Thanks to Grandma Mamie, our Mother’s Day tradition began back in the 1920’s. As the oldest of the twelve children in her family, my maternal grandmother married Michael Springer, one of the boarders in her family’s home back in Calumet, Michigan, in 1911. Over the next years, they had five young ones of their own. Some time during the 1920’s, Grandma Mamie, having since moved across country to San Francisco with husband and children, gathered all of her local married siblings and their families for a Mother’s Day picnic in Golden Gate Park. Apparently, this springtime family event was a big hit; Grandma’s four young daughters (her one son sadly passed away at the age of 5 due to complications from chickenpox) and her siblings’ families went on to celebrate Mother’s Day together for many years thereafter.
Fast forward to my memories starting in 1947. Mother’s Day was one of the happiest days of the year for me. On this special Sunday in May, our family (Mom, Dad, yours truly and four little brothers) would pile into a hot and stuffy station wagon and roll northward up the highway from the San Francisco Bay Area. Driving along bumpy country roads in the direction of our final destination – what we fondly referred to as The Country – we five children endured the nauseating smoke wafting about our heads from Dad’s unfiltered Lucky Strikes, in addition to the elbow poking sibling rivalry back-of-the-station-wagon drama we enacted. Knowing that the Mother’s Day celebration and a gaggle of cousins was the gold at the end of the journey made the cramped, stinky ride almost palatable. In actuality, “The Country" was several acres of land owned by my favorite Aunt and Uncle –my mother’s sister Marie and her beloved Joseph. To add to the banjo-strumming genetic mix of our family, Uncle Joe was my father’s father’s brother; he was both my Uncle AND my Great Uncle. But that’s almost too much to wrap your brain around, so let’s move on.
Joy leapt in my heart and butterflies fluttered in my stomach as our brown boat of a station wagon lumbered off the narrow country road onto Marie and Joe’s property. There to the left of the pea gravel driveway stood the huge Monkey Tail tree to greet us; the only Monkey Tail tree I knew of back then, which fact still stands to this day. Coming into view next around the 20 foot majesty of this tree, Joe and Marie’s sweet, white bungalow came into view, along with a couple of creaky outbuildings used for storage of tools, equipment and sleepy children! You see, one of these old outbuildings, measuring maybe 15’ x 20’, was converted into sleeping quarters for our overnights with the cousins. Four beds, one tucked into each corner of the room, were the safe harbor for exhausted kiddos at the end of a hard day of play and exploration. This particular structure, named The Last Resort, was a great place to park the kids. We could make as much noise and stay up as late as our tired eyeballs would allow and the adults wouldn’t be disturbed by the ruckus. The Last Resort was a good deal all around.
Further back on the property stood three large, weathered barns and an old, abandoned chicken coop (which coop my “bestest" cousin and I transformed into our own special playhouse). In my mind, what I viewed next at the back of the property was best: seemingly endless expanses of acres (which I now know numbered 3) striped with neat rows of apple orchard. Gravenstein to be exact. And beyond the apple orchards lay undulating acres thick with bright orange poppies, eye-popping yellow mustard blossoms, and deep purple wild iris, all scattered amongst a backdrop of bright green field grasses.
Given the quantities of pollen riding on springtime zephyrs, my experiences in The Country were often etched with sneeze fests and red, itchy eyes. Yet, truth be told, the heart expanding joy of gathering with my large, extended family, of which we cousins numbered 15, far outweighed pollens’ irritations. I’d simply get lost in the play and make believe of the moment. Any periodic sneezing was absolutely secondary to the bliss of Mother’s Day playtime in the fields and orchards. In fact, my memories of these halcyon days are most exalted as I recall being in the company of my one closest and dearest cousins appropriately named “Weedy". She, my favorite playmate and partner in crime, was just a bit older than I, so she took most of the blame for any mischief we managed to conjure up. Dear Weedy, I love you still. Thanks for watching my back.
It does indeed take a community to raise a child and to form the best memories ever. Now, as I am enjoying the fruits of Grandmotherhood, the baton has been passed from my parents’ generation to mine. This year, once again, my daughters’ little ones, their parents and their cousins will drive up from the San Francisco Bay Area to Sebastopol. Although Marie and Joe AND their fabulous property are no longer with the family (and furthermore, I announce with deep sorrow that the orchards have been cleared by the new owners of that magical acreage to make way for vineyard planting), Marie and Joe’s son, Michael, owns a nice piece of land further down that same country road that we have traveled over for years. And like generations before him, each year Michael and his wife host our traditional Mother’s Day gathering of adults, children and children’s children.
Fun, Food and, especially, Family prevail as new memories blossom among the Mother’s Day wildflowers in The Country. Thank you, Grandma Mamie.
Cathleen Springer is a Certified Homeopath who lives and works in Sonoma County, CA. Her new website offering Homeopathy Teleseminar Training at www.cathleenspringer.com is due to launch soon.
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