Posts Tagged ‘Helen Richardson Espy’

Yesterday I spent with my grandmother…

Wednesday, March 27th, 2024

Helen & Harry Espy, 1947

No sooner had I turned on the bedside lamp and checked the time yesterday morning than the power went out!  Damn!  And I had overslept, too.  I’d be hard pressed to get through my long list of “todo’s” even without all the amenities… like a shower and a hot cup of coffee to get my day underway.  On the other hand… no internet, so I needn’t worry about half the things on my list.  Not yet.

I dressed by flashlight, had a long drink of water (always in stock in the pantry against such “emergencies”) and called the PUD just in case they had news.  Yep.  A car hit a power pole and the substations in Ocean Park and Oysterville were adversely affected,  The estimate was early afternoon before we were back in the 21st  century.  No details about the accident, but it couldn’t be good considering the damage it caused.

I built a fire in the library fireplace to stave off the cold and wished (for just a minute) that I could go back in time a couple of generations,  My grandmother would be firing up the wood cookstove in the kitchen and stirring the embers in the pot-bellied stove in the nursery — warming that room up for the youngest of her six children, for in my mind it was 1912 or so.

1912 – The Espy Children (Dale, Willard, Edwin, Mona, Suzita, Medora)

The three older girls, Medora (13), Sue (9),  and Mona (8) slept upstairs now that they were all school-age, but the three youngest, Edwin (4), Willard (2) and my mother Dale (1) shared a huge pull-down Murphy Bed in the Nursery — the most easterly room in the house,  Papa, who went to bed late, always banked the fired in the woodstove before joining Mama upstairs, so the little ones would be warm throughout the rest of the night.

When the coffee was ready, Mama carried it to the nursery where the tin coffeepot sat on the stove all day long and Papa refilled his cup periodically when he came in from the dairy barn or the meadow or the cream-separating building or wherever his many chores took him.  How I wished we still had that woodstove… but alas!  My folks had gentrified that room in the 1979s, getting rid of the old stove and having a fireplace built there instead.  Great for cozy ambiance, but not for a practical heating surface when our electricity fails us.

I had been planning to work on the computer all day, communicating with my new webmaster (who is in Alabama!) as we begin working on my new website.  But 1912 had rather limited amenities in that direction so I decided to do what I don’t get to do very often these days — just sit around and read.  Thank goodness for Kindles!  Despite it’s many windows, this house is not very well lit inside — at least not by natural light.  Maybe it’s those 11-foot ceilings that seem to trap in the gloom. even when the sun is shining fairly consistently — as it was on that particular day.  My Kindle was perfect and I escaped into a Jack Reacher book with ‘nary a guilty thought about my website.

H.A.Espy Children on Danny, 1924

Even so, I was glad I didn’t have to fire up the kerosene lamps and read by their smoky light — and even gladder that I wouldn’t have to wash the lamp chimneys in the morning.  I wondered what my grandmother would have thought of such a modern convenience — though with a family of six to wash and clean and cook and sew for, I really doubt that she had much time for reading.  Mom and Willard used to laugh at the memory of her taking a book out to the outhouse for a half hour or so now and then — the one place she wouldn’t be disturbed.  But, of course, there were no toddlers by then.

She always said that the years that the babies were little were the best years of all.  (That babies were Edwin, Willard, and my mom; Mona and Sue were “the girls” and Albert (who died at 4-1/2) and Medora — the two first born — were “the children.”  I loved to hear Gtanny’s stories —  how Edwin thought that God was shooting deer when it thundered and how Willard liked nothing better (from the time he was three) than to take the biggest book he could carry out to the road and lie down in the middle and read.  Horses and carts and walkers worked around him.  And yes… he was reading at three, finished 8th grade at 10 and high school at 14.  What a guy!

As for mom — she was a Tomboy through and through — and no wonder.  There were thirteen kids her age who lived in town but she was the only girl  She remembered spending many-a-time chasing after the boys  when they were trying to ditch her — but then she grew up a bit and the story changed…

It was really a lovely day, yesterday.  Back in 1912.  But how lucky we are that the power came on in time for a hot dinner, electric stove notwithstanding.  Lights!  Heat! The magic of 2024!  I only wish I could share a day of now-time with my hard-working, soft-spoken granny.  I’m sure I didn’t half appreciate her but I was lucky to have her in my life until I was in my second year of college.  I hope I told her how much she meant to me…

 

My Ever-Gentle Grandmother

Thursday, September 21st, 2023

Today, while looking “one last time” (or so I always think) for family papers that should be added to the Espy Archive at the Washington State Research Center in Tacoma, I ran across this poem in my grandmother’s distinctive Victorian script:

Somebody didn’t wipe the dishes dry!
How do I know?  Because I saw them cry.

Yes, crying as they sat upon the shelves —
I saw them and they couldn’t help themselves.

They made no noise; each plate was in its place,
But, oh, two tears were on the platter’s face!
Oh, don’t you think a little girl is mean
Whose dishes cry because they’re not wiped clean?

Drawing by Helen Medora Richardson, 1897

How I wish I’d run across this poem before my mother died.  Was she the little girl that it was meant for?  Or was it for one of her three older sisters?  What a lovely way to gently reprimand a child!  I can’t help but wonder if there were other such notes posted now and then as my mother and her siblings were growing up.

I also came across some of my grandmother’s drawings — done in 1887 when she was eight or nine years old.  She and her friend Mary Wallace spent many hours together making paper dolls, writing and illustrating small storybooks, and drawing pictures of their daily activities.  The drawing I used here, though done many years before she married and had children of her own, seems to go perfectly with the “Poem of Reprimand” — my name for it; I’m sure my grandmother would never have been so directly critical!

 

Let There Be Light!!

Tuesday, June 20th, 2023

My Grandmother’s Lamp

Oh how I wished my mother and my grandmother could have been with me this afternoon when I opened the door and saw the old light that Del had finished fixing today!  Never do I remember it looking so lovely.  I doubt that it ever did, even when it was newly electrified.  LEDs make all the difference — or so I am surmising.

I was off doing errands when Tucker and Del came over to finish up the job Del had begun last night.  I’m so sorry I missed the by-play between them — they talk a language that I almost understand and that always makes me laugh.  But, between the two of them, they seem to be able to fix almost anything — though Tucker concedes that Del is a better electrician.  I know for a fact that they both enjoy the challenge of figuring out why something won’t work properly and then finding (or inventing) a way to correct the situation!

Seeing the lamp all alight like this makes me wonder what  it looked like when it was lit by “gas” — or was it actually kerosene?  It must have been a softer light, perhaps showing off the hand-painted globe more gently.  But it couldn’t have been as spectacular as it is now!  Thanks, Del!  And Tucker, too!

I’m happy to report…

Tuesday, January 17th, 2023

By early afternoon yesterday, the leaky pipe under the house had been repaired (actually, replaced) and all water-related systems were “go.”   Water ran freely from each and every faucet, the refrigerator’s ice-maker was operating once more, toilets flushed at the drop of a lever, and all was well with the world.

Again, I must apologize to all of our Sunday House Concert musicians and guests who managed the water crisis with hardly a raised eyebrow.  AND, considering that the median age of the group (discounting the musicians) couldn’t have been much less than 70, I feel I must congratulate you all on excellent bladder control!  Only one toilet was flushed; the others not even used as far as I could tell.  Well done, music lovers!!!

As you might imagine, though, the kitchen was in a bit of a turmoil.  Someone had neatly stacked all the dirty dishes and put the silverware in a large bowl of water.  And more than one person apologized for not being able to fill the dishwasher, but “the plates really needed rinsing first.”

Not to worry.  I did two big dishwasher loads immediately following the plumber’s departure and went to bed with a spotless house and only happy memories of the House Concert.  Another adventure in this soggy season which is bound to go down in history as “The Wicked Winter of ’23.”

Or maybe it’s just me.  But it seems I’ve been colder, more apt to be schlepping firewood through the rain from the woodshed, and more reluctant to venture forth, even to the post office, than for many-a-year.

The first day of spring is March 20th this year — 62 more days!  I can hardly wait, weather-wise.  And, if I could write a story a day between now and then, I might have the first draft of a new book completed…    Tah Dah!!!

 

 

 

“My eyes say ‘quit’ so…

Sunday, January 8th, 2023

My grandmother, Helen Richardson at 18– the year before she married Harry Espy in 1897

Do you think if we grew old enough and had enough infirmities, we could finally empathize fully with those who have gone before us?

I’ve been thinking about my grandmother’s lifelong trouble with her eyes — suddenly made so painfully apparent to me as I wait for my glasses to be ready.  My distance vision is fine.  It’s reading, writing, and close work that’s the problem.  And just when I’m beginning to cull over old notes and research the moldering documents, too!

Helen Richardson Espy, 1930 — “Granny at 54”

But I, at least can see the end of this tunnel.  My beloved granny could not.  She was married in 1897 at age 19 and several of her love letters to my grandfather lament, “My eyes say ‘quit’ so I will continue tomorrow…”  And when I think that almost all communication — even if it was just a few blocks away — was of the written variety!  Oh my!

Telephones were installed in many homes shortly after Bell’s 1876 invention, but conversations often were enjoyed by all those on the party line.  Whispering sweet nothings definitely had to be done up close and personal.

Helen Richardson Espy, 1947 – “Granny at 69”

So… while I was greatly relieved that my distance vision is fine without any corrections, I didn’t really expect to be so encumbered by my nearsightedness.  And, since I am chomping at the bit to get going on this new book, I try to keep it all in perspective as well as possible.  After all, three weeks hardly compares with the lifetime of poor vision that my grandmother — and so many others — have endured.

Another reason to count my blessings!  And try to develop that hardest of all character traits (for me) — patience!

After I turned in my eyeglasses…

Thursday, January 5th, 2023

Mama, Granny, Me — Easter Sunday 1940
(About The Time I was Granny’s helper with the oil stove.)

When I accepted Cate’s New Year’s Resolution challenge — to think of something to add rather than to subtract from my life, I thought about it long and hard.  But aparently not long and hard enough.

I chose to try to become more compassionate more empathetic,  Little did I know that I would get my first opportunity by January 4th and that my compassion was extending backwards a few generations rather than sideways to those I may already know in the here and now.  And it all happened because I turned in my prescription eyeglasses!

Yep!  Turned them over to the  optician to have my lenses updated.  Since my same, round frames (which I love) are no longer available, I opted to have the new lenses placed in these beloved old frames — fingers crossed that there isn’t a problem — and to just go without glasses for a time.

Three weeks???  Say what?  Still… I only need the reading part — my long distance vision is fine.  So I can drive and I can manage on the computer where it is possible to enlarge and/or darken fonts.  No problemo, right?  WRONG!

the Library of Congress provided record players and “talking books” on records so my grandmother could read.

Right off the bat I wanted to check on an old recipe of my mother’s.  Didn’t couldn’t wouldn’t happen.  A magnifying glass didn’t help.  My astigmatism is too strong and even though both doctor and optician had told me that those “cheater” glasses at the drugstore would not help me, somehow I though one of these strong magnifying glasses that are scattered about our house would do the trick.  WRONG1

My grandmother was legally blind by the time I was born and almost totally blind by the time I was in fourth or fifth grade.  Yet, she lived in this house, managed to cook on a wood stove (for which she even chopped kindling) and took care of my grandfather’s needs until after the war when she was able to have one of the first cataract surgery operations in NYC in 1946.

The first thing she saw when the bandages came off was the doctor’s tie.  She was totally amazed.  Never before had she seen a tie with bright colors on it!  And, of course the list grew.

These days audio and large print books are readily available at most libraries,

But… as I maneuver through this big house — now with all the amenities of electricity and running water, toilets and thermostatically controlled heat, my compassion for granny knows know bounds.  I remember that from the time I was four or five, it was my job to  help her light the oil heating stove early each morning.  She couldn’t tell if the matches she dropped in one after another had “caught” and so I would say, “There she goes granny!  Lit for another day.”  And we would get up off our hands and  knees and go into the kitchen to fix breakfast.

Was I compassionate? I have no idea.  But I certainly am now.  And for all the other people who go about their daily tasks undaunted, but unsighted.  OMG!

Oysterville – 1902

Monday, October 17th, 2022

H.A. Espy House, 1902

By this date, October 17, 1902, my grandparents (“Granny and Papa”) had been living in this house in Oysterville for three months.  They had left behind the gas lights and trolley cars and other refinements of East Oakland, California, and had come to took after my great-grandfather, R. H. Espy who had been recently widowed.

“It will just be for a short time,” my grandmother assured her children, three-year-old Medora and two-year-old Albert.  After all, Grandfather was already 76 years old — how long could it be?

The Oldest H.A. Espy Children – Medora and Albert, 1904

I’ve never been quite sure why they moved into this house — the Tom Crellin House that Grandpa had purchased ten years previously to serve as the Parsonage for the newly completed Baptist Church across the street.  Grandpa continued living in his own house (newer by several years and larger by several bedrooms than this one, built in 1869) just two blocks to the north.

Of course, Grandfather’s youngest children were still “at home” (when not away at boarding school) and Papa’s unmarried sister still lived at home “to do” for her father.  And, perhaps, Mama had insisted that if they were going to live in the wilderness of the northwest, they could at least have their own home.

The H.A. Espys On Their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary – 1947

Mama’s “short time” morphed into fifty-seven years.  By the time Grandpa died in 1918, Papa had established a successful dairy farm here, had served a term in the Washington State Senate and he and Mama had buried two of their seven children.  The H.A. Espys and Oysterville were as one.

In later years Mama likened herself to Lord Byron’s Prisoner of Chillon, eventually growing to love the place where she had felt imprisoned for so many years.  She was beloved by the community, looked to for her calm wisdom and gentle advice, and Oysterville still bears her imprint in oh! so many ways.

A touch of home for Helen…

Thursday, September 8th, 2022

Granny’s Oil Lamp

My grandmother, Helen Richardson Espy, left the comforts and cultural amenities of East Oakland, California in 1902 to set up housekeeping in Oysterville — “just for a short time,” she assured her three-year-old daughter Medora and year-old son Albert.  Helen and her husband Harry had come to look after his aging father, patriarch of Oysterville and recently widowed.  Surely it wouldn’t be for long.

But even so, she brought along a few of the amenities that she could not bear to part with — a few treasured pieces of furniture, her china and crystal and sterling silverware and a lovely kerosene lamp with hand painted globe and pedestal.  Somehow, they have all survived — through Helen’s fifty years in this house, through the raising of seven children and through the vicissitudes of life as a dairy farmer’s wife.  They were used with love by my mother for twenty-plus years and continue to be used by me.  For all these years Granny’s treasures have symbolized realities embraced even as unrealized dreams have been set aside.

The Switches — one for the top, one for the bottom.

When FDR’s rural electrification program came to Oysterville in 1936, Papa saw to it that Granny’s lovely “oil lamp” was electrified.  I remember how proud I felt over the years when I was allowed to pull the little chains that activated the on/off switches and the top and bottom of the lamp would light up.

Forty years ago or so, the switches wore out.  And ten years ago, give or take, Nyel took the lamp apart and wired it so that it would work without the switches.  You could just plug it in and…voilà! Let there be light!  But it wasn’t the same.  Nyel knew it wouldn’t be, so he ordered new parts, got a wiring diagram, and put everything carefully in a zip lock bag.  For when he had time…

Dell at work!

Meanwhile, there were hospital stays and therapy sessions and uncertain recoveries and more doctoring.  And where was that zip lock bag, anyway?  Not long before Nyel died, I ran across it but… And then we both thought about Tucker’s friend Dell.  Not only did he seem to like to tinker and repair and clean up and revitalize all manner of things — he was good at it.  Really good!

Perfect!

So last weekend when he was here at Tucker and Carol’s, I asked him if he’d take a look.  Two days later — ten hours of work, Tucker told me — the lamp was back to 1936 condition — only better.  LED bulbs replaced the old incandescents, not only giving more light but less heat.  The brass fittings (which Dell had carefully cleaned) wouldn’t corrode as they had before — or at least not so rapidly.  And I learned that the style of switches and other hardware in the lamp did match that 1936 time period for the conversion to electricity.

 And best of all?  I totally enjoyed listening to and watching Dell and Tucker (who have known each other for many years) banter back and forth as Dell worked and Tucker acted as his assistant, finding just the right tools, the right sized bulbs, or wires or…  Of course to me it all comes under the heading of “magic.”  I can never thank the two of them enough!  And how I wish my grandmother could see her precious lamp glowing even more brightly 120 years after coming to Oysterville “just for a short time.”

A Flowery February Friday!

Saturday, February 29th, 2020

Birthday Bouquet from John and Steve (and their garden)!

Last night’s “usual” Friday gathering was festive, fragrant, and generally fantastic!  Lively conversation, a good mix of “regulars” and “once-in-a-whilers” and food to die for — as I had hoped, the perfect birthday celebration!

Prompted by our Wednesday’s Community Historian lecture, I actually had some “sharing” to present to the gathering.  Tucked away in my closet are a number of my grandmother Helen Richardson Espy’s “unmentionables” dating back to the time of her 1897 wedding.  Her corset (which had both steel and whalebone ribs), a pair of her split-leg bloomers, a chemise, a petticoat, and a pair of size three shoes with bows decorated with seed pearls!  Among other things!

Roses from Cate!

I hadn’t looked at any of those items for ten or fifteen years and it was great fun to see them through the eyes of my friends and loved ones!  I also was reminded of two things about her courtship days that my grandmother took pride in for all of her 74 years.  One was her very small shoe size and the other was that my grandfather could span her 19-inch waist with his hands.  I always thought that was her own bit of self-pride.  It wasn’t until Tames Alan pointed out that these were common Victorian aspirations that I realized just why she remarked on those particular aspects of her youth.

Carnations from Maggie!

She also confided to me once, “It’s far worse to have had beauty and to have lost it than to never have had beauty at all.”  Photographs of her reveal that she was, indeed, a beauty and I always took her remark to be a lament as well as a reassurance to me that I needn’t worry in that regard.  I did, anyway.  Didn’t we all?

This morning the house smells of Daphne and birthday cake and still echoes with laughter.  Such a lovely evening it was!  How blessed I feel!

Perhaps introductions are in order?

Thursday, July 13th, 2017

Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.

Isn’t that the loveliest thought?  Roland A. Browne, author of The Common Sense Guide to Flower Gardening said it.  I’ve added it to my ‘list’ of things I wish I’d thought of first.  It’s a long, long list!

Right now, roses are taking center stage in our garden (such as it is).  I think the first week of June is supposed to be best for rose viewing in the Northwest.  Or, at least, that’s when the Rose Festival occurs in Portland.  But our roses out on the coast seem to be at their height a bit later.  Like now!

Not that we purposely cultivate roses.  Whichever ones bravely appear each year were planted long ago, either by my grandmother or by my father.  They were the chief gardeners on this property – my grandmother, from the time she arrived in 1902 until blindness overtook her in the 1950s; my father, from the time he retired here in 1972 until his death in 1991.

I don’t actually associate roses with either of them, though.  I tend to think of violets and silver dollar plants and sweet peas when visualizing my grandmother and flowers.  For dad, certainly for the years he lived here, dahlias and rhododendrons claimed his attention.

I do remember that we had a ‘rose garden’ when I was a kid in Alameda.  It was actually a garden bed carved out of the lawn in the back yard and I remember the rose plants standing stiffly and prickly row on row.  And speaking of prickly, in another area of that garden, up against the house, we had a ‘cactus garden’ which I never did feel friendly about – especially not after my neighbor Robert Reading fell into it from our sunroom window!

Now, with our seemingly endless policy of benign neglect, it’s a wonder that anything at all flourishes in our garden.  We do tend to have a lot of people coming and going, though.  Perhaps our roses enjoy seeing them as Mr. Browne seemed to suggest. I must remember to introduce them purposely now and then.  It seems the polite (and prudent) thing to do.