A Wandering Mind

When my mind wanders, I begin to wonder. First, why it goes where it goes and then, what made it go there? First thing this morning it wandered to the memory of a holiday dinner in December, 1972. I had invited my boss and wife and her mother. I remember nothing about what I served. I do remember that we had a nice evening and that my boss' mother-in-law was an interesting and lovely woman. I know I was introduced to her by her full name, but I was taught that you don't refer to your elders by their first names unless/until you are invited to do so by them. So I always thought of her as Mrs. ?? Try as I might, I could not remember her last name. Ah, but with the long arms and many fingers of the internet, I was sure I could find it.

I began with the name of my boss' wife, Willie (her name was Willis Ann, but she was always known as Willie) and where she lived after they retired and moved from Des Moines. Her name came up immediately along with a link to her obituary which gave me her parents' names. Weatherholt. Mrs. Weatherholt. I never would have remembered that. Willie was ninety-nine when she died. The above photo of her looks very much like the way I remember her mother looking.

Willis Ann was also a very interesting and lovely woman. She and I shared the love of books and reading. She was ever so intelligent and gracious. I learned much about the lives of her, my boss and their children during the years I worked for him, most of which I had forgotten - like that Willie had been a reporter for the Saint Louis Globe-Democrat and had worked for the US State Department 'paraphrasing' secret messages during WWII. It was in DC where she met her husband Tom who was directing wartime public relations for the American Red Cross. Thirty years later, when I worked for him, Tom still felt remorse that his flat feet had kept him from enlisting in the army for active duty.

Once I located Mrs. Weatherholt's name, I also read her obituary (wandering/wondering mind). In addition to the usual facts, Willie and Tom's youngest daughter had penned a loving memory of her Grandmother Oma which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

An even more vivid memory stands out about that Christmas holiday dinner forty-seven years ago --
My dinner party was winding down when the telephone rang. There was no beep, leave a message then nor caller ID. When the phone rang, you answered it. It was my Mom delivering some heart breaking news - my little niece, Jennifer Lynn, had died. She was only three days old, born on December 13 and dead on the 16th. (Thirty-one years later my Mom would die on that same date.)
Our family was devastated. My brother and his wife had already gone through so much to have a child. We were all so happy when she was born. I don't even have a picture of her. The only time I saw her was in her little casket. I don't even have a photo of her gravestone - something I will rectify when we decorate for Memorial Day in May.

I honestly don't know which memory came first this morning. Was I thinking about the dinner and Mrs. W. or was I thinking about Jennifer? Those two memories are forever linked in my mind.

My older brother Ron called me yesterday to let me know how he was doing after his quadruple stent procedure last week. I already knew he was home and recuperating because after waiting two days to hear something, I called his eldest living daughter, Lorrie Anne. It happened to be her's and twin Andrew's birthdays. It is quite possibly thinking about them, how old they are now - born a little over a year after Jennifer's birth and death - that had me thinking about the night of December 16, 1972 and the dinner party interrupted by the telephone.