Archives for April 2020

Letters to my Mother During Covid19

April 28, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mama,

Today is my college roommate Sally’s birthday! As you know, we were roommates all four years and we are still dearest buddies who share the joys of raising kids, (she has triplets) hard challenges with our parents (not you, of course) and life with our friends from college. We don’t talk on the phone much because when we do it takes hours and nothing gets done. When we do, we gab endlessly while one of us is driving, but since it is Covid19, we aren’t driving much. I do know that her boys bought a meat smoker and they are learning how to use it so she had beef brisket for her birthday dinner and her mom, who is in her 90’s brought her a homemade birthday cake. Sal is doing well down in Tejas despite losing her dad last September. He was in his 90’s, that’s older than you!

I remember when I was growing up how you’d talk about your friend “Dix,” Barbie D. who lives in Florida. What loyal friendships you’ve shared, always meeting up at your DePauw University reunions. One of my distinct memories of you and your girlfriends formed at our lunch with Donna L. and Alice D. a few years ago up in Door County. You forever described Alice as the funniest person ever because she hummed non-stop, even when eating her meals. Donna has a house in Door County and Alice was visiting from California. They drove across the peninsula and we ate lunch in the Harbor Grill and those ladies told some wild stories of your growing up years. I kept listening for the hum, but I guess she’s outgrown it in her 80’s. After lunch, up the bluff we went and they stayed for an afternoon, laughing about the “good ol’ days.” They did NOT talk non-stop about their health which old people tend to do. In fact, I don’t recall any mention of hip or knee replacements, aching joints – nothing. Also, they looked fabulous, but you looked more fabulous. Both of those women were sharp as tacks.

Thank you for modeling for me what it means to live out loyalty in friendship. One of my favorite books growing up – I think I’m saying that too often in these letters – was Joan Walsh Angland’s, A Friend is Someone Who Likes You. Her illustrations intrigued me, the children didn’t have mouths so I always thought they lived silent lives. They also didn’t dialogue, but they indulged in the simple pleasures of girly childhood friendship. Tea parties occurred on a daily basis, the girls pushed each other on swings, sailed handmade boats in the creek and never seemed to interact with their parents or adults — Idyllic! I imagine friendships forged in childhood that continue into adulthood are rare, but you’ve kept many of yours. I wonder why that is? (Caregivers – could you ask her this question and write down her response, please.)

Might it have something to do with the way the Elm trees arched over the streets in River Forest? You all lived beneath a canopy of giant trees, before Dutch Elm disease destroyed the protective, holy covering of the sidewalks where you cruised on your bikes.Their limbs touched at the top and formed an archway atop Jackson Avenue, Augusta, Bonnie Brae, Chicago Avenue, Lathrop Street. You grew up in a living cathedral of trees. I remember roller skating at Goggie and Jessie’s beneath those green towers and feeling like a dwarf child. Perhaps, the trees helped to anchor your own roots in your community of friends? You knew, even subconsciously that life amidst the trees was special and carried its own unique, irreplaceable protection and connection. Their roots touched beneath the ground causing sidewalks to rise and crack open like a granite drawbridge.

When we exited the expressway at Harlem Avenue and zig-zagged our way to Grandma’s house on Chicago Ave., we took the right turn at the Catholic church and you and dad winced out loud at the loss. “Look at all the Elms that are gone!” A foreboding silence penetrated the remaining blocks until we parked and ran up the front steps to Grandma’s front door, kissed her rouge smeared cheeks and went straight for her candy drawer, the loss of the trees forgotten and replaced by Milky Way and Snickers bars.

Great friendships grow like trees, but they need tending and all my life you tended yours. Remember these sweet ladies: Anna, Suzanne, Pat, Mary, Liz. I won’t name them all, but they’ve been a deep rooted part of your tree and I’m thankful to have stood beneath their shade.

Love to you my beloved tree hugger,

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 24, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

Greetings smiley, sweet Nana! We received a call last night with the unfortunate news that a Coronavirus case has been confirmed down in your memory care wing. The good news is that it is NOT a resident there, but rather a staff member. These faithful workers have been wearing masks and gloves since early March as a way of protecting you if they contract the virus so we are grateful for these steps. And we are praying that no residents come down with the virus. Thus far there are NO cases among residents in any part of your retirement facility! JOY!

On to happier news. I love you! I’m so thankful that you are healthy and taking care of yourself. I’ve been reflecting on your fascination with orchards, tart cherries and apples. Drinking Montmorency TART cherry juice is a regular Door County treat for you when most of us can only tolerate the sweetened cherry juice. There is a magical quality to orchards, especially Seaquist Orchards where they trim the grass between the trees. What is it about an orchard that captures the human heart? Is it the abundance of fruit, the graceful ordering of trees, the history of cherry picking migrants camping out during July in long frame buildings, sleeping single file on metal cots? The ramshackle remnants of those cherry picker houses still line highway 42. A family transformed one into their colorful summer home.

Growing up, we always went cherry picking and so our children go cherry picking and even now in your 80’s when we head north with your caregiver Maria we revisit those reliable rows of trees at Lautenbachs or Seaquists. The last time we went, your hair stuck to your face as the wind speckled cherry juice on your sticky cheeks. Maria grew up in Poland and she too loves tart cherries so she took home ziplock bags full of them in her little, silver Nissan Versa. You have a friend who wrote a lovely poem about Door County which mentions the cherry trees. Kindly, after reading my letter about our favorite county on my website it came to me in an email. Close your eyes and picture the images in this poem as someone reads it to you.

DOOR TO PARADISE

Pure clear water, vistaed heights,

Glorious dreaming through the nights!

Bright greens and blues, cloudless skies

O’er crystal lakes of paradise!

There we’ll find sweet red cherry trees,

Warm as the sun, soft as the breeze,

Long peaceful trails, secluded bays,

And happiness throughout our days.

This glimpse of heaven is enough reward

For pious patience, for working hard,

For righteous efforts wisely spent

Weaving love’s ephemeral raiment.

Here the best scenes our memory saves

Wash over us gently like silver waves

Lapping repeatedly upon our shore,

Where storms and clouds return no more.

Pure clear water, vistaed heights,

Glorious dreaming through the nights!

Bright greens and blues, cloudless skies

O’er crystal lakes of paradise!

There we’ll find sweet red cherry trees,

Warm as the sun, soft as the breeze,

Long peaceful trails, secluded bays,

And happiness throughout our days.

J. Jennings, 1997

I look forward to picking many cherries with you this coming July!!

Love,

Margaret

Letters to My Mother During CoVid19

April 21, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

Dear Mom,

I just finished reading a book about the life and art of one of our favorite contemporary painters, Jim Ingwersen. We’ve often visited his gallery on Old Stage Road and sat beneath the grape arbor talking to he and Phyllis about his alla prima portrait painting technique, a style of painting you never embraced because you can’t go back and fix anything. Instead, you finish as you go with a lot of wet paint on the canvas. I remember you once asked me if you could take one of your paintings down off our wall and change it, not in alla prima.

Your painting of Jessie planting herbs – oil

Your artist’s eye transcends one life. The great grandchildren you may or may not live to see will look at the portraits that you’ve done of our children and say, “Mommy is that you gardening? Look at your short hair!” or to our sons, “Look how red your hair was!” or “Look how blond your hair was!” We will stand in front of the painting of your mother, Mary Jane McGreevy (Goggie) and tell them all about her iron will to survive so many serious illnesses and how Aunt Jessie came to take care of all 5 children during her bout with Landrys Paralysis. We’ll brag about how their great-great grandmother lived to be 93 when so many predicted she wouldn’t even live a “full” life. We’ll tell the story of how the quick thinking nurse splinted her feet upright when the paralysis took hold or she wouldn’t have walked out of the hospital. Your art gives life to stories that otherwise would be long forgotten. Thank you.

Like your gift of teaching, your artist’s eye passes down the line by genetics and by cultivation. You have four grandchildren who are artists, Ben – the photographer, Caleb – the pianist (entrepreneur), Jessie- the dancer and Nathaniel – the drummer. I list their main artistic pursuits but there are many others. So good genes help, but it takes more than that, it takes freedom to raise an artist. You gave us space to explore, to live messy, to get dirty fingerpainting with big thick jars of crayola paint and newsprint pads longer than our legs. If you wanted the “perfect” house your artistic temperament didn’t allow it. We lingered in our childhood. When you took us to see the Thorne Room Miniatures at the Chicago Art Institute we did, but we strayed to the Impressionist galleries until they announced, “Museum is closing in five minutes.” When my pansy garden waned, you let me plant a terrarium for indoor gardening. You drove me to flute lessons and youth symphony several train stops away because “the inconvenience was worth it.” You cheered me on as I sang into my hairbrush, never shaming me as I chased “Star is Born” vocal dreams. Hey, you loved Barbara Streisand too! While the kids in Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stayed up all night playing Parchesi we stayed up late playing “Masterpiece.” Do you remember this board game, the players wheel and deal for great works of art and learn about the painters along the way? Thanks to this game I learned about cubism because you never took me to that gallery:)

When we cleaned out our basement recently, I couldn’t part with the sketch books created by our children. Oh, the wonder of craypas in the hand of an eager child determined to capture the fountain in Adams Park. Aside from Tasha Tudor, I believe you must be the only grandmother who helped her grandchildren paint oil paintings in elementary school. Do you remember helping Caleb paint this one of the ramparts on top of Glenbard West High School?

First oil painting by Caleb – third grade

You taught me not only how to grow flowers, but how to arrange them and how every room must have a touch of black for contrast. Building on light and shadow, bringing the outside in, attending to tiny details, “God is in the details,” how well you’ve lived this Mies Van deRohe quote, even down to the way your front hall stand held a basket of fresh picked roses from your gardens and you let the petals fall to the floor and then you left them because they were beautiful detached.

Thank you for spending your artistic eye on all of us.

We see you, and to see is a great gift.

So much love dear Mama.

I will see you as soon as these Coronavirus restrictions lift,

and I will come with an armful of flowers.

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 13, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

Happy Easter! We are so thankful that Mercy and the talented staff at your facility took the time to do your hair for Easter. Look at how you impressed the Easter bunny! In the midst of stay-at-home celebrating today we are reminiscing about one of your favorite places in the world…

Think back to your honeymoon. You and dad were high school sweethearts and managed to keep your relationship going through college in two different states. When you married and began planning your honeymoon, you wanted to go somewhere fresh and not too far away. Fortunately, Goggie read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a destination called, “The Cape Cod of the Midwest,” only five hours up north. After your downtown wedding night in the Palmer House, you packed up the ghost-white station wagon and headed into the unknown. Dad described it as a miserable drive, “Rained the whole way and your mother didn’t feel well. We checked in and wondered what tomorrow would bring. The entire area looked bleak and black.” But when you woke up, you saw the June sunlight tilting through the conifers surrounding your cottage. I imagine you two stepping out and letting the screen door slam behind you— inhaling your first breath of what would become 50 years of Door County pine scented air.

Door County. It is a huge part of the life of all my grandparents, both sides of your family and now our own family. Thanks to your 1950’s trekking up north along that Lake Michigan coast, here’s what happened:

Grandma and Grandpa followed you and built “just a little hot dog stand” on highway 42 between Ephraim and Sister Bay. That little hot dog stand became a full service restaurant known as the Red Barn complete with cottages for rent, a driving range and their summer house. The restaurant is still there and is now known as the Summer Kitchen.

We jammed our massive Lehwald family into their little summer house, heated by a Coleman stove and baseboard heaters for many Thanksgivings. We spent my first birthday eating dad’s favorite strawberry shortcake out on the concrete patio.

Uncle Jay and Janet rented the “big, grey house” on Cottage Row and cousin Leslie and I played with the electrified dollhouse more than we played outside.

Dad and Grandma battled over which fish boil served the best meal. Dad swore allegiance to the White Gull Inn and Grandma and Grandpa loved The Viking. Both of these restaurants still do fish boils. The White Gull Inn won the family contest. Who wants to pay to eat a fancy dinner off an army mess hall, stainless steel tray?

After baking countless apple and cherry pies and picking up legions of golf balls on his riding mower, Grandma and Grandpa sold The Red Barn and built their dream house just up Maple Lane from the Sister Bay Bowl. Erica and I stayed in the guest house and snuck out at night. Me and Uncle Billy and Dad and cut down our most gigantic Christmas tree and we all made the ornaments and chains out of paper. Grandpa taught me how to play cribbage. Grandma cheated at pee-wee golf. We killed each other over slap-jack and Fool Your Neighbor card games.

Our kids spent many Presidents’ Day weekends running down hotel halls and jumping off the sides of the High Point Inn pool. Summers lazily wandering orchards picking cherries, skipping and heaving rocks into the water, hiking in Peninsula State Park. Nathaniel got lost in the woods at the Wilson’s Eagle cottage and Pebble Beach provided hours of rainy day entertainment by painting rocks. Pebble Beach and the surrounding land was recently purchased by the Door County Land Trust so it will forever be enjoyed by generations of rock painters and skippers.

This past Christmas you spent with all of us up at High Pines, sitting beside the second most gigantic Christmas tree, looking fly in your cheesehead hat and sipping cherry bounce. Snoopy the dog ate all the sugar cookie ornaments off the tree and we enjoyed the best hot chocolate in our individual whipped cream topped teapots at the White Gull Inn.

Generations of cherry juice running down the arms of children who jammed more cherries into their mouths than their pails and everything else happened because you listened to your mother who read the newspaper! Thank you for taking us to shuffleboard courts by the bay at the Evergreen Beach Hotel and snowmobiling on New Years Eve from the Hotel DuNord and everywhere else in Door County. As the worlds battles the Coronavirus, the beauty of birches by the lake remains untouched.

Gratefully loving you from a distance this Easter!

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 8, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

All of this Coronavirus calamity started in the U.S. in January so it’s been going on for some months now. I believe I’ve been locked out of Wyndemere and unable to see you since March 11th, hoping that the week after Easter I might be allowed back in, but I doubt it because President Trump has asked that all Americans Stay at Home until April 30th, except for essential visits to the grocery and pharmacy and gas stations. So, if the virus lifts we will be celebrating a BIG Mother’s Day together this year.

Mother’s Day. Charlie calls this the “high holiday of the Midwest,” because his family never celebrated Mother’s Day out in Philadelphia. Isn’t that strange? How could Pinkie Philbrick not care about Mother’s Day, or her family not care about it? I guess that’s possible if her mother was no longer living and I believe Pinkie’s mother died when Charlie was young.

We LOVE Mother’s Day and I cherish my memories of celebrating with you. Last year, our Jessie surprised us by coming home from St. Louis! I brought you a surprise, flowers, raspberries and quiche breakfast in your apartment that morning, took you to Christ Church and over to Uncle Jay’s for brunch. This delighted your Mama heart because one of your New Years resolutions is to see Uncle Jay more, that 90 year old rascal! Kind of hard to do during the Coronavirus, but if the virus quarantine lifts we might try to do the same thing again this year. How about that idea?

I remember some highlights from Mother’s Day celebrations of the past:

Eating homemade chocolate cake and drinking champagne at 21 Highgate Course with Charlie and Goggie and Aunt Jessie, when Charlie and I were dating.

Eating chocolate cake and drinking champagne in Lilac Park in Lombard with all our kids and some friends. Jessie made Goggie’s cake and surprised me.

Eating chocolate cake and wanting to drink champagne at Uncle Jay’s with Jessie last year, but we never opened the bottle of champagne that Jessie brought so Uncle Jay gave it back to her. Jessie again made the chocolate cake surprise. Thank you!

Celebrating with brunch at the Mill Race Inn on the Fox River after church at the Lutheran Church and eating those grainy “Margaret’s Chocolate Sundaes.” Pastor J’s sermons bored me to tears, but I loved Mrs. Margitan’s singing. Sorry, I know you gleaned encouragement from his sermons, I was a little too young for all those Corrie Ten Boom quotes.

Picking almost ALL of our next door neighbor Mrs. Downs’ tulips and giving them to you. I was little then and would not do that today, as an adult. You made me apologize. Now I buy your tulips at Andrew’s Garden or Marianos.

Serving you breakfast in bed when we were little and trying to make the tray look as pretty as the one in one of my favorite childhood books, Bread and Jam for Francis.

This included a vase of violets which Francis somehow managed to have inside her lunch box.

Creating homemade cards with lots of decimated paper doilies pasted and then glued on to make them look fancy.

Chocolate cake, chocolate sundaes, chocolate fudge, chocolate kisses…chocolate.

I want to thank you for corrupting me with chocolate. I remember you making Kappa Alpha Theata’s hot fudge sundae sauce (Prissy’s sauce) and bringing us hot fudge sundaes after we’d gone to bed. This happened in the summer when you put us to bed at 7:00p.m. despite the bright light outside. We hated going to bed so early, thankfully you improved our lives by bringing us those sundaes in bed. Also, dad would make his chocolate fudge at night and bring us pieces of fudge in bed. This is a bit unusual since parents tend to worry about the state of their kids’ teeth and cavities, but this was back in the days of our baby teeth so I guess you figured it didn’t matter— they’d fall out anyway. Thank you for doing us this incredible kindness. It must have made quite an impression since I remember it. The JOY of waking up in the morning with a dried up hot fudge smeared glass bowl on my nightstand or crumbs of chocolate fudge on a small plate. Thank you, thank you!

We can also thank Goggie and Jessie for our love of chocolate. They began the tradition of making the “Brown Beauty” birthday cakes with the melted hot icing poured over them. Goggie used to serve the cake with icing in her dining room at the Valencia, but always with a pitcher of Aunt Jessie’s hot icing on the table so we could pour on more! She also poked the cake with a toothpick before icing it to help the one-of-a-kind chocolate seep inside the cake.This is the recipe we all use today and when our Jessie brings us those surprise cakes she uses it too. Do you remember the secret ingredient in that cake? If not, I’ll tell you when we have it for Mother’s Day this year, and we will have champagne and we will toast ALL the healthcare workers and staff at Wyndemere who are going way beyond the normal reach of their jobs to keep you healthy and safe.

When I left a bottle of face lotion in the bins stacked in the hallway outside the front door, because it must sit for 24 hours before they can bring it to you, I had to use a pen from the ziplock bag labeled “clean pens” and then place the pen in the bag labeled “used pens” to avoid any germs getting to you. All of this takes careful management and creativity and your healthcare workers are overseeing every detail so thank them today when you see them! Don’t hug them until the quarantine lifts, but thank them!

All my Mother’s Day love every day,

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 3, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

Just wanting to keep you tuned into the outside world and what’s happening as a result of the Coronavirus. Jessie’s dance company is not able to offer classes, rehearse and perform because people can’t be near each other during this time. Nathaniel’s climbing wall where he works is also shut down because no one can enter an entertainment facility due to the threat of germs spreading. Everything that draws a crowd or entails close contact is closed. You may remember that this time of year we love to come over and watch the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, “March Madness” on your TV with you but that isn’t happening either. Your oldest grandson, Caleb is holed up in his tenth floor apartment working on his projects from his computer and eating “tomatoe based” foods that he is preparing himself. Lots of time for everyone to work on upping their culinary skills. All schools are closed and The Greenhouse School where I taught for years, has quickly shifted their classes to computer platforms like Zoom, or recording lessons and posting the links on the computer for students to watch. These are new days in education. I just talked to dad on the phone and he said, “I couldn’t be in school today because I don’t know how to work the computer.”

Imagine what it would be like to teach under these circumstances? Nathaniel’s drum set teacher is collaborating their drum lessons on-line and that doesn’t sound pretty because the delay in the transmission makes the music sounds like mashed potatoes whirring in your Kitchen Aid mixer. We listened to Caleb play a Chopin piece on the piano the other night via FaceTime, (on our phones), but the it sounded like Schroeder’s piano from the Charlie Brown comic strip -plink, plink, plink, plunk. Nonetheless, technology is what’s keeping the world running right now and even I, can only be grateful.

Think back to your days teaching first grade at Willard School in River Forest.

You were using a chalkboard, books and workbooks for everything. Your classroom didn’t have a computer. I believe you used the “mimeograph” machine to crank out copies, turning the handle while vinegar smelling purple ink spilled over the pages and you walked down the hall to the main office to use it. Charlie prints these letters to you in his office and walks a few steps to pull them out of the printer. I love the picture in your wedding album of you standing with several of your students. We still laugh at how one of those little boys looks like Caleb’s good friend, Tate.

You loved teaching and that is one of the reasons you are a great mom and grandmother. Before any kids came into your life, you already loved to teach —especially snot-running nosed, crooked teethed, little kids. Mr. Clum (principal of W.C.G.S.) once said to me that, “early childhood teachers are a special breed.” That makes you a special breed and how we benefited!

Without preaching, everything proved an opportunity to learn. Counting the steps up to our first apartment in Oak Park taught me numbers and you stood patiently as I knocked on the doors of residents on each floor for a visit, a flaming extroverted toddler. We traveled to stream-side and country field picnics and you taught us about grass, trees, rainbows, photosynthesis, refraction of light, how things grow – What Shall I Put in This Hole That I Dig?—a favorite Golden Book. You laid the foundation of the Bible in our souls with stories and songs and sat us down to watch Charlton Heston part the waters of the Red Sea, scary!

As in so many families, the gift of teaching passes down the line. I’ve taught writing and literature for many years, Jessie teaches ballet, Nathaniel teaches kids how to play drums and climb steep rocks, Caleb teaches his piano teacher Karol Sue how to use technology because she now must teach her piano students using available technology. Because of the virus they can’t meet in her piano studio until things clear up.

Thank you for being a loving, patient, informed, wise teacher. In your memory care wing you are the only one who knows all the words to the songs. Keep teaching those words to the other residents.

Sing time in Memory Care with our friend Hannah

Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Your gift of teaching is a joy forever and it’s a part of your legacy that lives on.

With gratitude and love,