Monday, October 19, 2020

Lessons for the Living


Here in Minnesota, people drive up north to their cabins in the rural wooded areas by the lakes.  We do the reverse.  We drive south to the condo in Des Moines by the river.

Last week, we took a trip to the condo in Iowa.  We did our best to visit the grandfathers while socially distanced.  We ate lunches outside when we could, though sometimes it was cool and windy.   We looked at leaves. We took hikes through parks most days as we have done throughout the pandemic.  

I visited additional family that was better at social distancing.  They always stayed at least six feet away.  They were excellent listeners.  They represented the lessons of life.  To be reminded of my values and of life's best practices, I went to them, my six-feet-under relatives.

I visited my mother in Indianola and father in West Des Moines, just as I did when they were living.  The tombstones suggest just how different these people were-- hearts versus the flag.  Did they teach me life lessons?  Of course, but how does a person even process the impact of their mother and their father without Sigmund Freud helping?

Rosemary Kersey, my mother
Donald Rasmussen, my father
 

My grandparents and some of their forbearers are in the Atlantic, Iowa cemetery.  David and Hanna Hope, born in the 1850's, are ancestors I never met.  They share an area with Clarence and their daughter, Ida Hope Smith, who both made it past ninety.  (Smith  and the Hope are engraved on opposite sides of the same monument stone.)  I remember my great-grandparents well.  We visited often as these were very important people to my mother.  Clarence would dance a jig and play the harmonica.  Ida kept up on the Guiding Light and family gossip and loved to talk about seeing Don Ho when she visited Hawaii.  How hard did this generation work?  While in her 80's, Ida was still shucking dozens of bushels of corn some days.  This past is so close to us.   David and Hanna, born in the 1850s, in the age of Lincoln, are two degrees of separation from me.  I may be closer to Abe Lincoln in terms of degrees of separation than I am the current president.
Clarence and Ida



David and Hanna

Ida and Clarence drove a yellow Nash rambler and lived at 4 East 10th in Atlantic.  Their daughter, Hope Smith Shackson Focht, lived at 8 West 11th, a couple blocks away.

Home of Ida and Clarence
Home of Hope and Robert Focht
 

My grandmother is the most important influence in my life.  She went to the University of Iowa then married Rolland Shackson, who was a speech professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.  Rolland died during gall bladder surgery in 1939.  Their three children Rosemary, Beverly and Eleanor were two years old, one year and not yet born at his death.  Hope moved back to Iowa, became Atlantic's librarian, planted World War II victory gardens and as a single mother modelled frugality.  When the girls were teenaged, she married Bob Focht and they operated a Western Auto in downtown Atlantic until about 1970.  (I remember them bringing home items from the store closure-- for me, they had out of date calendars for writing on.)   I would stay with Hope and Bob Focht as a very young boy when the parents were on vacation.  (My sister Donna would stay with the other grandparents.)  They talked to me about Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln.  Hope went to book groups and church groups.  Hope and Bob saved and invested, ate the gristle and when we travelled, we stayed at Motel 6.  I can't understate their impact on mine and other's lives.  I followed their waste not, want not philosophy to early retirement.  Their tombstone by the highway looks like it might have been on sale.  Hope's priority was helping the daughters financially with their issues and she did not prioritize spending on herself. 
Bob and Hope Focht


Jens and Altje Rasmussen, my other grandparents, ran the hatchery in Anita, twelve miles away.  Jens' parents immigrated from Denmark when Jens was very young.  Altje was of French and Irish decent. They celebrated a 60th anniversary when I was 15.  (At this celebration, I played the French horn that she gave me.  Cousins played other instruments.)  Altje took up painting after age 60 and her work is dispersed among family members.  I have an easel with some of the paintings she never finished. She also wrote a little poetry book, Notes from an Old Lady, that I have.  She was involved in my life, a caring and positive influence who hugged too hard.  They would stay in an RV in Donna, Texas during winters after Jens retired.  Altje was concerned about the plight of poor Mexican people that lived nearby.  I remember a family visit to them in Texas around Christmas, 1979.  The grandparents on both sides were Methodist but Altje was definitely the most traditionally religious and the only family member who believed and would say that women are subservient to men. (I didn't get this impression from Hope and Bob Focht.  The Rasmussen's, while not as embarrassing as some political figures today, were behind the times on social issues compared to my mother's side.)
Home of Jens and Altje Rasmussen



People have influence beyond death.  If we find ourselves wresting over our values or priorities, there are models we can look to for inspiration to help us past tough times.  Bob Focht was preachy about washing hands frequently.  Of course, he would have been 11 or 12 during the 1918 flu pandemic.  That lesson may be as important now as then.  Those people in the cemeteries have a lot to say.

--------
Also at the cemetery, I found Aunt Ellen and Uncle Bert.  I wrote about them here.



My sister, Diane Rose, was born dead.  I didn't realize that her middle name was Rose when I named my daughter.  I also don't believe I was told Diane had red hair until my father told me in the last year of his life while Rose was here.  The cemetery keeper had no record where she was buried.

At the edge of the cemetery next to Diane is Altje's brother, Ambrose, who was developmentally disabled but self reliant.  I knew him and remember the funeral.

---------------
I didn't see Rolland this trip.  I got a birthday cake for him, then found on he was on vacation!



No comments:

Post a Comment