Bored, Part three

Mother Paul sighed a deep sigh. The circumstance was extraordinary and left her in a conundrum. Having co-founded and managed the senior facility for many years, running a tight ship, she was unaccustomed to suggestions and propositions outside of the order of her organization. While she personally was fascinated by Leta’s offer to teach a sewing class to other residents and wanted to observe the older woman’s handiwork, she could not offend the three women who had been teaching sewing crafts to the residents for some time. She paused a few moments. Leta waited patiently. Then an idea struck her. She quickly worked it out in her head and then spoke:

“How about this, Leta? I will tell Miss Stacey that you should have free reign at the materials in the craft room, and I’d like for you to make for us a couple of samples of the doll you’re talking about. Then we can use your samples to propose a specific class for our residents on how to make them?”

Paul was pleased with her offer. She felt very diplomatic. If Leta was good as her word, and Paul had little reason to doubt her, then the current teachers would gladly welcome her into the fold. They were very sensitive craftswomen and rather selfish in their ideology that because they were willing to share their skills, although minimal, the home, order and residents should be very, very grateful. Any question was received as a criticism and highly disrespectful.

Leta was completely pleased with Paul’s suggestion, but her own common sense reminded her that she had yet to prove herself, and although she was confident in her ability to sew and teach, the good sister had no experience of it.

“Yes,” she agreed finally. “That will be fine.”

“Very well, then,” Paul concluded. “I will speak to Stacey this afternoon, and you can start tomorrow.”

The next morning, Leta reported to the craft room, where a rather suspicious and patronizing Stacey Warzyowski showed her the fabric closet, thread and other supplies.

Truthfully, Leta had no idea what she was going to make. Under the volunteer’s watchful eye, she surveyed the materials. There was quite a bit of red yard which someone had thrown onto a pile of cream-colored muslin. Leta was holding several yards of green gingham when she noticed it and quickly put the three items together.

While she hated to have the volunteer watching her every move, Leta gathered the several other materials she would need for one of the projects she was creating.

“Are you going to make your things here, or--?” Stacey inquired.

“I think I’ll take the materials back to my room, if you don’t mind,” Leta answered. “I need to create the pattern and have quite a bit of sewing to do. I’ll be able to work on my own time and not interfere with whatever you were planning for the day.”

The woman grimaced, and Leta could sense that a quiet plan to undermine her had been squelched. Once her bag was full, Leta thanked the woman politely and returned to her room. By this time, she knew exactly what she was going to make.

The next afternoon she presented two exquisitely constructed rag dolls, modeled on Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, to Mother Paul. While the nun expected that the project would be successful, she was completely unprepared for the sheer beauty of the dolls.

“Leta,” the nun gushed, “these are incredible!”

“Thank you,” Leta answered. “The materials weren’t perfect, but I made them work.”

“And you would be willing to teach others how to make them?”

“Absolutely. I figure five or so of us gals would make at least a hundred between now and Thanksgiving.”

This final announcement made Paul’s heart beat a minute. She was a businesswoman, and as executive director, was responsible for ensuring that the home had enough money to function. A bin of such dolls would bring in quite a bit of much needed cash to the home.

“Very well,” Paul said decisively. “Let’s go talk to Miss Stacey.

These first two dolls went to my sister, Leta’s oldest great-granddaughter. Over the next many years, she made hundreds of dolls, even creating several different, and taught dozens of women how to make them.

Bored, part two

Mother Paul, the director of the Sacred Heart Home where Leta had recently relocated, was a stern, but benign woman. Her family, of German stock, had turned her over to the order when she was a small girl. Having come to the United States with sixteen children and another on the way, they couldn’t afford to keep four of them—she and an older sister became nuns, one brother a priest and the other a Jesuit. Her birth name was Claudia, but no one had called her that in years. She took the name Paul, partly because of her fierce devotion to the Apostle, and partly because thirteen other young ladies who took their vows with her gobbled up the various Marys.

Paul suited her. She was a superb manager with a firm sense of the Gospel. With her staff and subordinates, she would broach no shenanigans, as she called them. With the residents, however, she fulfilled every word of the mission of her order—compassionate understanding for seniors. All of her ladies, she declared, were her grandmothers. Most giggled pleasantly at the thought and loved the pampering.

When Leta strode confidently into her office that morning, Paul was startled.

“I have an offer,” Leta said. As nearly everyone who charged into her office with such a demeanor wanted something, such statements were rare.

“Good morning, Leta,” Paul said with a smile, curiosity burning in her for the first time in she couldn’t say how long. “What can I do for you today? Please, sit down.”

Leta sat and looked the other woman right in the eye.

“I’ve been looking at the craft classes and work being sold in the store,” Leta said.

“Yes, we get a little revenue here from the sales. At Christmas, we have a large fair.” Paul noted. “Were you thinking of taking a class?”

Leta laughed her brusque, rough laugh. “Take a class? Mother Paul, I’m offering to teach one!”

“Teach?!?”

Paul failed to conceal her astonishment. While she knew that as younger women, many of her residents employed a variety of talents in many different ways, none had ever offered them in service to the organization. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Margo Foster often played piano in the lounge, and for the most part her playing was passable, and of course, many of the residents took the classes and made crafts to be sold in their boutique. But Leta’s proposition was entirely different and completely unexpected.

Leta held up one of the dolls. “Have you ever looked at what we’re selling in our craft shop?” she asked the executive director. “I would be embarrassed to sell this. It’s just a bunch of rags.”

“It is a rag doll,” Paul noted.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Leta snapped. “A two-year-old could pull this apart in seconds. But before that, who would even want one? None of the fabric matches, and it looks deformed.”

“I’m sure someone worked very hard on this,” Paul said protectively.

“I don’t disagree with you on that,” Lea said, “but don’t you think it would be better to have something that someone would want to buy? Something that a little girl would want to play with? Something that would last?”

Paul was stumped, but instead of nodding her head in her agreement, she posited a question.

“And how do you propose we do that?” she asked.

“Let me teach a sewing class,” Leta answered decisively.

To be continued.

Bored, part one

After nearly two months in the nursing home, Leta became restless. The food was acceptable, the attending sisters pleasant, the priest friendly (even though she wasn’t Roman Catholic), the common areas clean and well-kept and her bed comfortable. While walking the floors and through the garden every day provided some exercise, she needed something productive to do. She was only 78 years old, and although she knew her health wasn’t going to remain strong forever, she also wasn’t about to lie down and wait for the grim reaper.

Her boredom became apparent one Monday afternoon when her roommate Gladys returned from her eighth hair appointment since Leta moved in. The woman, only 70, had been a resident for two years now. As she had developed severe Depression living on her own, Gladys had moved in for the round-the-clock observation. She was pleasant enough, and the two of them became friendly. However, Gladys spent hours watching television in the main lounge, which Leta had no interest in. And more significantly, on that Monday afternoon, when Gladys trooped into their room with an excited flush to share with Leta her revised hairdo—which Leta thought looked exactly like the previous seven—Leta knew that getting her hair styled could not be the highlight of her week.

In fact, she didn’t even know where the hair salon was in the building, since she had no need for it. Her daughter took her bi-weekly to the same hairdresser she had been using since her husband died nearly ten years earlier. But Leta was more curious about the tangled mess of fabric Gladys called a rag doll. The other woman didn’t have this when she left earlier in the afternoon.

“Oh, Leta,” Gladys said with a knowing sigh, “you are so sheltered. The home has a craftshop right next to the beauty parlor. Everything there is made by old folks like us. Haven’t you read any of the bulletin boards? They have classes all the time.”

“Taught by whom?” Leta inquired, examining the doll with a grimace.  She could tell almost immediately that the construction was loose and the stitching liable to unravel.

“I don’t know,” Gladys answered. “Some ladies from St. Ignatius or one of the sisters, I guess.”

The next morning, Leta marched into Mother Paul’s office. Mother Paul was the executive director of the center, one of the Little Sisters of the Poor, the order that owned and managed the residence. She had armed herself previously with the bulletin announcements of classes and three samples of shoddy sewing from the craft shop.

“Mother Paul,” she said decisively. “I have an offer!”

To Be Continued.

Mama takes ill

Everything was finished. What remained of Julia Ann Snyder Scott’s life was now distributed among four of her six children.  The other two lived so far away that they could not attend the funeral or fulfill any of the other responsibilities associated with the death of a parent. Julia never had much, but upon her passing, they had to sort through it, divide it and donate what might be useful to someone.

The family did decide to have an Easter dinner that year, although for the life of her Leta couldn’t figure out why her sisters were so insistent. Maybe, she considered, they felt some guilt at their lack of availability during their mother’s final weeks. Leta had born much of the responsibility, even going so far as to host their mother’s wake at her home.

Julia took ill right after the beginning of the new year. The cold she had at Christmas developed into pneumonia, which her frail body could not shake. Throughout January, Leta found herself at her mother’s apartment daily—bringing soup, cleaning, talking to the doctor and making sure that during the illness her mother was as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

Twice Julia felt better, but then she relapsed. During the first week of March, the cold advanced into pneumonia, which developed into severe sepsis. Her breathing became labored, and one morning, the doctor directed Leta to take her mother to the hospital, where she could have more thorough and constant care. She passed on March 17, 1924 at 8:25 p.m., and was buried on the twentieth.

Over the subsequent three weeks, she and her sisters sorted through their mother’s belongings. She lived in a small apartment, so there was no house to sell. As the men took the last pieces of furniture away, Leta stood with her sisters Louise and Nellie, all of them shedding light tears at the finality of it.

With a large sniff, Louise said, “So we’ll all meet at my house at two for Easter dinner.”

“Yes,” Nellie agreed. After a long pause, she spoke again. “Leta?”

“Aaron will be with us, too,” Leta finally answered.

It was the last time the children of Julia Ann Snyder Scott would have a holiday meal together.