As February 21st approaches, my thoughts turn to my mother Audrey who was born on that date in 1904. To lend a bit of perspective, just two months earlier on December 17th, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew their experimental biplane at Kitty Hawk on the outer banks of North Carolina. The beginning of the Age of Aviation!
Audrey died in 2003, just two months after her 99th birthday. Her life span was the 20th Century, and aviation was just one of the wonders she witnessed. Oh, the stories she loved to tell. And she did, with gusto, to whomever would listen.
My students loved it when she came to speak about her life as a young girl. Born in Oak Hill, Texas; her family had no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. They read by oil lamp and cooked and heated with a wood-fueled cast iron stove, where they also boiled water for bathing in a bathtub. And a shower? Never heard of it.
When she was eight, they moved to Pasadena, California; and one day she saw and heard a “newsie” shouting, EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! TITANIC SINKS! They moved to Pomona where she attended high school during World War One.
The students were fascinated — and somewhat in shock — when my mom described things that they did and did not have. It was not easy to grasp that when she was their age, the only things in her house driven by electricity were a lamp, a radio, and a telephone. The telephone was on a “party line,” which meant everyone within a mile shared the connection. You had to take turns and be patient, and occasionally relay a message to a neighbor who did not yet have a phone. No TV, computer, refrigerator, washer, dryer, garbage disposal, hair dryer, vacuum cleaner, microwave, blender, or toaster. No electric toothbrush. No power tools!
They also had no wheels. My granddad walked to work or took a trolley to his job as a ticket agent for Union Pacific, my grandmother walked to her millinery shop, and Audrey walked to school. After school she walked to the shop and learned a world of “home ec” skills from her mother as they created hats and fascinators in the fashion of the era. Grandfather bought their first car in 1922, the year my mom graduated from Pomona High School.
How did she survive?
Quite well, actually! Obviously, she didn’t know what she was missing or what wonders were to come; but in many ways she was just like my students. As an eighteen-year-old young woman, she loved the popular music that drove her parents crazy. She wanted to drive the car. She “shingled” her hair in the fashion of the day, and she loved to dance. She wore a “flapper” dress that came just above the knee, and the dress was lined at the hem with fringe that shimmied when she rocked the “Charleston.”
Thirty years later she decided that I should learn how to dance. I was in 7th grade when she put me in a crisp shirt with a bow tie, a sports coat and shiny shoes, and became my dance partner on the red faux-brick linoleum floor of our kitchen. We danced the waltz, the foxtrot and occasionally cut loose with the “lindy hop” and the “jitterbug.” Wow! My mom was a hoofer!
In 1926, she became engaged to an earnest, steady, reliable, hard-working, and sober young man whom she knew from school and who already had a responsible position in a bank. He also attended the local Congregational church. Her parents heartily approved of this match. However, before the wedding could take place, my grandmother died of cancer; and just about that time, Audrey met Ted, and she fell for him – hook, line, and sinker.
Compared to her fiancé, Ted was less reliable, less responsible, less sober – but more dapper, charming, intelligent, and witty. Granddad was of sane mind and a good judge of character, saw the flim-flam, and was beside himself with worry. He must have been apoplectic on January 15th, 1927, when Ted Piatt and Audrey Marie Johnson eloped and tied the knot in San Diego.
Not surprisingly, Ted and Audrey had some real struggles in their marriage. Some of those struggles are chronicled in previous posts to this blog: Boater, 5/26/20; Tears on My Space Bar, 6/16/20; Lace, 6/30/20; How Great Thou Art, 9/15/20; and One Last Basket, 10/13/20.
At the same time, they loved each other deeply and had a shared goal that cannot be overstated in terms of its impact on our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. Although Dad went only as far as 8th grade in school, and Mom had just one or two years of community college, they were determined to get their three sons through college and beyond. They never took a vacation or spent money on entertainment. Every available dime was put away for college.
This decision required my mom to go to work. She would have loved to be a fulltime wife and mom; but needs must. At a time when there were few working moms, she started as a seamstress. The skill set she learned in the millinery shop qualified her to sew high-end French-pleat draperies for an exclusive home design center. This was the beginning of an unexpected and splendid blessing in her life.
Soon my mom moved from the drapery workshop to the design floor, and over the next thirty years she developed a loyal clientele as a much in-demand interior decorator/designer. Her eye for color and her sense of style took her to the homes and offices of college professors and other professionals. Plus, she had a killer work ethic.
When I was in graduate school, one of my professors invited the class to his home for wine, cheese, and conversation. Just walking in the door, I was struck with a sense of deja vu. The arrangement of art on the wall, the placement of the furniture, the quality of the drapes, the scheme of fall colors; they were all familiar to me. When I introduced myself to the professor’s wife, she asked, “Are you related to Audrey Piatt?”
Audrey did more than get a job; she got a career.
To Be Continued…
Tidings from Tim 