May 17, 1903 to December 18, 1958

“I am going to die tonight.”

“Mother. Shut up and go to bed. You’re drunk!” 

Those are the last words I remember saying to mother. She died that night. I do not know how. The Doctor laid out all the pills in mother’s cabinet and said: There were no drugs that could kill her. No autopsy was done. I don’t know.

I remember the gathering in our front hall early in the morning. There were Aunt Beverly and Uncle Chuck; there was Penny. She tried to comfort me. It was near Christmas.

I remember going to the funeral home and coming out. I was shocked at the happy people walking by and wondered: Did they not know that my mother was dead?

I remember the funeral. I ran out after her casket when it was rolled down the church isle. I collapsed into Julie’s arms, crying.

I remember the burial, sort of. I can still see the plain white cross today. The people at the graveyard did not like it.

I remember going to Aunt Ann’s and Uncle Avery Rockefeller‘s for Christmas. 

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I remember father coming back from holiday in May and telling us that he was married. Dorothy would be moving in soon. I did not know Dorothy. It did not occur to me at the time how short a time it had been between mother’s death and father’s new marriage.

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Before mother dies:

I remember her going to the Red Door in Winnetka; it was her favorite store.

I remember her driving once in her new hard-top convertible: robin’s egg-blue in the middle, white on the top and bottom. Once she drove Debby and me to Aunt Louise for a flute lesson; it must have been 8^th or 9^th grade as we were only friends then.

I remember that she did not know how to drive in automatic shift. She put into reverse and knocked down one of the white pillars in the front of our house.

I remember spanking me for riding on Sunset Ridge Road on my hand painted green bicycle.

I remember her holding me on the couch in the TV room after father slapped me.

Peter once told me, and I think that I remember, I once hit her in a fit of anger when she was at the bottom of the steps on the stairway. 

I remember Christmas morning and bringing our stockings, which lay at the bottom of our bed, into father and mother’s room, and opening them up before the fireplace.

I remember mother once cooking a shrimp-custard thing; it was light pink and in a circle. I loved it.

I remember she gave a birthday party for me in 7^th or 8^th grade. I was surprised because I did not think she could do it. It was in our basement. 

I remember where she sat at the dining room table; she told me always to sit straight and to eat with square corners on the first four inches of my chair. There was a buzzer to ring under the table by pressing your foot down. She would ring for Ella.

I remember I wanted Helen to break a big blister on my arm (that came from a hot bulb landing on it) and not mother; I am sure mother was hurt.

I remember Helen changing the water in my bath after I had gone pee; I did not know why.

I remember once mother was too “drunk” to get Christmas ready by discovering Charlie Bishop in Janita’s room wrapping presents.

I remember mother driving her car, I am not sure where, but Debby and I were in the car going to a flute lesson. We were in Winnetka on Winnetka Avenue. Mother had red hair and looked lovely in a light blue dress.

I remember mother taking me to baby-sitting after my flute lesson with Aunt Louise. I was paid .50 cents per hour. She made me dinner, picked me up, dropped me off at the house, then picked me up and took me home, again.

I remember taking her headache bag up to her many times; it was roundish and black and grey; I filled it with ice. Mother had migraines.

I brought mother and father coffee every morning in bed. Sometimes it was in a silver pitcher, but usually just two cups and saucers; I became an expert at never spilling a drop.

I remember many summer meals out on the porch; there was a beautiful pink flowering tree next to the porch door. We had cold meats and fresh corn. One time, Uncle Chuck ate 13 ears of corn. We also had potato salad and deviled eggs.

I remember in Nantucket sneaking up stairs to the third floor, mother and father’s room, and peeking at her as she came out of the shower. She was nude. I think she knew because father gave me a talk about the “birds and bees” shortly after.

I remember the best time was when she would come into my room and rub/scratch my back. It was heaven, but I always know it would end.

I remember going down to Christmas, all in an order of age, Father, Mother, Janita, Bill, Mac, Me, and Peter last. It was a tradition.

I remember dinner on the porch. Mother’s favorite was bread, butter, radishes, green onions, and salt and pepper. Yum. (That table became Michael’s favorite table. It went with the five chairs, one of which was broken when I leaned backwards and fell down. It was repaired and had two brackets attaching both sides of the broken back.)

I remember one Christmas morning mother had to leave and could not open all her presents.

I remember her cooking lamb chops for my birthday; they were delicious.

I remember she always had the same birthday cake for me. It had white frosting and was decorated around the outside with multi-colored clowns: red, yellow, green, black.

I remember finding Scotch bottles hidden in the back of the toilet bowl in the guest coat closet room, and in the wood pile in the back end of the basement, the room with the washing machine and dryer.

Janita, my sister, said I was “loved.”

That may have been the most important things anyone ever said to me. I carry that with me, not in my suitcase, not on my back, but in my heart, the core of my heart.

I keep trying to remember incidents that would prove that and can come up with only two: the time she spanked me because I went riding on Sunset Ridge Road when she told me not to, and the time I found protection in her arms when father slapped me in the face. (He was probably drunk and did not really slap so much as make the gesture. I don’t remember what the incident was about.)

But maybe I am looking in the wrong place; an incident that proves something relies on cognitive memory of an event, something I am without. Perhaps I should look elsewhere.

I should add that this is why I say that children never know their parents. They do not. First of all, they can never know the person that came along before they were born. Second, for the first 16 years of life, they are not curious about their parent, they are curious about the world they live in and who they are, and rightly so. But third, and most importantly, they will, with rare exceptions, never be curious about their parents childhood until it is too late. They need to be of a “certain age” to realize that they should have asked, but never did. So, how am I to discover who my mother is?

Pictures: 

History: What time period did she live in? She was born in 1903 and died in 1958, making her 55 years old. 

Facts: About her life.

Mother was the eldest daughter of Admiral William Adger Moffett and Jeanette Beverley Whitton She was born May 17, 1903 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She is buried in Lake Forest, Illinois. Theodore Roosevelt was President in May 17; it was also the day the Cleveland Indians beat the NY Highlanders 9-2 in Columbus, Ohio! (Bet you did not now that, Mom!)

Marriages:

Migraine, before that. Daughter of an Admiral, daughter of Pete

Her children: (my brothers and sisters): 

Who am I:

I was 15, and had never asked her anything about herself.

Early memories are living in a house on Country Lane, Northfield, Illinois. All I remember was sun, lambs (we had some living in the back yard), and feeling safe.