Irishgoddess’s Weblog

1. She had the exact same name as Woman #6.
2. She is my role model.
3. She was the strongest woman I know.
4. She had two brothers and four sisters.
5. She was the second oldest.
6. Her father made decent money, but she worked very hard from a young age.
7. A very handsome, suave young man proposed to her right after high school.
8. She thought he was a bit slick, and she wanted to go to college, so she turned him down.
9. She wanted to be a home ec teacher, because she thought she would have been very good at that. She was right.
10. Just before college started, her mother had a nervous breakdown.
11. Her father told her she needed to stay home to help take care of her mother and the younger siblings.
12. After more than a year of this, she realized she was never going to get to go to college.
13. When telling me this story, more than 50 years later, she still got tears in her eyes about it and her voice quivered with emotion.
14. She finally agreed to marry the handsome guy.
15. They had two children and lived through WWII and the depression.
16. He worked this job and that, was a dreamer and a drinker.
17. Near the end of WWII she got a job at a local department store, in the linen department.
18. She always gave us sheets and towels for our birthdays and Christmas.
19. She didn’t retire until the mid 1980’s.
20. Her cookie jar was never empty when we came to visit.
21. She and her husband scrimped and saved enough to build their own small house when their children were in high school.
22. Many years later, I was lucky enough to live in her house with my husband and children. I cried when we sold it.
23. She was a life long devout Catholic.
24. She told me she knew her sister was gay.
25. She told me she didn’t believe Aids was a punishment for gays from God.
26. She told me she didn’t believe that hell was a place in the afterlife; that too many people lived in hell on earth.
27. When her husband died in 1975 she seemed to get a new lease on life.
28. She traveled to Australia and to Ireland, and all over the US.
29. She made us delicacies: rusk buns with melted peanut butter, cheesecake with sour cream on top, baked beans, hot chocolate from scratch, and tea with milk and sugar.
30. She had beautiful white hair.
31. She was so proud of being Irish, even though it was only through marriage.
32. She loved every member of her family fiercely.
33. She was the nicest person I knew.
34. If I live my life half as well as she did, I will be proud.
35. She was my paternal grandmother, and I miss her every single day.

Sisters, sisters
There were never such devoted sisters,
Never had to have a chaperone, No sir,
I’m here to keep my eye on her
Caring, sharing
Every little thing that we are wearing
When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome
She wore the dress, and I stayed home
All kinds of weather, we stick together
The same in the rain and sun
Two different faces, but in tight places
We think and we act as one
Those who have seen us *
Know that not a thing could come between us
Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can
Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister

I’m leaving out the last line, because it just doesn’t apply to these sisters, MC and Ree.

1. I met MC first, at work.
2. A few years later her sister Ree came to work for the same company, but I worked at a different branch by that time.
3. MC was scared of me when she first met me.
4. It wasn’t until years later, when I came upon her crying in the bathroom, that she decided I was so bad after all. I told her it was fine to be crying, whereas our boss-in-common felt it was weak.
5. She has always told me I’m “petite”.
6. She comes from a large Catholic family with 6 girls and 1 boy.
7. MC, Ree, and Mo (one of the other sisters) all have babysat my kids.
8. Ree is petite.
9. MC is beautifully soft and round.
10. They are two of the most lovely and attractive women I know.
11. Their family is completely messed up.
12. They are both completely normal.
13. Ree has her BA from a really good school.
14. Everyone thought, and told, MC that she wasn’t smart.
15. MC is now in an exclusive four year nursing program, after years of supporting herself.
16. MC and Ree bought their first house together.
17. Ree took a second job to help pay for expenses while MC is in school.
18. In the summer we get together once a week for grilling, drinks, and therapy. We tell each other everything and anything, no judgments, tears are allowed.
19. I have never known two friends or partners or spouses, much less sisters, who get along so well without being stifling.

1. They were both English teachers of mine.
2. Miss Smith lived next door to me.
3. She would let me come over to her house and talk.
4. Her walls were lined, floor to ceiling with bookshelves full of books.
5. She was my sophmore English teacher in high school in northern WI
5. She was single, and that provided an endless source of gossip for us.
6. She had me read The Chosen by Chaim Potok, and The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
7. Two years after I was in her class, she still cared about my life and talked to me.
8. Ms. Fairbanks was possibly a widow, possibly a divorcee, and it never came up in conversation.
9. She was in her late 50’s or early 60’s.
10. She was my freshman year of college English lit professor in a state college in Northwestern WI.
11. She was dating my other English professor (I believe it was a Shakespeare class) whose name I forget.
12. He got annoyed that I used the spelling of “Womyn” and “womon” in my papers, and she set him straight!
12. She introduced me to Toni Cade Bambera and Margaret Laurence and Meridel Le Sueur and Tillie Olson
13. She was also my sophmore year Independent Study advisor. I did a bibliography on Lesbian literature.
14. She introduced me to The Unlit Lamp (a classic) and Nights In The Underground (not a classic, but I loved it) – completely outside the range of popular lesbian lit at the time.

I had the idea of writing about certain women who have had profound influence on my life during this month of Womyn Wimmin Women. I have a list of those I want to write about, and then I discovered that NABLOPOMO is doing a monthly theme.* This month’s theme? LISTS! I love serendipity. And I love lists, too, because I am not feeling the writing thing really strong lately, but I can handle a list.

The first womon is one who was not on my original list. And then she called me today, and I thought “Top of the list, baby, TOP of the list.” Without further ado, here is number one:

My Aunt Sharon

1. She is older than my father by three years or so, putting her in her early 70’s.
2. She is my godmother.
3. She is a lifelong, extremely faithful Catholic.
4. Her real name is Mary Sharon, and she named her daughter Mary Susan (who goes by Sue).
5. She went to college and became a nurse, and met her husband, a doctor.
6. She has always had a super cool, funky sense of style.
7. She always calls me by my full name and not my nickname. It is because of that that I love the sound of my full name and never care if people “mistakenly” call me that.
8. She has five children, including one set of twins.
9. When I was all awkward and figuring out my feminist self in college, she was nothing but supportive.
10. She loves books and has piles and piles and piles of books falling all over, everywhere.
11. She always says “Come over and take some of my books! I have too many!”
12. She writes notes to herself in the cover of books: “Wonderful!” “So sad!”
13. She has led me to some fantastic books, outside of my preferred genre.
14. She was the first woman I know who was in a book club. One of the members of her book club was a self proclaimed feminist (in a group of doctor’s wives living in a Chicago well-to-do suburb) and she made sure I got to meet her friend.
15. She still can work a pair of 4 inch heels and look stunning.
16. Her mother used to cluck cluck that Aunt Sharon didn’t clean her house enough. I loved that about her – too many things to besides dust!
17. She called me this morning to congratulate me on going to law school! She said “Your mom and dad are just bursting at the buttons with pride!” I laughed and said “Really?! They’re not exactly demonstrative with me.” She laughed also, knowing my parents so well, and said “Still waters run deep.”
18. Every day that goes by she looks more and more like her mother, my beloved grandmother.

*I think the idea is to post every day of the month, using the theme, but it just ain’t gonna happen for me. I have always been a pick-and-choose kind of womon though, so I’ll use the lists when I feel like this month and hope it offends no one.