We recently celebrated the life of one of my husband’s uncles, with a lovely family gathering held at Matt’s dad’s house.
While such occasions are bittersweet — the loss is always a sorrow, even as we laugh — the event meant that we got to connect with many relatives we rarely see. We had 42 people attend, and the age range went from 9 months to 90 years old.
Matt’s dad Jim (at 81 years old) is the youngest of 13 siblings, five of whom are still with us; four of those siblings were able to attend the family gathering. I corralled groups to take pictures, starting with the siblings Jim, Myra, Bernice, and Bernie, and then the first cousins and second cousins. At the end of the day I realized that we had representatives from 11 of the original 13 in attendance.
Uncle Ken was famous for his smile and his positive attitude. When you asked him how he was, he always beamed and said, “Terrific!” He was a hard-working man who was always ready to pitch in to help others. Like many of his brothers, he became a meat cutter, and he took pride in his work; his outgoing, helpful and positive approach to customer service meant he was a valued asset to the stores where he worked. His pride and joy, however, was his family; his daughters, grandchildren, and great grandbaby were the light of his life.
People shared great stories about Uncle Ken, and there were many memories about growing up in Santa Rosa in the late 1930s, in what is now the Railroad Square District. With 13 kids and a Depression on, the family got pretty creative about making ends meet.
Apparently, the family was raising rabbits for food, and rather than purchase bunny food, their mom would send one of the younger children to look behind the grocery store for trimmed lettuce leaves and other discarded produce. One day it was Kenny’s turn, and he came back not with scraps, but two big grocery bags filled with food! It turns out that a lady saw the little boy looking through the trash and brought him into the store. She bought the family two bags’ worth of groceries and sent Kenny home with the food! After putting the (very welcome) groceries away, Kenny’s mom said, “Well, Kenny, we still need the vegetable scraps for the rabbits so go get ‘em, son.”
The Santa Rosa Creek was the kids’ special playground, and it holds a warm place in their hearts and memories. When their chores were finished, the boys would scamper down to play amongst the berry vines and under the railroad trestle. If they didn’t get away quietly enough, their mom would call out, “Take Jimmy along with you, and don’t let him get too dirty!” (One of Dad’s famous stories is a memory of sitting wide-eyed on the trestle with his brothers and watching an elephant getting bathed in the creek below. The circus had come to town! For a boy not yet 5, this made a big impression on him!)
I found a photo of the upper creek, where it still looks wild and un-touched, like the wandering waterway of their childhood, and wrote a poem to accompany it.
Forever and Always
Happy memories of childhood
are like sunlight dappled through green tree leaves,
glistening on the rippling water
of a meandering creek
and dancing off the shiny stones lining the creek bed.
They are both ethereal and tangible,
like joy bubbling up
or laughter echoing among the trees
or the warmth of a smile of welcome.
These memories fold Time itself,
and in an instant, we are with
the first friends of our childhoods,
the siblings whose
memories also recall the sparkles of laughter
dancing off the glinting ripples
of a sun-dappled childhood playground,
forever and always a warm summer’s day.
