1. For my birthday my mom sent me the three ceramic pieces above instead of a generic Thanksgiving/fall decoration.
2. For the people these pieces represent. My great Aunt Hulda, who had a stroke I think in her mid-50s that left her paralyzed on her right side, and my great Aunt Louise, who took care of Aunt Hulda. The therarpist suggest Aunt Hulda take up a hobby so my aunts decided on ceramics. They went all out and started a small business, L & H Ceramics. The cleaning and painting the pieces was very therapeutic on many levels for Aunt Hulda. They put a kiln in their basement and painting many pieces of ceramics kept us kids busy when we visited IL. Hmmm, kept us quiet and kept us in the basement--not a bad idea I'm sure.
I don't remember Aunt Hulda before her stroke, but she gave me plenty to remember. She would want to give us some money which we had been told not to accept, and she would say, "People don't offer you money unless they want you to have it. So if someone offers you money, you take it and say thank you."
Aunt Louise sewed many clothes for us through the years, and the curtains she made for Mary and me one Christmas when I was probably 5th or 6th grade are still hanging in a house in Decatur that is waiting for a buyer. One summer Mary and I were going to spend a couple of weeks in IL with them and our grandmothers, but our luggage got in the vehicle headed back to AL. Aunt Louise took us to the store to buy some essentials (fine washables as a friend of mine would say) and a couple of knit cotton shirts. She bought material to make several pairs of shorts for us as well. She even put our first initial on the pocket to make the shorts special instead of just cranking something out as fast as she could.
Aunt Louise always made such beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts and for many, many years they bought an individual gift for every niece, nephew, great niece, and great nephew for the Martin Christmas every year. By the time they stopped, there must have been 100 gifts to buy! Every child got called up individually and gave them a kiss when they got a gift. I'm always a bit ashamed of the gifts I wrap because they are look so pitiful compared to Aunt Louise's wrappings.
3. That I learned such good character qualities from my aunts: generosity--I think weekly they went to World Relief sewing to make layettes and comforters for people around the world. And for us nieces and nephew there was a pretty much unlimited supply of Pepsi and Christ's donuts when we visited. Love--we always knew we were loved. Simplicity--we would joke about sitting on the driveway and watch the cows in the evening when they moved to a duplex, but that's pretty much what we did do.
4. That they left me with many, many more memories that I can describe here.
So for the last almost two months, this has set on my dining room table. Thanks for making them Aunt Louise and Aunt Hulda, and thank Mom for giving them to me now.
To my family: any memories of Aunt Hulda or Aunt Louise you want to share?
3 comments:
Well, Rhoda, you have some very interesting BLOG entries. Keep up the good work! Your blog is read regularly even though I rarely respond.
Such a sweet post, Rhoda. I remember your sweet great aunts and grandma. Wonderful memories.
Thank you for this beautiful post. I think about them often.
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