my mom Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

My mom’s bells

Jean Nate

I was talking to my sisters recently about my mom’s bells, our mom’s porcelain bells. She used to collect these souvenir items, which were easy to come by. It was great because when traveling for the SBDC in the 1990s, I would get one from Nashville, New Orleans, Orlando, or wherever the ASBDC annual meeting took place.

My sisters gave me some context of the whole thing. My father returned from a trip somewhere and brought her a bell. Knowing her, she would have said, “Oh, that’s very nice.” So he would get her another bell and another. Suddenly, she had a collection of them.

This went on for several years until one day, I heard that she didn’t want those “dust collectors” anymore, and I thought, “Oh, what a bummer.”

The more accurate story was that she was dusting them. The bells resided on this semi-wall between the dining room and the living room of their house in Charlotte, NC. She got up on a step ladder or a stoop, fell, and hurt herself. That was the end of her collecting the bells. I did not know the why of the story until recently.

It makes me wonder if she ever really wanted that collection of bells or if she saw that it gave my father, me, and maybe others joy at getting her something that she didn’t have. It saddened me to think that perhaps she never really wanted the bells. Once she experienced physical pain as a direct result of having them, that was that.

Toilet Water

When I was growing up, the go-to present for our mom was JEAN NATÉ. “The perfume was first launched back in 1935 for the Jean Nate Company, which was later bought by Revlon. This timeless classic possesses citrus, floral, and spicy notes, such as lavender, jasmine, rose, carnation, lily of the valley, cedar, tonka bean, musk, and sandalwood.” But it’s described here as Eau de Toilette.

It was often a bust when I tried to go off script in gift giving. In 1981, I bought her an LP, Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive, based on my understanding that she liked some of the original Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway songs. She was a tactful woman, but it was pretty evident that she did not particularly enjoy my selection. I went back to the bells.

My mom, Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, nee Williams, would have been 98 today.

This picture is 75 years old

March 12, 1950

This picture is 75 years old.

I looked through all of the pictures of my parents, Les and Gertrude (Trudy), on their wedding anniversary, March 12th, that I have posted on this blog. Interestingly, from 2005, when I started the blog, to 2011, the year my mom died, I didn’t post any. Since my dad had died in 2000, I didn’t even think to mention their anniversary.

After she died, though, I felt liberated to write whatever about them. And it also recontextualized how I saw them as a couple. My sisters and I often have ZOOM conversations on Sunday afternoons, which started during COVID, and early on, a lot of conversations were about their dynamics individually and as a couple.

Still, I often used a group photo, as I did here on March 12. It’s probably because I think it’s a hoot; it looks like a bunch of wary relatives.

Changing it up

But to my knowledge, I’ve never used this photo. My sister Marcia, the keeper of the pictures, posted it on Facebook eight years ago, and then sister Leslie reposted it recently. I have no idea who took it. If I were a betting man, it would probably be one of my maternal grandmother Williams’ brothers, Ed or Ernie Yates.

This picture is in the First Ward of Binghamton, NY, near 13 Maple Street, on March 12, 1950. I was always grateful that they decided to get married in a year ending with a zero; it made the math much more straightforward. So I can remember the family drama on March 12, 1995, for instance, a story for another time.

My father looks happy in this photo. But my mother is more contemplative, wondering what she’s gotten herself into, which is a reasonable concern. Or maybe she’s just looking at someone, maybe a younger cousin. I use the terms “mother” and “father” loosely because I wasn’t born until five days shy of three years later.

My parents were married 50 years and two days shy of five months.

My mom was a proud black woman

identity

Trudy Green My mom was a proud black woman. I point this out invariably when I end up having conversations about race with a small subset of white Americans. They’ll point out that a certain person may or may not be “really black” because their skin is lighter.

When they make out this observation, they often point out that the reason for the color disparity is the likelihood of rape must have taken place. These presumptions end up bugging me.

Let’s start with a simple Wikipedia definition: “African Americans, also known as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. “

Here’s an interesting 2022 Pew Research piece: Race Is Central to Identity for Black Americans and Affects How They Connect With Each Other. Many learn about ancestors and U.S. Black history from family.

I suspect that this trend is changing: “While majorities of all age groups of Black people say being Black shapes how they think about themselves, younger Black Americans are less likely to say this – Black adults ages 50 and older are more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 to say that being Black is very or extremely important to how they think of themselves.”

Irish

As my Ancestry breakdown shows, my mother was over 50% Irish. Her paternal grandmother was Margaret Collins, whose parents were almost certainly born in County Cork, Ireland. But she must also have had multiple Irish relatives on her mother’s side, which I haven’t pursued as vigorously. These were very likely consensual relationships.

Still, she always identified as black. As this story about my mom, she leaned into being black even when others were unaware of her ethnicity. It was the antithesis of passing.

Gertrude Elizabeth (Williams) Green, a/k/a Trudy, would Green would have been 97 today. She passed on February 2, 2011. This photo is from my birthday in 2005. But the event was the wedding of her granddaughter Rebecca Jade to Rico.

Green beer and other traditions

Long Black Veil

Even though I don’t drink green beer, or indeed ANY beer, I find it necessary to note St. Patrick’s Day. As I’ve mentioned, I’m at least a quarter Irish. As Ancestry refines its processes, I become MORE Irish, 28%, in fact, as opposed to 19% Nigerian.

This means, of course, that my mother’s father’s mother, Margaret Collins Williams (1865-1931), and her still unidentified parents, even if they were wholly Irish, are not my only ancestors from the Emerald Isle. I must have OTHER ancestors to find, including on my father’s side. Parent 1 is my mom, and Parent 2 is my dad.

The Census Bureau is always useful in noting holidays, and this one is no exception. “Originally a religious holiday to honor St. Patrick, who introduced Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century, St. Patrick’s Day has evolved into a celebration of all things Irish.”

Six years ago, I noted a group called The Burns Sisters out of Ithaca, NY. I was fascinated by them because their late father, John, was the mayor of Binghamton when I was growing up. He and his wife had twelve kids. Here are Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral and Prayer Of St. Francis.

Chieftains

I was very fond of the group The Chieftains. Kelly wrote about them a few times, including this farewell to Paddy Moloney. He links to other videos as well.

But I decided to get really lazy and found something called Best of The Chieftains 2017, which has a YouTube chain of several videos. It includes most of the tracks from a 1995 album called Long Black Veil, which I love, and several from Irish Heartbeat, an album with Van Morrison that someone used to play in my office back in the day. And there are a bunch of other songs. Did I mention that there were 250 videos?

Finally, I found this loud, raucous cut called Irish Blessing by a group called JOETOWN.

Professional Irishman

Malachy McCourt, “who fled a melancholic childhood in Ireland for America, where he applied his blarney and brogue to become something of a professional Irishman as a thespian, a barkeep and a best-selling memoirist, died… in Manhattan. He was 92…

“In 1952, when he was 20, the Brooklyn-born Mr. McCourt reunited with New York.

“He embarked from Ireland with a ticket paid for with $200 in savings sent by his older brother, Frank McCourt, who had emigrated earlier and was working as a public school English teacher.”

Playing cards as family currency

pinochle

One of the dynamics in the nuclear unit when I was growing up was playing cards as family currency. I learned canasta from my paternal grandmother, Agatha Walker Green before she died in 1964. Then, I taught it to my great-aunt, Deana Yates, before she died in 1966. She and I also played 500 rummy.

Shortly before Deana passed, my father taught me pinochle. A pinochle deck “consists of A (high), 10, K, Q, J, and 9 (low) in each of the four suits, with two of each card.” But one cannot play the game with two people. You need at least three. This meant that my mother would play with my father and me.

This was cool because I enjoyed time with my parents without my sisters, who were not serious card players, while the three of us were. In describing this situation to a friend, they said they just liked to play for fun. I contended that playing seriously WAS the fun.

Interestingly, we played with a double pinochle deck with the 9s removed. We held 26 cards each, with two cards in the kitty. When I was 10, I could barely hold all of the cards, but I improved over time.

Whist

My grandfather, McKinley Green, and I played gin rummy. To this day, I remember that he said, “This hand is a foot,” when the cards didn’t come his way.

My parents also played bid whist with family friends Jim and Betty at their house. I’d often go with my parents. My mom occasionally tired, and I’d be my dad’s partner. Also, sometimes Jim would get angry when the game didn’t go his way, and his tantrums would upset my mother. This was understandable, though I found Jim’s antics more humorous than scary as his face reddened.

I don’t recall how often we played pinochle or whist. One of my sisters recalled my mother complaining to my dad about going out to play bid whist, “I like the game, but do we have to play every week?” While this was a bit of hyperbole, we did play a great deal until I graduated from high school. As I said, it was something I did with my parents that I did not have to share with my sisters.

My parents got married 74 years ago today. They were hitched until my dad died in August 2000.