The Lone Arranger

excerpted from a Sunday lay sermon by Madge Richardson Walsh

...I daresay many of us have known other women who played significant roles in our lives. It’s too bad that there isn’t a day for special aunts, or even mothers-in-law—Ruth Walsh, my husband Bert’s mother, was wonderful to me. But the stereotype prevails, and [...] I can see that a tribute to the woman who became my mother-in-law has to be a special one. She was to be a role model for me, though I don’t think I will ever be able to match her kindness, her patience, or her serenity—she was absolutely unflappable, even though with Bert as her son she was tested many times.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, Ruth happened to be a dear friend of my Aunt Marjorie, who was the aunt who played a particularly significant role in my life. Aunt Marjorie had no daughters, so her nieces had to do. The older niece, my cousin Jean, was working for Pan American Airlines and dating pilots; Aunt Marjorie considered “flyboys” poor husband material and tried to introduce Jean to more appropriate young men. Jean did not cooperate, however (she never did marry); and so Auntie turned her attention to me. I was showing no signs of settling down with any suitable boyfriend (one of the latest ones was a very talented artist, but you know how unreliable & irresponsible artists can be!) Since my parents had so far failed to marry me off, Aunt Marjorie decided she had better do something about it. 

Aunt Marjorie knew that Ruth Walsh had an “eligible” son, and of course Ruth knew of Marjorie’s niece. Ruth appeared to be an innocent bystander, perfectly willing to go along with Marjorie’s arrangement of what appeared to be a spontaneous meeting. My parents were conveniently out of town, and I was “batching” it, so when Auntie invited me for dinner I was happy to accept, even though she was not much of a cook. Ruth was attending a meeting at my aunt’s house that afternoon, and Bert was to pick her up there, so it was natural for Marjorie to have both of them stay for the meal. 

Believe it or not, this seemingly casual but carefully contrived meeting actually “took.” Bert and I joke that we have an “arranged” marriage—we affectionately refer to Aunt Marjorie as the “Lone Arranger.” We like to remember both Ruth and Marjorie--and their meddling—with fondness and love. They cared what happened to us. 

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What's fun about this little essay is that my father Bert's recollection is a tad different: he had just came from a hard day of work, and Madge had come straight from an archeological dig, all hot and dusty. For years, he would wait until Madge had told her story, and then he would wryly smile and say, “I like sweaty women!”

Cymbidium

Every year, a large flat box would arrive via the chocolate-brown UPS truck. I should note that in my childhood days, mail order was still quite a rare thing, and delivery trucks were equally rare. If the brown truck showed up in the week before your birthday, you knew Grandmother had been shopping--something she was very good at.

The box was inscribed in my grandfather's careful handwriting in all caps, using a red felt pen: "FRESH FLOWERS - RUSH" with a red box or squiggles around it to make extra sure. My mother would stop what she was doing, and bring the box to the kitchen, carefully cut open the tape, and remove the tissue paper to reveal six perfect stems of Cymbidium, each with its own little tube of water (which we would save and return to him at our next visit). She would dunk them in the tub to refresh them from the long voyage. And then came her annual admonition to not touch the delicate petals, as the oils on our hands would brown them prematurely. 

Known to the rest of the world as boat orchids, you probably know them from prom and mother's day corsages as individual flowers, but you probably don't know there are at least a dozen flowers to each three-foot arced stem, and in a range of striking colors. My mother adored the pale pinks and deep magentas; my favorite was always the lime green. 

What made these special was that they were not from a florist: my grandfather grew them himself in a narrow lean-to greenhouse attached to the garage in their upscale neighborhood. He would spend hours in his garden, and any rainy day he spent with his orchids, potting and repotting, puttering to his heart's delight. When he read that plants like music, he switched his transistor radio from ball games to classical music.

For a boy who grew up in rural Minnesota, the clime of the San Francisco Bay Area must have seemed positively tropical. I can imagine the joy he got in selecting the perfect stems and packing them up for the recipients. The boxes came every year to relatives: my uncle's family, our great aunts, and, as the elders passed away, to us as young people starting out on our own. I was a senior in college when I received a brown box of my own--one of the last he would send before his health began to fail. 

So, imagine my delight, as I was finishing up a four-year stint of travel for serving on a board, when I arrived travel-weary to a nice little cheese plate--and a lovely single lime green cybidium in my posh suite. 

Cymbidia growing in my grandfather's side yard

A preaching gig

George Warren Richardson (1824 - 1911), worked for many years as an itinerant Methodist minister in Minnesota, a product of the Second Great Awakening. He kept a handwritten journal that has been passed down through the generations and is the subject of a book authored by my cousin. This small excerpt from his journal is not hugely significant, but provides a glimpse of his life as a freshly married young man with a wife and baby at home that he had to support. Note also that he speaks of wearing a fur glove--he had lost his right hand to a farming accident when he was 21. So when he writes--with his left hand--of harnessing a horse in -40 degree weather, he's doing it one-handed!

Early in Jan. 1852 a leading businessman at Taylors Falls wrote to the Elder to send them a preacher, if he had one that he could spare. The Elder requested me to supply that point if I could possibly work it in with my present work. I took a Sabbath to explore that opening. I got up earlier than usual Saturday morning and fed my horse – ate an early breakfast – dressed myself in fur from head to foot, and harnessed for a start. The ends of my fingers were frozen when I had finished harnessing. I stopped and warmed and put on my fur glove and started on a 40 miles drive up to Saint Croix on the ice. I made this drive without going near a fire tho the thermometer registered 40 degrees below zero. I reached Taylors Falls about 2:00 p.m. badly chilled but not frozen.

I found that the man who had sent for me was interested in building up the town, and evidently supposed a preacher would help to attract people to the place. He was a mechanic and supplied the lumber camps above the falls. One important commodity for the camp was whiskey, which he sold in great abundance. My early education had made me believe that a man that sold whiskey was a reprobate. I concluded it was a money speculation to have a preacher, but I resolved to give him his moneys worth. I believed it was my duty to “warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come” and I did it to the best of my ability. I preached a strong a temperance sermon as I knew how. When I closed the services I had a moment to think of what I had done and I was not as brave as I thought I was.

I was afraid to go to this whiskey merchants to dinner, but he took it all in good part and regarded my temperance sermon as part of my duty. I continued to preach at the schoolhouse at Taylors Falls once a month through the year, and my reprobate friend continued to pay liberally. My plan from that Sabbath was to preach at Taylors Falls in the morning, at Osceola at 2:30 p.m. and at Marine at night.

Rev. George W. Richardson

End of the line

When doing a surname study, women become less consequential, as the tradition of taking a husband's name--and giving that same surname to progeny--effectively ends the line for the study's purpose. A woman magically appears when she marries into the line; parents are noted, but siblings, cousins, etc. are not added or investigated. Daughters fall into two categories: those who died without marrying (sometimes early, sometimes outliving their parents by several decades), and those who marry and have loads of children, but with a different surname. Both effectively end the surname line. 

But the women are there, as it takes two to tango, and there would be no lines at all without them. 

As many genealogists know, the interesting stuff is between the lines: the birth, marriage, and death records provide us with a general framework, but things get interesting when we find their footprints and fingerprints elsewhere: a census record that shows relatives living with siblings, parents--or just next door. Ship manifests that show who travelled to the new world as a family, and who ventured out on their own. Newspaper clippings about women buying and selling property (once they were widows, of course). 

There are heartbreaking moments too. The 1900 census is hard because of columns 11 and 12: number of children born, and number living. According to the census instructions for the enumerators, "stillborn children are not to be counted." Stillborn children didn't count in Catholic tradition, since the child never "lived" and could not be baptized, adding to the heartbreak.

This is echoed in cemeteries: today, there are separate sections, festooned with balloons and stuffed animals, for children who die--a practical solution, since modern young parents are unlikely to have purchased a family plot. But a mere two generations ago, young parents did purchase a family plot, because children didn't always make it, and that was a known entity. The family plot may contain one large stone with "father" and "mother" marked on it; other, smaller stones will say "son" or "daughter" -- all with the names and dates and perhaps a solemn or humorous epitaph. And then there may be even smaller stones, with just initials or "baby" or "child" with one date. 

Every now and then, a stone will include a woman's maiden name. I'm guessing it's that generation's family historian who made sure it happened. We silently bless this person, as it gives us one more search avenue--especially when it comes to searching for her obituary. We note with a sigh how often the "maiden name of mother" field is left blank on a death certificate.

Widows, as mentioned above, enjoyed a certain freedom and a higher level of risk. A young woman with small children needed to remarry to have the financial support for her family. There are plenty of entries of children who are surrendered and adopted out, along with work house entrances for the mothers. There are very few exits, except to the pauper's graveyard next door. But for those who made it to the new world, and whose husbands had built an estate with a bit of land and some money in the bank, there was some breathing room. She often had a house--paid off--where some of her adult children (and if she was lucky, grandchildren) lived, so she had some financial stability as well as no risk of loneliness.  

Every now and then, a newspaper clipping lets us know a woman has appeared in court, usually the wronged party in divorce proceedings, but more often on the defense for having used her feminine guiles for less than upstanding activities. At least one widow of a saloon keeper plead ignorant that she had to renew her liquor license, but the bench was lenient (and likely a customer in this one-saloon town). 

In a small town, newspapers tell us tales of young misses who might belong to a social club, or entertain cousins from out of town, or who sing and/or play piano for a school production. These young ladies, nearly always described in flowery terms, are the ones who become engaged, marry (with equally flowery reporting) and lose their surname to history.