Gifts From My Ancestors

Today I honor two women in my family, Mary and Betty. They each had significant influence on me and probably neither one ever knew it.

Mary was married to my great uncle, Charles; she was my great aunt by marriage. My mother always said that Charles and Mary were the kindest people she knew. They were the perfect example of leading an honorable life. Faith and family were everything to them.

Growing up, I would occasionally see my aunt and uncle at a family gathering and they seemed like nice people. They always made sure to ask how I was doing and listened intently to my answer. Uncle Charles had a wide, warm smile. After I was married, we started receiving Christmas cards from them. Charles meticulously chronicled the family activities while Mary added a personal note. I realized that reading the cards was a great way to learn more about my extended family. Each year, I looked forward to catching up through the cards and responded in kind by telling stories about my own growing family. Before too long, I developed my own take on the family newsletter, frequently adding long personal notes to the cards I sent. This new holiday tradition became an important part of who I am now. When Charles passed on, Mary continued to send out her personalized Christmas cards and we mostly kept in touch that way, but occasionally we did visit in person and our families were together as she celebrated her 90^th birthday.

Betty was Charles’ sister and my paternal grandmother. She was married to my grandfather, Harold. When I was a little kid, I loved to sit on my grandfather’s lap and he pretended to pull coins out of my ear. Betty was always busy with projects. She didn’t pass too many junkpiles on the street without taking a look and loved to go treasure hunting out in the desert. She was spontaneous and erratic. It seemed she was always chasing my sister and me with hairbands, telling us to get the hair out of our eyes.

What I didn’t know growing up was that Betty suffered from depression her whole adult life. It was an inherited family trait. She spent a great deal of time in and out of mental health facilities, trying to get well. Harold loved her so much and supported her, but it wasn’t easy, raising their four children together. He himself was a polio victim who wore a leg brace. At some point, Betty found refuge from her depression in art. She painted mostly landscapes of the many places that she and Harold had visited together. She was really quite talented. She painted one abstract scene that she described as a car that had just hit a fire hydrant. You can see parts of the car with the headlight on and the yellow of the hydrant among a whole canvas of splashing water. It is very creative and unique.

My grandparents have passed on and, as an adult, I have a better appreciation of who they were as people. I recently read the love letters that Harold and Betty sent to each other during one of her hospital stays. The letters are very touching and reveal a couple I never knew. Betty’s paintings remind me that beauty can emerge from any adversity.

My last Christmas card from Mary came last year. She recently left us at age 96. Her son, Paul, contacted me to tell me that Mary had a painting in her living room that was given to Charles by Betty a long time ago. He wanted the family to have it. It is a scene that must have been painted at Arches National Park in Utah. What a nice surprise from my artistic grandmother to my kind-hearted aunt, then to me. I will treasure it always.

Susan Bolan
susanbolan710@gmail.com