About Mom – Part 2
So Sara Abrams gets off the train in Duluth, Minnesota in 1945 or 1946 after having spent several years on islands in the South Pacific as an Army nurse. Then what?
The story becomes a little odd to my mind because of the way she gets engaged to and marries my father, Paul Winer. To hear my mother tell it, my father’s mother Jennie Winer, “went around telling everyone that her son was marrying Sara Abrams”. That’s it? No love in bloom? How did he propose? Why didn’t she go back to New York City? I can’t answer any of these questions. Maybe she wanted to stay with family in Duluth? Maybe he was a stable Jewish guy who was a professional? No clue? But in March of 1946 or 1947 they were married.
July of 1949 I showed up. They both wanted children but it turned out she had something called a “tipped uterus” which made it very difficult for her to carry a child to term. She had two miscarriages before I was born and two after. That must have been very sad for them, but neither one talked about it and I never thought to ask – being one of those spoiled brat only children we’ve all heard about.
I’m really not sure about the power dynamic in their relationship, but I’m quite sure my mother was comfortable wearing the pants. And sometimes I think that was okay with my father too.
So it’s post war, the economy starts booming, next on the checklist turns out to be a house – they were living with my mother’s mother – which, honestly, couldn’t have been great. So they buy a two story, three bedroom one bathroom house with a basement at 2021 East 9th Street. Nothing fancy, but that’s where I grew up. The phone number is Randolph 4-4130. Strange how many of us Boomers remember our home phone numbers.
Duluth has an economic divide. Wealthier people live on the East side, poorer on the West. My high school had the not very imaginative name East High. Kids from the other schools (Central, Denfeld and Holy Rosary) called us “Cakes”, because we could afford to eat cake I suppose. Or maybe it’s the Marie Antoinette saying – let them eat cake. My dear friend Don, who went to Denfeld, will still call me Cake, when he wants to accuse me of being "uppity".
Next on the list is their own pharmacy, Paul’s Reliable Drugs, between first and second Avenue West on 1st Street. Evidently, they had this when I was young enough to need 24 hour care because my mother hired people to be with me during the day. I have no memory of any of them, but my mother had guilt about it.
My father was the pharmacist and my mother took over the cosmetics counter. There was one other person who worked at the cash register in the front and Don Pasek was the assistant pharmacist and bought the store when my parents retired in 1967 and we moved to Hollywood, Florida. My mother was one heck of a crackerjack saleswoman and got all into a company called Allercreme. Today you can only find it on EBay –and don’t use that stuff, it stopped production in the late 1980’s. Anyway, it was Texas Pharmaceuticals and it’s big thing – ahead of its time perhaps – was being hypoallergenic. She sold the heck out of that stuff, enough that I remember my parents were invited to visit the company and treated as quite the VIP's.
At home, Sara Winer had a tendency to revert from time to time, to 1st Lieutenant Abrams. She was in control! The bad news is she has a very stubborn daughter. But generally, what Sara wanted, Sara got. I learned how to make a bed using nurses corners and the bottom sheet had to have the majority of its length tucked under the head and torso because that’s where the body moves the most in sleep. The things you remember!
I also had to learn to play the piano. This was something very dear to my mother’s heart as she had so desperately wanted a piano as a child. Poor as my grandparents were, they got her one. But Terri, being given things her heart didn’t desire, wasn’t all that keen on practicing. And she was rebellious by nature along with being stubborn. The story goes that one day I got good and mad and kicked the piano. Maybe I was 8 or 9 years old. Mom walked over and kicked me. It was a shocker all right. Evidently, I never kicked the piano again, but I didn’t make much of an effort to practice either. Fast forward and one of the things I wanted very much after I got married was a piano. I still have that Baldwin spinet and I play some of the same music she played. She was a much better pianist. I make the same mistakes on the same pieces I made when I was 12. All classical. Oh yes, I am my mother’s daughter. I remember occasionally asking my husband what he’d like me to play. Invariably his answer was “softly and far, far away”. Ha, ha, very funny.
Another point I remember about her was her desire to be a vaudeville star. A showgirl I suspect, because she would occasionally enter a room (when it was just me there) as if she was entering a stage as a Flora Dora girl or some such. Skirt or apron in hand she’d flounce in humming or singing some tune. I was, a. annoyed and b. embarrassed. MOTHER! Sheesh. In retrospect, it’s so adorable.
After some years, my parents would take the entire month of March as a holiday. The store operated without them and they drove (the Buick Le Sabre) to Miami Beach to the strip of small motels. For the first year or two of this, I was looked after by my mother’s mother. Then for a couple years they took me out of school and I brought a month’s worth of schoolwork with me. I did some of it – but - lazy student here. But then they decided that I could be left home alone. I had done an excellent job of pulling the wool over their eyes and had convinced them that I was trustworthy and could take care of myself. This was partly true until I was 16 and had a learner’s permit. What I learned about myself is that I can be quite devious. At this time they had two cars. My mother had a Buick Skylark. Do you know, that if you put in the key, turn the ignition to ALT, you can then pull out the key and as long as you don’t turn the ignition all the way back to OFF, the car can be used just as if you have the key? So Terri had a car for the entire month of March and could drive herself and her friend Susie to school daily instead of walking and even went to a concert, after which there was a terrible blizzard and it was simply dumb luck we were able to get home, put the car in the garage and the snow covered up the fact that the car had been used at all. I told her all about it 20 years later. She was very annoyed. Ha ha.
Beginning in 1967, she and my father moved to Hollywood, Florida 3501 Jackson St, Apt 402. I attended the University of Miami. As the years passed, my focus became myself, then a boyfriend I acquired, Jan Roher by name who I married in 1973. So the comings and goings of Sara and Paul became very much background noise.
During the winter they spent time with friends they made in Florida and in the summer they drove to “the cabin”. Then came stories of the bears in the yard: rolling the heavy steel garbage burning drum like a circus performer, getting a paw stuck in the top of the drum and waving it around in the air until he was
Another famous story involves not only a bear but includes a favorite cabin activity, raspberry picking. She would pick gallons of berries, turn them into jam and sauce, put them in jars and drive them back to Florida. If you’ve never had wild northern raspberries, they resemble store bought in color only. In size, they’re about a third of cultivated, and in flavor, at least 5 times more flavorful. So, one hot and sunny, probably August, day, Sara and Kathy Babcock, who lived down the road but not on the lake – but who also been a nurse – decide to go berry picking at a nearby gravel pit. The picking is good and they wander farther and farther from each other. In the meantime, it’s also getting hotter and hotter and my mother removes her blouse. Suddenly, Kathy screeches, “Sara, a bear!”. My mother’s reaction was to drop her bucket and cover her bosom – she was wearing a bra. The bear left and mom and Kathy were left breathless with laughter. I’ve heard all these stories so many times.
Eventually, in her late 70’s, mom felt she was no longer able to make the trip. Neither she nor my father were accustomed to air travel and she had begun to show signs of dementia. The last year they were there together was 1993. They returned to their Florida apartment and I spent more time there as the years went on and I realized she was becoming less and less able to care for both of them. In 1998 she began having abdominal pain that she ascribed to the fact that she had drunk a free sample of Diet Pepsi from a vendor at Publix. Turned out to be cancer, of course. The surgeon operated, realized it was too advanced and closed the incision. By luck, there was an empty apartment on the same floor as my parents that the administration allowed me to rent by the month. I contracted both Hospice and a home health care agency, so she had care around the clock. Whatever medications she was given were great as she didn’t seem to be in any pain. She enjoyed seeing friends who visited. My father was just down the hall, although it was hard on him. And she passed away quite peacefully two weeks later.
My memories of her are quite strong. She was amazingly loving to me – her only precious child – but she wanted me to take after her in ways that weren’t natural to me. I was very introverted, tended to be chubby, then overweight, then obese and her disapproval made me angry and resentful. I didn’t care for science and I’m sure that was a disappointment. But I did give her the grandchild she desperately wanted.
Many things now in my house were hers. Some I like, some I simply can’t seem to part with. Turns out I have her adventurous spirit, her positive and loving nature and the same desperation for grandchildren – thank heaven for twins!
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