My mother would have celebrated her 102nd birthday on New Year's Day. She was 72 when the above picture was taken in 1986. She died 11 years later from the effects of a stroke and went down fighting. She even had an intense dislike for the soft euphemisms of death, such as “passed away,” and would challenge anyone who used it in her presence. “You mean he died?” she'd ask, eyebrows arched.
“Yes,”
the other party would sigh. “He passed away.”
“No.
He died” mom would insist. None of this fuzzy-brained business
about “passing away” or “going gentle into that good night”
for her. Being an arch realist she preferred a much less smarmy
”kicked the bucket” if a euphemism was unavoidable.
She
was feisty that way. She attributed her combativeness to having four
brothers. Her brothers claimed her quick temper was due to her being
born in 1914 during what was then called The Great War, and they were
quite skilled at provoking her into proving their point.
She
was born Clara Halverson in Craig, Alaska, on Prince Of Wales Island
close to the Canadian border. Her father, Lars – or Louis – was
an émigré
from Norway who'd apprenticed as a cobbler but who went to sea when
in his teens. Her mother, Annie Johnston, was descended from the
Tlingit tribe of coastal natives and a sailor from Cornwall. The
sailor sailed back to England and left her to be reared by her
maternal grandmother. She was 15 when she married my grandfather,
then 30, who owned a general store and a floating cannery that served
the fishing fleet plying the waters of the Inside Passage and the
Gulf of Alaska.
In
the 1920s the family moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, and later to
Tacoma, Washington, where Grandfather H. established a gas station on
US 99, and later a retail fish market, smokehouse and cannery, and bought property to build rental
housing.
Mom
graduated high school in 1932, the year a pilot named Nat Browne
competed for a $25,000 prize for a non-stop solo flight from Seattle
to Tokyo. She glimpsed the 37-year-old Browne amid a cluster of
reporters and city officials as he departed Seattle's Olympic Hotel.
She thought he looked like a forest ranger, but was rather old. His
attempt failed during a refueling accident over Seattle's Ellliot
Bay. He recovered from his injuries, moved to Alaska, and mom forgot
about him.
Everyone
in the family who could work did work. Her two older brothers took
jobs in southeastern Alaska. One was killed during cave-in at the
Alaska Juneau Mine in 1937. The other worked on fishing boats and
earned a captain's rating. Mom became a teen entrepreneur, setting up a
roadside stand on Highway 99 selling produce and honey. A pretty girl, she also
modeled clothes for department store ads in the Tacoma paper, later landing a job as a clerk for Weisfield and Goldberg, a local jewelry
store which now has 16 locations in 4 western states under the name
Weisfield's.
This was when the adage “The customer is always right” universally applied. Companies would hire shopping agents to test the patience of retail clerks and weed out those whose manner was less than courteous – no matter what. A job was a very precious thing to have in those Depression era days. Knowing that dozens of unemployed young women were ready to replace her curbed my mom's fighting instinct as a verbal counterpuncher.
Sometimes the punch was not just verbal. A jealous woman, upset by her husband's persistence in asking mom to dance during a performance of a touring swing band at Tacoma's American Lake, grabbed mom by the shoulder. "That's alllllll I needed," mom recalled. She flattened the other woman with a clip to the jaw. Her two older brothers, both fighters, were at the same dance. They were proud of her. Just a family of brawlers.
This was when the adage “The customer is always right” universally applied. Companies would hire shopping agents to test the patience of retail clerks and weed out those whose manner was less than courteous – no matter what. A job was a very precious thing to have in those Depression era days. Knowing that dozens of unemployed young women were ready to replace her curbed my mom's fighting instinct as a verbal counterpuncher.
Sometimes the punch was not just verbal. A jealous woman, upset by her husband's persistence in asking mom to dance during a performance of a touring swing band at Tacoma's American Lake, grabbed mom by the shoulder. "That's alllllll I needed," mom recalled. She flattened the other woman with a clip to the jaw. Her two older brothers, both fighters, were at the same dance. They were proud of her. Just a family of brawlers.
She
married the first of three husbands in 1935 and gave birth to my
brother, Kenny, the following year. Prior to the wedding ceremony
her brothers stood around commenting on her temper, shaking
their heads and saying, “Boy, that'll never last.” It didn't.
The marriage ended until 1941.
That year mom returned to Alaska to start anew, taking a job in Anchorage as a scheduler, clerk, ticket agent and general factotum to four air services. She met, was charmed by, and married the man who became my biological father. That marriage didn't last either. According to her, he had a habit of taking things that didn't belong to him. He also liked a variety of female companions. That tore it. So there she was, a single woman with an infant at home and another kid living with her ex-husband's family in a distant city. She'd also had it with men.
That year mom returned to Alaska to start anew, taking a job in Anchorage as a scheduler, clerk, ticket agent and general factotum to four air services. She met, was charmed by, and married the man who became my biological father. That marriage didn't last either. According to her, he had a habit of taking things that didn't belong to him. He also liked a variety of female companions. That tore it. So there she was, a single woman with an infant at home and another kid living with her ex-husband's family in a distant city. She'd also had it with men.
Then
Nat Browne flew back into her life. Somehow he overcame her nettlesome
mistrust of all things male, married her and adopted me. The
marriage lasted 32 years through thick and thin economic times until
he died from natural causes in 1978 at age 83. She scattered his
ashes in a clearing of flowering jack oak trees in the Sangre de
Cristo mountains above Sante Fė,
New Mexico, where they'd been living in mobile home park.
The mobile home park's management did a foolish, foolish thing. It pissed her off by arbitrarily increasing fees with little or no notice. Mom took up a banner and went to the barricades. She joined forces with the American
Mobile Home Association and assailed the state government to improve
tenants' rights.
She
was tenacious. Once she thought she'd been excluded from a
legislative hearing. She angrily banged on doors in the marbled halls of the capital in search of the sniveling cowards she knew were deliberately avoiding her. An official opened a door and said, “Uhhh, Mrs. Browne? The hearing
is in here.”
About
that time a man approached her. “I've picked the last three
lieutenant governors of this state,” he said. “Would you be
interested?” She declined, saying she had a husband at home who
was not well. The man, heir to the Phillips 66 petroleum empire,
said he understood.
Mom
returned to the Pacific Northwest after dad died. She took a job in
a Native American bookstore and enrolled in a program that paired seniors with college students at Western Washington State University,
living on campus among the college kids. It kept her rejuvenated,
active and involved.
She
was especially interested in writing, having written a book length
manuscript about her life in Alaska. An agent shopped it around in
the 90s. A mainstream publisher was interested, but only if mom
could make a publicity tour to market the book. By that time she
had died.
I
was present for her last days in a Seattle hospice. She was unable
to speak or move very much. I'd sit by her bed reading a book while
she slept. Now and then I'd look up to see her gazing at me, her
once clear blue-green eyes clouded by age and morphine. I had the
feeling she was critically examining me for signs of improvement.
I
miss her.
Requiese
in pace, mom. Rest in peace.
--oOo--
Comments, critiques and hate may be sent to tomatomike@aol.com.
What a tremendously loving history and tribute to your Mom. I read it wishing that she could read it also, but then, believing as I do that my father watches over me every day, I decided she knows every word of it.
Your mother looks like everything you said about her. Beautiful, combative, formidable. What a wonderful piece! I'm sure it would have made her proud, despite the fact that she may have looked at you to see if you'd made improvement. Indeed you have. And keep on doing so. – Linda
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Beautiful piece. I bet your Mom's book would have been delightful. She had lots of adventures. Sounds like she was feisty and full of humor. Acorn, you did not fall far from the tree. – Tammy
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One more time: You gotta get yer writing to an agent. It's wunnerful. Happy NY. – Tim
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Absolutely wonderful, thank you for writing/sharing – Miriam
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What a tremendously loving history and tribute to your Mom. I read it wishing that she could read it also, but then, believing as I do that my father watches over me every day, I decided she knows every word of it.
My father died in my arms in 1994. He had a wonderfully colorful life and a character that I wish could have been cloned and put into every man. I miss him too. I miss him like crazy.
I don't think, by the way, that your mother was looking at you wishing for improvement. Seems a woman as savvy as she was knew that people stumble along the way in life and it's not how badly you do it - it is, indeed, how you get up from it. And Mike, you got up just fine. She knows. – Zoey
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Wow! What a wonderful piece! – Pamela
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Wow! What a wonderful piece! – Pamela
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I remember you telling me about your mother, and I remember when she died. I think I would have been scared shitless of her, but I would have admired her, too.
-- Shan_____
Reading the celebration of your mother’s life, I noticed that your grandparents were plying northern waters around the same time as M. Wylie Blanchett who wrote, The Curve of Time, have you read it? I also wondered if your dad ever knew Art Woodley, the father of friends of ours. Happy New Year. -- Marilyn
Yes, my dad knew Art Woodley. We flew in his Pacific Northern Airlines Constellations annually between Seattle and Anchorage in the 1950s. It was a six hour flight. I would sometimes be allowed to ride in the co-pilot's position and actually fly the airplane. At age 12. After one such incident, my dad grumbled. “Were you flying this thing? The last 50 miles were rougher than hell.”
Can't do that now. Make a move toward the cockpit and you'll be stomped into Contadina by unnerved passengers and jumpy flight attendants. MB
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Quite a character. Like mother like son, I would say. – Gerard.
We were a lot alike, and that did not always make for family harmony. She claimed she got bad temper by osmosis from me. MB
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This was beautiful. Great writing. – Brett
Quite a compliment, Lady Brett. Thank you. MB
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This was beautiful. Great writing. – Brett
Quite a compliment, Lady Brett. Thank you. MB
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I trust she'd have approved of that piece of writing. I would have liked your mom. I, too, hate euphemisms for death (and other things). When someone really pisses me off by trying to make death pretty, I go to the other extreme and use the crude expression "shit the bed." – Linda F.
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