are different. Sometimes the City sits beneath a pink sky, sometimes it is invisible through the fog that falls over San Francisco Bay, sometimes white clouds float over a blue and gray sky. From my own city – Oakland – I see that other great City. This place suits me. The sky, the sunset, the view through the trees, they all seem to agree.

Coming into Oakland from San Francisco on the Bay Ferry, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 1/2026