My mother died in
November, 2014 but I think of her every time I step into the guest room where
I’ve displayed her “This is Your Life” quilt.
My sister and I made the quilt for my mother’s 70th
birthday. Each of the 30 blocks depict
an important milestone, accomplishment or talent.
When my father turned 70,
we gave him an album full of letters, cards, photos and small memorabilia from
grade school classmates, former co-workers, friends and family. My father was surprised and touched to hear
from so many people that he had not seen in years. We also prepared a similar book for my uncle
for his 80th birthday.
As my mother’s 70th
birthday was approaching, my sister Monica and I felt like we had “been there,
done that” with the book of memories. We
wanted something that truly reflected our mother’s love of home and
family. Many long-distance calls later
(Monica lives in Oklahoma), we had a brilliant idea—a quilt! Ma Bell made a fortune (this was 1992, so no
cell phones) as we discussed the important events in our mother’s life and how
to represent them with fabric and thread.
We mailed design ideas
back and forth and decided how to get the job done in the nine months before
our mother’s February birthday. At the
time, Monica’s triplet boys were three years old so she did more of the
artistry and design while I made most of the squares. I carried squares everywhere, stitching and
embroidering at PTA meetings, gymnastics practices and meets, and summer swim
meets (pausing only to cheer when Jillian and Brendan were swimming).
By fall, we had 30
completed squares. I felt entirely
capable of sewing the squares together to create the quilt top. And I even added a layer of batting and sewed
the top and the back fabric together.
But the thought of the hours and hours and thousands of tiny stitches
needed to do the actual quilting was daunting.
I found a shop in Ellicott City, Maryland that did machine quilting and
with a huge sigh of relief, gave them the “raw” quilt and $300 (money well
spent, I might add).
A month later, I picked
up a beautifully stitched finished quilt.
We threw a big 70th birthday party and presented our gift
made with so much love. Mom was
thrilled! Her life was simple—focused on
home and family--but seeing all her talents and accomplishments reflected in
the quilt gave her such a sense of pride.
So without further ado,
let me take you on a tour of Hattie Evelyn Longen’s life starting at the top
left and proceeding (somewhat) chronologically.
My
mother was born on February 5, 1922 in Churchland, North Carolina. She was
named after her father’s youngest sister, Hattie, who had died 14 years earlier
at age 12 from peritonitis.
Hugh
Leroy and Minnie Lassiter Greene were my mother’s parents. Their oldest child, Bernice Nadine was born
on November 27, 1920. My mother followed
two years later. Her sister, Alma Leigh
was born January 29, 1925 and the only boy, Hugh Elzie arrived on August 7,
1928.
My
mother was raised on a small farm. Her
father was a no-nonsense man who didn’t “cotton” to leisure or laziness. The children were expected to rise early and
do their farm chores, including slopping the hogs, milking the cow, tending the
garden or my mother’s least favorite task, killing a chicken for dinner. My mother flatly refused to continue doing
that chore after she swung the ax at a chicken and only partially severed the
neck. The chicken apparently continued
to run around the yard with its head at a sickening angle. Chicken killing was henceforth done by one of
her siblings or my grandfather. (We
opted not to remind my mother of her failure as executioner by putting a cow
and milking stool on the square rather than a chicken!)
In 1943, at the age of 21, my mother joined the Army. She saw it as her ticket out of rural life
and working at the textile mills in Yadkin, North Carolina. She completed her basic training in Florida
(all our lives we heard how much she hated Florida because of the temperatures
and large and very persistent mosquito population).
F
F
ollowing
basic training, my mother was selected for a special assignment. She spent nine weeks at Camp Crowder,
Missouri, for training in cryptography and then was sent to the Pentagon. She was a Signal Corp cryptographer, encoding
and decoding top secret messages during World War II. Post-war she was transferred to the State
Department. When
my father was discharged from the Army, he also worked as a decoder at the
State Department. I’ll take a moment
away from my mother’s story to tell you about my father’s brush with
history. My father was working at the
State Department as a cryptographer in 1941.
On December 7, my father received a fateful message. “Of all things,” he said, “It came from
London.” The message said that Pearl
Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese.
His supervisor grabbed the message out of my father’s hand and ran with
it to the Secretary of State who was minutes away from meeting with the
Japanese ambassador. The Secretary
called the ambassador and his entourage some unprintable names and kicked them
out of his office. According to David
Brinkley in Washington Goes to War,
“They ran awkwardly down the corridors trying to escape the press and the
photographers.” It’s a good thing for
history that my dad was an efficient cryptographer and his boss could run
fast.
So now
back to my mother’s life. In 1946, my
mother was working as a cryptographer at the State Department. She worked days and my father worked nights. One
day, however, my father and a friend took the night off to attend a
ballgame. He jumped on the streetcar and
there was a beautiful and stylish woman who would one day be my mother. As kids, we always jokingly referred to their
meeting on the “Streetcar Named Desire."
Hattie
Evelyn Greene and Edmund Herman Longen were married in a small Catholic
ceremony on November 13, 1947. Because
my mother had not yet converted to Catholicism, they were only allowed to be
married in the rectory at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, DC.
After their marriage, my parents lived in an apartment on P Street NW. They saved diligently and were able to build their dream home in Takoma Park, MD. They lived there for 45 years and it was their pride and joy.
One
year after their move to Takoma Park, their first child was born—a 7 lb. 14 oz.
baby girl! Monica Louise Longen was
born on May 8, 1952.
Three
years after Monica’s birth, another baby girl.
I was born December 28, 1955.
When
I was five years old, a neighbor brought home two mixed Chihuahua puppies. We took one and named him Little Bub after a
famous racehorse (yes, my sister and I were very into horses at a young age). Bub adored my mother. In the rare moments when my mother sat down
to rest or watch TV, Bub was always in her arms.
My
mother had many talents. She was a very
accomplished seamstress who spent hours hunched over her Singer. She loved stylish clothes and made most of
her own clothes, adjusting patterns here and there to make outfits that fit her
perfectly.
Every
year, Mom made Monica and I matching dresses for Christmas, Easter or other
special occasions. We went to church or
family events beautifully attired in our matching homemade dresses and patent
leather shoes.
Monica
and I took several years of ballet and my mother made beautiful tutus for us,
as well as our recital costumes. We
treated our parents to a number of special ballet performances in the
basement. One Christmas, my mother made
us “evening dresses.” They were long
satiny gowns with plenty of sequins. We
were the belles of many a fictitious ball.
In
addition to her talents as a seamstress, my mother was a fabulous cook. One Easter we rushed to find our baskets and
there on the table was a large rabbit.
Even better, it was a coconut cake made to look like a rabbit. My mother was creating fancy cakes long
before all those baking shows elevated cake decorating to an art.
Mmmm. We all loved “Mamo cookies.” At Christmas, Mom would bake a dozen
different kinds. We all had our
favorites— Monica was partial to the date nut cookies and I loved the Mexican
wedding cookies (the local organic food store carries a gluten-free version and
I’m helpless to resist.) My poor Dad
watched as we savored each kind of cookie.
He was a diabetic and couldn’t enjoy the holiday treats. And pies!!
My mother made the most amazing strawberry pie. I couldn’t wait for strawberry season every
year. Of course, her pie dough was made
from scratch. She patiently taught me
all the secrets to great pie crust, but I confess I look to Pillsbury on those
rare occasions when I make a pie.
My
mother’s love of her home was reflected in her beautiful gardens. She worked nonstop from spring to fall to
plant, prune and fertilize her flowers. In
the spring, the yard was a riot of color from azaleas, tulips, and other
flowers. She was never satisfied and was
always moving plants to find just the right look and location. I inherited her love of gardening though now
I focus more on maintaining seven acres and slowly (emphasis on slowly) restoring the garden areas around the house.
This poem by Vernon G. Baker felt like the perfect description of the safety and security we felt growing up.
In
1972, my parents purchased a vacation home on the Outer Banks, North Carolina
for the whopping price of $18,000! Like
their Takoma Park house, my parents loved house projects—improving the porch so
the screens didn’t blow out as often in the heavy storms and building a
workshop by closing in an area under the house (it was built on pilings). We enjoyed many family vacations there and my
children grew up loving time with “Mamo” and “Papo” at the beach.
One
summer when I was 15, a small black cat wandered into my friend Wendy’s
yard. The cat was living in the sewer
and would come out whenever Wendy and I were outside. I started leaving food outside for the cat. When it was clear she was going to stick
around, my father decided to build her a “cat house.” In his usual thorough and patient manner, he
included a window and insulated it to keep “Samantha” warm. The cat went in it once and decided that she
much preferred to live in our house. She
stayed with my parents until her death at the approximate age of 13.
Among
my mother’s many talents was furniture refinishing and finding a bargain. She loved to go to yard sales and score the
perfect find. One of her favorites was a
drop-leaf Queen Anne table for $10. Sh
e
refinished it into a stunning piece.
My
sister, Monica married George Knudsen on February 13, 1982. They had a small wedding at the University of
Maryland Chapel and were married by a family friend, Father Regis Ryan.
My parents took up ballroom dancing in anticipation of my wedding in 1983. They met new friends and continued to take
classes for many years. I always enjoyed
watching them dance.
I married Doug Lipton on June 4, 1983. My
mother’s gift for creating beautiful garments was evident in the wedding dress
she made for me. She spent nine months
designing and making the dress and sewing thousands of pearls on the gown.
Grandchild #1—Jillian Bernice Lipton arrived on
August 20, 1987. Jillian’s middle name
is in honor of my mother’s sister, Bernice who died in a car accident in
1984.
My
mother complained for years that Monica and her husband were never going to
have children. Imagine our surprise
then, when Monica announced that she was pregnant—with triplets!! My parents went from one grandchild to four on
November 22, 1988, when we welcomed the Knudsen boys:
Thomas
Edmund – Tom is named after John Thomas Knudsen, George’s oldest brother and Edmund
for our father. He is much like our Dad in personality and outlook on life.
Eric
Peder – Eric’s middle name is from Geor Eric Peder – Eric’s middle name is from George’s grandfather’s name, with the Danish spelling.ge’s grandfather’s name, with the Danish
spelling.
Michael
Don—Mike’s middle name is for George’s Uncle Don who was killed in the Battle
of the Bulge, January 1945 in World War II at age 28.
In
1991, another grandson was born. Brendan
Avery Lipton arrived on June 24, 1991. We had intended to name him Scott but when he
arrived, we said, “he just doesn’t look like a Scott.” We debated names for hours while I recovered
in the hospital. Finally, when he was
three days old, we decided on his name.
Avery is in honor of my father-in-law, Alfred. In the Jewish faith, you cannot name a baby
after a living relative but you can use the first letter of their name.
Happy 70th birthday, Mom. We love and
miss you!
Two years after we completed my mother’s 70th
birthday quilt, Monica gave birth to Arla Elizabeth Knudsen on May 2, 1994. Monica made a pillow with Arla’s name and
birthdate to go with my mother’s quilt. Arla left Oklahoma behind to attend the
Fashion Institute of Technology. She
graduated in May and will remain a “dyed-in-the-wool” New Yorker. A photo of the pillow is forthcoming. My sister is having her house painted and
can’t get to the pillow in all the upheaval.
