When the family moved to Saskatchewan it had already begun to unravel, as families do. I had moved out in July ‘67, and before Les moved to join the family for Grade 12, we lived together in downtown Winnipeg for the ‘summer of love’ as some called it (hippie days, remember?). Loretta had left 4 months earlier when she had married Dave Kroeker from Saskatchewan. Then, at the end of the summer of ’67, she and Dave moved to Saskatchewan.
Our relationships with our younger siblings then depended either on correspondence or visits, which were not frequent. Nor did we use the ‘phone much. We had not grown up with one so were not used to doing much of that. But that was the way with all families in those days, especially when separated by geography, as we were now.
Later in life I realized that we were beginning to repeat the pattern of my father’s family of origin. They too had moved about and thus negatively affected relationships between especially younger members of the family. I was often aware of the lack of closeness between us and our parents after we left home and I think father just never had a model for how one related to adult kids as we think of it now. His father was also separated from him most of his adult life, except for visits, which might not even always have been annual, one way or the other.
Thinking again of our father’s instructions to us when our new mother arrived, I thought recently of his grandfather. He lost 4 wives and remarried in short order after the first 3. Perhaps my father had some knowledge of that which played into his quick remarriage. Mind you, his first marriage had been a rapid affair of some necessity too. He wanted to go back ‘north’ to complete his Conscientious Objector term during WW II, but as a United Church minister, not a teacher like his first two years. This seemed to require him to be married. He then came ‘south’ to visit his parents at Easter of 1945, at which time he met my mother. Their parents had become friends as grandfather Brandt had moved into the district to teach and Grandfather Enns (my mother’s father) was a school trustee. The twoyoung people discovered they had a mutual interest in missions. My maternal grandmother had been quite taken with my father and seemed to do her part to promote interaction between the two. Mother was 24 at the time and perhaps grandmother, who married at 19 (a common age in her time), thought she was getting on and needed a spouse. Anyway, some 5 weeks later they were married and 6 weeks after that they were headed back north as newlyweds.
As one grew older though, one begins to remember things more often. It seems to be natural thing that occurs with aging. There is more to our past life than our future. We began to share stories when we visited one another. Our youngest brother Tim, who had been 7 when mother died, wanted to learn more about her. To do so he made a movie with his video camera – a new thing in the 1980’s. He interviewed each of his siblings and our father. Viewing it recently (it is on-line here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv5wq713I08), I was surprised, given how things are now, how freely father spoke of his first wife, our mother. Tim even took the video to a film festival in Yorkton, SK, but I can’t remember if it placed in awards.
Anyway, in the fall of 1986, we had a family gathering at our sister Loretta’s farm in Englefeld, SK. It was actually in part a 22ndanniversary of our folks’ marriage, cake so decorated and all. Tim wanted to show his completed ‘Our Mother’ project to the rest of us so we all sat down to watch it. Suddenly our stepmother (I rarely use that term, unless to distinguish her from our biological mother in conversation or writing, because of the negative connotations it so often has) jumped up and ran crying to an upstairs bedroom, saying, “After all I’ve done for you, I’m still not your mother…” or words to that effect, with that meaning. We were all stunned. Father and Loretta followed her up to try to calm her and settle things down. The family gathering continued.
However, intended or not, we got a message: No more talking about your mother in front of this mother. Hence, the ‘chapter’ title. As I have sometimes said in later years, after becoming a child psychiatrist and learning more about families, there were no manuals for blended families, no guides in those days, as to how to deal with all of these issues affecting our families. So, we simply resorted to silence, except when in the company of one another, and sometimes our uncles and aunts, as long as Mom was not round (Speaking of identifiers, ‘Mom’ is often the term we use for our stepmother; the more respectful and formal ‘mother’ is more often reserved for our biological mother). Indeed, as we got older, on the occasion of getting together, or having contact in other forms, with kin and friends who had known our mother, we would sometimes outright ask them for their memories of our mother.
We learned we could not ask such at ‘home’ though. When something was said in conversation about Mom or mother, our stepmother sometimes misunderstood and her unhappiness if it was our biological mother who had been referred to was evident. The spirit persists though; one wants to know one’s story, where one came from. Too often even when talking to father in an attempt to learn about our shared past, sometimes looking at photo albums to help sort things out, as soon as mother was in earshot, it was time to close the photo album, to change the subject or be quiet.
Now, we five older siblings also have two half-siblings from this second marriage of our father's. So, in some ways, that complicates things even more. One does not want to negatively affect them and their impression of 'their' mother by talking of our mother, whom they know nothing or very little of, in front of them, or in correspondence including them. Just one more reason to keep quiet. Unfortunately, the eldest of the two, our brother Steven, has already pre-deceased the rest of us. He was the one who still lived near our parents, so his absence creates more pressure on all of us distant sibs (in more ways than one as you see now) to 'look after' our aging parents.
So, sadly, we five have accepted that the reality seems to be that there are many things about our past, about our mother, we will never know. We have learned to live with that, even though we wish it were otherwise.
How much different things could have been. My wife Anne and I have read the book “A Good House” by Canadian author Bonnie Burnard (I had to ‘google’ this to ‘remember’ it all as we no longer have the book, and there is a review here https://bevcurran.wordpress.com/2017/10/04/a-good-house-by-bonnie-bernard/). This is the story about where a stepmother comes into the picture but she is a wise woman. She knows that really, she has nothing to lose and everything to gain if she helps ‘her’ children keep the memory of their real mother alive. If only our stepmother had thought that way.
thanks for sharing!
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