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This was the mother of the daughter who dated Bill Ayers.....they were neighbors and did things as a family with Bill dating their youngest daughter. Bill's dad was CEO of commonwealth edison, yet lived in a middle class neighborhood and were good friends. She only has positive memories of Bill as did her daughter who I had not seen in thirty years.
At eighty nine she suffered a stroke, but today she is remarkable in her recovery. She was playing volleyball until the stroke, and was part of the senior olympic team which won the state of AZ championship. An Amazing woman, whose husband was my father's best friend. The most remarkable thing was that she had a 1960 color TV in an old wooden cabinet, and I did not see another tv in the house.....bookcases, but no modern TV........she lost her husband eight years ago, and she spoke of all her friends who stop by everyday and enjoy her company.
I had a wonderful time talking about her childhood. She had an uncle when she was seven who lived in the woods adjacent to a river. He had a flat bottom boat and had each side of the boat rigged with cluster hooks which he would drag along the bottom to the river. when the hooks hit the clams they would close on the hooks and they would pull them into the flatbottom boat. They would then take the boat to his campsite, and he had a huge boiling cauldron where the clams were thrown into boiling water, and then dumped on the ground where the clams had opened up and she was taught to feel the meat of the clam for pearls, and then she would throw the meat into a container, and any pearls into a jar. She then would collect the clam shells and bag them in burlap and her uncle would take the clam shells to the button factory, where they had a punch which would make mother of pearl buttons, the meat after checking for pearls was taken to a pig food factory, and the pearls were sold. She loved visiting her uncle and cherishes these memories. This would have happened around the early thirties when the great depression made it hard to scrape a living, but this uncle was a free spirit.
Her husband was a very successful business man builing a heat treat plant from scratch which he sold and allowed them to retire in their early 60s to Tuscon, where they lived modestly on a mountain side well below their economic status.......the values she learned as a little girl served her well. Success is measured in so many ways, but eighty years ago an uncle spening some time with her niece gave a lifetime of values to a remarkable women. I am so happy my mother at ninety did well with the trip, and that these two ladies celebrated life today....for my wife and I....a special treat.
At eighty nine she suffered a stroke, but today she is remarkable in her recovery. She was playing volleyball until the stroke, and was part of the senior olympic team which won the state of AZ championship. An Amazing woman, whose husband was my father's best friend. The most remarkable thing was that she had a 1960 color TV in an old wooden cabinet, and I did not see another tv in the house.....bookcases, but no modern TV........she lost her husband eight years ago, and she spoke of all her friends who stop by everyday and enjoy her company.
I had a wonderful time talking about her childhood. She had an uncle when she was seven who lived in the woods adjacent to a river. He had a flat bottom boat and had each side of the boat rigged with cluster hooks which he would drag along the bottom to the river. when the hooks hit the clams they would close on the hooks and they would pull them into the flatbottom boat. They would then take the boat to his campsite, and he had a huge boiling cauldron where the clams were thrown into boiling water, and then dumped on the ground where the clams had opened up and she was taught to feel the meat of the clam for pearls, and then she would throw the meat into a container, and any pearls into a jar. She then would collect the clam shells and bag them in burlap and her uncle would take the clam shells to the button factory, where they had a punch which would make mother of pearl buttons, the meat after checking for pearls was taken to a pig food factory, and the pearls were sold. She loved visiting her uncle and cherishes these memories. This would have happened around the early thirties when the great depression made it hard to scrape a living, but this uncle was a free spirit.
Her husband was a very successful business man builing a heat treat plant from scratch which he sold and allowed them to retire in their early 60s to Tuscon, where they lived modestly on a mountain side well below their economic status.......the values she learned as a little girl served her well. Success is measured in so many ways, but eighty years ago an uncle spening some time with her niece gave a lifetime of values to a remarkable women. I am so happy my mother at ninety did well with the trip, and that these two ladies celebrated life today....for my wife and I....a special treat.
