Speaking With Dolls

My blog does not have a formal “goal”; I write as I am inspired by a variety of items, topics and memories. The hope is my ramblings will strike a chord among likeminded folks of the value of heirlooms and handmade treasures. And prompt the recording of their stories. However, the joy of the blog has been the connections I continue to make.

I enjoy the re-connection the blog inspired with a cousin in New Zealand, and seeing the fabulous heirlooms they have treasured from my Strong ancestors. In addition, another cousin, my father’s older brother’s child, has reached out to me. She is older than my siblings, the first grandchild born when my father’s brother was 20. I had not known her well growing up as I’m likely 15 years younger. It was a wonderful surprise to hear from her, and I look forward to getting to know her, as well as discover more family lore from papers she has in her possession. Sharing family heirlooms and papers makes the stories of “our” lives begin to take on different perspectives. While the ancestry may be the same, the responses to experiences can be very different. All of which helps us understand our human experience is unique, but is also shaped by the many generations before us.

This was brought home to me through a poignant note received recently from another cousin, my mother’s sister’s daughter. This cousin read my blog about mom’s knitting, prompting her introspective note. We are similar in age, and as young girls, we would spend a week each summer at each other’s home. I was always envious of her as her mother, my aunt, was a warm, funny and talkative woman; very different from my mother, Barbara Fallon Humphrey (1928-2021). While my mother imparted in me a strong sense of independence and practicality, she was not effusive emotionally. She never spoke of her father, was not physically affectionate, and insisted the idea of saying “I love you” was trite (Santa Claus too if you want to feel sorry for me. Hmmm, might explain the origins of my collection?). Of course, as I aged I began to wonder why I didn’t “have” a maternal grandfather, and it was this aunt who told me much of the story. I will not go into the sad tale, other than to say when it was determined he had a wife and 3 children living in Boston, my Catholic grandmother made him leave in the midst of the Great Depression. Sadly, my mother then became a “parentified” child as she cared for her younger sister while their mother worked. My mother grew into a very stoic and practical woman, but it seems my aunt evolved differently. My cousin’s note speaks to this:    

            “I …remember marveling how the same difficult and somewhat scandalous childhood yielded such different outcomes. My mother was strict but effusive in her proclamations of love; she told me often, sometimes sang it to me and hugged me every opportunity. She was however always unsure of her ability to elicit [love]. She suffered from very low self-esteem, doubted everyone’s love…and suffered a life-long fear of abandonment. She too was in awe of your mother who was “the smart, thin, pretty one”…

            “I thought of these family stories somewhat recently as I looked at my new house and realized…I couldn’t pick a color for my own front door. As I stood there alarmed at how at almost 60 I didn’t know what color I liked without other people affirming my choices, I thought how the person who would understand this would be my mother. It made me think that growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia I had inherited a story from 1930s Chicago as assuredly as I had inherited my mother’s brown eyes. Like all inheritances we need to decide what we hold onto and what we cast away, and how to take our family stories and spin them off in directions that will benefit us and our children.”

Another thing my cousin noted was recalling my mother gifting us both handmade dolls during the 1970s. She noted that “those beautiful homemade dolls…seemed to have a different origin than the woman who always seemed vaguely annoyed by my presence in her house”. Astonishingly I can completely relate to that.

Yes, I saved all those dolls. And recognize, as my cousin so wonderfully put it, that while we both descend from the same maternal grandmother, the way our mothers were affected by the trauma of their childhood had a remarkably different impact on their parenting, and thus on us. Those charming handmade dolls are a testament to me that my mother loved me and could only express that love through her handicrafts. They are quiet treasures, tokens of the ways our lives are impacted by events well beyond our own experiences. Which is, of course, the idea of heirlooms. Some are precious materials of gold, silver or gems. Others are handmade and of no value whatsoever, except to those who know what they are saying.