Thursday, October 31, 2019
There was not an opportunity to read the below memories at my mother's service today, so I will attach them here for others to read what I would have said.
MOM October 31, 2019 Ora M. Henkes JohnAndOra@yahoo.com
In the 1930’s when my mother growing up in the house her father built on Mariaville Road in Rotterdam, NY, a door-to-door salesman interested her parents in acquiring a Hohner accordion for her, their second of four daughters. It was not a full size instrument, but close to it. Lessons and accordion were purchased with installment payments of 25 or 50 cents collected weekly by this salesman/music teacher.
She somewhat learned to play this melodic squeezebox before the charismatic Music Man vanished. I say charismatic because theirs was NOT the only family of Italian immigrants in the neighborhood that purchased an accordion and lessons for their children. When he disappeared, she got to keep the accordion.
This behemoth was securely stored in a black cardboard case that closed with two metal latches on one side. It was kept on her bedroom closet floor when we were kids. We were forbidden to take it out of the closet to play with it unsupervised.
Now and then, with no advance notice, when we four children were in grade school, my mother would play her squeezebox for us at night. After dinner as she lifted it out of its case, she adjusted the attached brown leather straps over her shoulders. She pumped its pleated bellows sideways, coaxing it to life. With one hand she fingered white mother-of-pearl keys on the side for individual notes. That side looked like a miniature piano keyboard with interspersed black keys as well. On the opposite side were rows of small black buttons that when pressed, emitted complimentary chords of music. We children sang along with her as she played familiar melodies. One favorite song was a silly one, sung to an ascending scale. If you look on YouTube for “Down at Pappa Joe’s”, you will hear the melody, but the following words were our own:
Petey plays with Debbie’s shoes, Petey plays with Debbie’s shoes, Petey plays, Petey plays, Petey plays with Debbie’s shoes.
We laughed together, envisioning Petey, our green and yellow parakeet, playing with Debbie’s shoes.
Then the second verse was sung with the corresponding descending scale.
Debbie plays with Petey’s shoes, Debbie plays with Petey’s shoes, Debbie plays, Debbie plays, Debbie plays with Petey’s shoes.
We enjoyed singing together so it was sung more than once. The tune was never sung substituting Donna, Donald or Ora’s name for Debbie.
The accordion was stored in her closet in each of the five homes in which we lived in Schenectady. Today, over 80 years since the Music Man convinced her parents of its potential, the old accordion has worn straps but is very much intact. It rests silently in yet another of my mother’s Rotterdam closets for its next performance.
Which brings us to another Petey story. He was our first pet that I remember my mother getting for us.
His small metal cage hung suspended from a stand on the floor of our eat-in kitchen. Because he was a messy eater, skirting was clipped around the bottom of his cage to catch stray seed husks.
Unlike Captain Hook’s companion parrot that walked up his arm to his shoulder, or other birds that performed tricks on cartoons we had seen, Petey was not a child friendly pet. Perched on a wooden dowel in a statuesque pose, he assured us with barely audible mumblings, that he would not nip our chubby fingers each time they invaded his domain to gently stroke him; but Petey lied. Also, Petey never returned willingly to confinement. He honed his skills of evading apprehension. We loved him dearly, but did not let him out of his cage, ever, as we remembered past escapades trying to apprehend our fugitive.
However, it was especially exciting to discover and participate in Petey’s adventures. They evolved into a variation of hide-and-seek that we thoroughly enjoyed.
At dinner time, when our mother was done working at Union College for the day, she retrieved us from the Schenectady Day Nursery on Van Vranken Avenue and we walked home together. We eagerly anticipated our mother unlocking and opening the kitchen door. We arrived hopeful to learn of Petey’s predicament. Dashing to his cage, we would simultaneously trumpet “Petey’s loose, Petey’s loose!!” when he had flown the coop. We exclaimed it with delight like the hunter’s bugle heralding the commencement of the fox hunt. Let the hunt begin! Let the fun begin!
There were only two rooms on the first floor, the living room and kitchen. Petey preferred the living room. He would quietly perch high up on a curtain rod, or down low in the far corner of the wooden floor. Only our mother was brave enough to capture and return him safely to his cage, but we thoroughly enjoyed the hunt. All four of us squealed his locations to her as he fluttered about.
His favorite perch was a short shelf in our mother’s mahogany-stained shadow box hung above the couch. Its mirrored back reflected the back side of delicate knick-knacks for us to admire. Petey would knock something off its shelf to usually land unbroken on the couch below. Then he would assume its position. He maintained his pose like we did in a game of “freeze-tag” or “statues” that we often played; however, he sometimes gave his location away as he mumbled in a multitude of voices, perhaps in admiration, as he looked in the mirror.
We never thought to tie the cage door closed so he routinely became a fugitive.
His last spree was a reckless adventure. Sadly, one evening while we were gathered around the kitchen table after supper, Petey flew into a frying pan of grease on the gas stove. The burner was off and the grease was not hot. Petey sat in the grease fluttering his wings, unable to fly. Our mother scooped him up and washed him in the sink. She announced Petey needed to fly outside so he could remove the remainder of grease trapped in his wings. It made sense to us. She released him out the kitchen door into the dark night. Although we missed him, we sympathized with Petey and didn’t regret setting him free.
There are many other memories I have of my mother from when we were kids – nightly bedtime snacks of toast sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, each slice cut on a diagonal into four neat triangles; her making annual picnics for us at Lake George, Thacher’s Park; outings to Auriesville Shrine, holiday feasts with Italian pies for Easter; hot summer night car rides singing together on a ride to Dutcher’s for ice cream or to see the colored lights on the fountain in Central Park.
There are things I learned about my mother after I was an adult including the article I found at my grandmother in New Mexico’s about the guntotin’ Texan who came to Rotterdam to woo her back. She tried again to make a go of it. We are all fortunate, she survived the beatings and abuse to raise us on her own with no child support. That struggle is a story for another time as are her memories of being part of NY Lt. Governor Malcom Wilson’s staff and working briefly at Lincoln Center in NYC one summer; her love of baking a variety of cookies for others including the workers at Office Max where she had photos and other documents laminated ; and of course, her life with Tiny.
There were lengths of times when my mother, her sisters and their mother did not speak to each other. That trait, has unfortunately passed on to my sisters and me as well. We all have volatile hearts and mouths. We love intensely. We want to be loved. Many of our actions and life choices are guided by emotions and hormones as well as a need to give and receive love.
I know she definitely sacrificed to give us a better life. She loved all of us in her own way, especially my son, her Joey. So I will end with parts of a poem that is meaningful for me by Clare Jones:
As We Look Back
As we look back over time
We find ourselves wondering …
Did we remember to thank you enough
For all you have done for us?
For all the times you were by our sides
To help and support us …
We wonder if we ever thanked you
For the sacrifices you made…
And for the simple things
Like laughter, smiles and times we shared?
If we have forgotten to show our
Gratitude enough for all the things you did,
We’re thanking you now
And we are hoping you knew all along,
How much you meant to us.
Thank you Mom.
