Loss and Laughter, a Summer to Remember
Written Fall 2009

When I was eleven my dad lost his job.  He had been working for Teleflex in Colmar for many years and was suddenly laid off in the spring of 1972 during a cutback in the labor force.  It was the summer of Hurricane Agnes, the Munich Olympics, and my sister going to Goshen College’s Study Service Team (SST) in Germany. 

Daddy was resourceful and found a job at Haeberly Orchard along with my brother, Steve, picking produce in season, mainly cantaloupes and watermelons.  Since my mom worked at a terry mill in Souderton and I was too young to be left alone at home, my dad and brother took me along and I learned to know the youngest Haeberly girl. She was quite an adventuresome individual who even had a pet raccoon.  We usually went for a bike ride to a nearby school playground and she entertained me with her stories of boyfriends and other antics.  Then we came back to her home, watched a little TV and visited with her cats, dogs and raccoon.  I think we both were so bored by the dog days of summer that we didn’t mind spending time with a complete stranger.

Steve and Daddy worked till noon and then we went home for lunch.  Daddy did his usual check in the garden for what he called our “daily manna.”  Daddy found great pleasure in our zucchini plants that had once again provided us with a meal.  Daddy used a little bit of butter, chopped onions, and the zucchini to mix up a tasty noon meal.  To break the monotony, sometimes he added a few eggs.  That was our lunch day after day.  It was the only time I remember my dad cooking and it’s been an image that has stayed with me.

Daddy had a way of making us kids feel like we were lucky to get any food at all and that we didn’t have enough money to pinch two pennies together.  “Things are tight this summer,” he’d say, “we’re going to have to learn to live on less.”  Now sometimes Daddy said things like this even when he did have a job, but there was something in his calm determination that summer that had a powerful effect on us.  We really felt the uncertainty of the situation, of waiting for our lunch from someone who had never cooked before and his excitement on finding yet another zucchini.  It was the unexpected goodness of God during an unsteady future. 

My sister Linda planned to go back to college at Goshen in the fall.  When my dad filled out the financial aid forms that summer, he looked at the space provided for his occupation, and wrote “migrant worker.”   He didn’t know what to call the work he and Steve had done that summer to provide for the family. My sister did receive more financial aid that year and as a family we laughed about my dad’s new found title. To be honest, even though I’m sure my dad felt totally deflated by life, his sense of humor carried us through that time.

On one night we laughed so hard that we even shook our Ford Torino with our spasms of laughter.  We were at the Neshaminy service plaza on the PA turnpike meeting a bus for my sister Linda to take to the NY airport and then on to Germany for SST. The bus was very late, in fact 3–4 hours late, because it had broken down and the director had to get another bus in order to make the connecting flights.  It could have been a very unpleasant experience, but for some reason we laughed our way through it. Daddy was in rare form that night, talking in a dutchified voice and recalling silly family stories …and I don’t remember ever laughing so hard, before or since. It was a summer filled with many pleasant experiences, despite my dad being out of work, and one that shaped my values and surrounded them with humor. -BBM

Visiting the Farmlands of Danville
Written Summer 2009

I went to my sister Rhoda’s house yesterday to visit with my cousins, Dot and Dorcas.  Their father had recently passed away and our family had gone to his funeral. As we sat and talked that day, the memories of our childhood came flooding back.

Their father was my mom’s brother from Lansdale, but in the 1950s, he had taken his young family west to farm where the open space was more plentiful and the possibilities seemed endless. That frontier spirit and hard work ethic was intriguing to us. In our family there was always excitement around the phrase, “Let’s go visit Junie’s (short for Albert Junior).”  We picked up on our parent’s admiration of this family that had left the comforts of immediate family to make a go of it in an area rich with fertile soil and potential.  It was the closest our family came to Laura Ingalls Wilder and we relished it. 

Maybe it was the trip, the excitement of getting away for a day, or perhaps it was the tone of voice my dad used when he looked at Junie and Kathryn’s massive farm and the latest milking equipment.  Mom loved seeing her brother again, sharing the familiar glimpses of their former home life on Snyder Road, a farm life that provided for all of their needs even during the Great Depression and where they walked a mile to school each morning.  Going to see Junie was like going back in time for her and glimpsing a former way of life, filled with early morning milkings and late night egg sorting, but also of berry picking in the woods and the best tasting canned pork chops.

So, we went to Junie’s for the day and Uncle Junie and Aunt Kathryn were always gracious hosts.  We first got a tour of the barn and the milking operation and then the new machinery.  I sometimes went along on the tour to catch a glimpse of the reason why my dad had that impressed tone in his voice. My dad encouraged us to see everything, “Come along, Beverly, you want to see this!” When I tired of this tour, I went in the house to find the cousin that was closest to my age, Dottie Lou.  We usually got out the Barbies and I loved seeing all of her latest Barbie clothes.  I could hear from the other room, my sister Linda laughing with another Heebner cousin, Debbie.  They usually started their time together with a laughing spell—that was their greeting for each other, contagious laughter and giggles. If my brothers were along, they stayed mainly outside among the barn with our cousins, Dean and David, admiring their life on the farm. Soon they came in for dinner and it was usually a big spread at a long table, full of scrumptious mashed potatoes, gravy, beef or chicken, fresh and cooked vegetables, jello salad, and whoopee pies for dessert. 

It was in all of us that when things got rough, we escaped to the wholesome life of Danville where we felt rejuvenated by the open space and cleaner air.  Apparently, my brother, Steve, even thought he could ride his tricycle up to Junie’s one day when things got tough.  We lived on County Line Road in Souderton at the time, so a trip to Danville would have taken quite awhile, especially by tricycle. My mom tried to discourage the trip by telling him, he “may not make it.” But Steve replied with a confident, “Oh, I’ll pedal real fast!” I don’t think he got much farther than the end of the driveway, but he certainly wanted to glimpse the comfort of the farm life on that day. Many thanks to the Heebner family in Danville for leaving us with such a rich farm heritage.                                  -BBM

April 2, 2012- After returning from a weekend writer’s conference at Eastern Mennonite University,  I’ve decided  to take the plunge and start a blog. I’m on a writing journey to write a memoir, but I think I’ll start with using some pieces I’ve already published in a local newsletter, New Horizons.  This first one is about my mom. 

Having a 1960’s Career Mom
Written Fall 2011

My mom took on a part-time job when I was eight years old.  At the time, I disliked it very much, mostly because I was afraid of getting sick at school and there being no one able to pick me up.  I had to wait in the principal’s office quite a few times in my elementary years, which was embarrassing because it seemed like everyone else’s mom was able to drop things off quickly. Worse yet, during the “hot lunch” program of the winter months at Penn View Christian School when mothers brought lunches, I wished my mom had the flexibility in her schedule to bring a meal like everyone else’s mom.  I was keenly aware that I was different than most of my friends…their moms of course didn’t work outside the home.  In the summers, if my brother Steve was not available, it meant a note greeting me on the kitchen counter with a chore that needed to be accomplished and a time that my mom would be home again.

But now that I’m older I realize that my mom showed me at a young age that women are capable.  Through her example of getting a job outside the home, she showed me that women have intelligence and a skill set that enables them to not just be dependent on others.  She didn’t always think her feelings were taken into consideration in her close relationships, but she showed me that regardless of this, women could earn a living, balance a check book, and provide for their family.  She didn’t let her inexperience or self-defeating thoughts keep her down. 

Through my mom’s example, I began to see how a woman’s spirit could be challenged but not extinguished.  She showed me in a time when “female submission” was the lay of the land that a marriage could include open communication, disagreement, and compromise.  Many of these attributes, mom did not strive to teach me, but I see now that her unflappable determination as a woman and as a person with a right to be heard, made me the woman I am today. –BBM