Jessie

I work for a woman who was born in 1912. Her name is Jessie and she's an "little Catholic Italian lady." Talking to Jessie is like talking to a piece of History. She has an amazing memory. She tells wonderful vivid stories; painting a picture for me of the world she lived in. I have been doing chores for her in the evenings since early June. Now that the summer is almost over I thought you would like to hear some stories from this amazing little old lady who has lived through so much. I'll try to reproduce her way of talking. That will be very difficult cause it's her inflection that does it.

Her father ran a restaurant.
"We didn't have a bathroom in the building. There was one of those out houses; little wooden shed sort of... There was a mean old rooster... He wouldn't let me by to use the out house! I was so afraid of him; he was bigger than me! Well, I was just a little thing... three or four."
"You know, they hadn't invented things like the... freezer. We had a..." -- gestures vaguely with her frail arms -- "We called it an ice box. The ice man would come every morning in a wagon and give us our ice."
Me: "How did they make the ice back then, Jessie?"
--Long pause-- "I don't know! I guess they must have... I don't know!"
Her father lost his eye sight when Jessie was still a young girl. She told me how it happened once but I've already forgotten. Her mother took over the management of the restaurant. It was hard on her father to have his wife running the business but there was a nice German man who lived near by and kept him company sometimes; reading to him and talking. "He was a Darling Man! He had five girls, but they were all grown up. He made the best dandelion wine."
"I wonder how my mother did it; with my brother still nursing and us in school. That wasn't normal in those days; having a woman working like that." There sure are a lot of strong, intelligent women in Jessie's family. Her grandmother, she told me on an other occasion, also defied social norms by running her husbands grocery store while he was working on the railroad.

Jessie grew up and lived most of her life here in my home town and even in my neighborhood. She had watched it grow and change SO much over the years. She showed me an old print of the street where her family restaurant was. It's the same corner I drive by every week when I go to the library but it's not recognizable at all. The photo is of a parade. There are two horse drawn, circus style wagons all brightly painted (you can tell, despite the vague black and white shapes that portray them) and Jessie says there are lions inside. There is a park now where her family business used to be. Either that or a parking lot. I'm not even sure what side of the street it was on. I'm so thankful that my city has persevered some of it's older buildings. I love to hear stories about places I can still visit.
"My brother worked at the Davenport hotel. He cleaned the change." (Puzzled look from Karen) "When you got change from the Davenport it was all shiny and new looking. Cause they washed it down in the basement. I used to always give them my dirty change. I would go there for lunch. When I really wanted a treat there was a tea room upstairs. I loved to go up there and see all the lights and fancy things. I would have (name of some food I'd never heard of.) They don't make things like that any more. Has your mother ever made you that?" No.

There is a very old cook book in her pantry. She told me it was older than her. Then we looked at the copy right date and it was the year she was married but that still makes it pretty darn old. There are lots of strange recipes that I have never tasted. Some of them sound better than others. Jessie loves to cook and has her own way of doing everything. She knew her old stove like a good friend but this new one cooks things too hot and fast so she uses a hanger between the burner and her pot when she makes oatmeal.

She remembers her excitement the first time she got to vote. That boggles my mind. She was not one of the first women to vote but she was eight when the nineteenth amendment passed. So it was still a pretty new thing by the time she was old enough. WOW.

She has all sorts of old furniture in her little house. I get to polish the wood with home make furniture polish once in a while. There are also mirrors to clean with home made cleaner. There is a vacuum cleaner that must be from the fifties which we use for many things including getting dust out of the air. One day she asked me to vacuum some picture frames for her. "And be careful," she cautioned me. "those are about a hundred years old." I wish she wouldn't tell me things like that. I have found after moving around her tiny kitchen and her small house in general that I tend to bump into more things that I should. The china cupboard rattles and I hold my breath. Jessie is so hard of hearing that she doesn't notice but that doesn't make it any better for me.

There are a long list of ailments that Jessie must be careful of. She is always very cheerful about them. But it dose bother her when people make things more difficult than she thinks they ought to be.
"Now see this?" She hands me an empty cardboard box which had an eye drops in it recently. "Look in there." I oblige, not sure what I'm looking for. "There's a coupon printed in there! Now why would they hide it in a place like that. I've been throwing those boxes out. Well, I won't anymore. I could get a dollar off! They just raised the price three dollars. Now, that's a lot of money! Listen to me; three dollars is a lot of money. Well, it is. A penny is a lot of money. I always pick up a penny when I see one on the ground. I'll regret leaving it one day. When your a little old lady like me everything counts."
The next day:
"I called Safe Way and asked them why they took the price of my eye drops up three dollars. The young lady I talked to was very nice --her grandmother was Italian-- but they had to jack the price cause the company they buy it from did. So I called the company. I had to call someone else and I ended up calling a girl in Arizona. She said there is some marketing manager who took the price up. I told her to leave a message for him from me. Tell him, I said, that he ought to think about what he's doing to people. Old people have to get what they need and three dollars gets to be a lot of money. Maybe he should rethink his life a little. I bet they pay him a pretty penny. He doesn't need an extra three dollars but it's a big chunk to some of us."
I guess in the world where Jessie was born, people called each other up like that. You could just ask a business man to rethink his life if he jacked the price on something you needed. I pity the people she talked to that day. But, at the same time, I am glad she called. I hope that guy did rethink his life.

Everything does seem simpler back then. People seem friendlier.
"You know those lines they have all the way down the side walks? I don't know if they do it now. You'd go over them and your skates would go 'clicketty-clack clicketty-clack.' We would roller skate to (very specific street address that probably doesn't exist anymore) where they had that museum. There were all sorts of artifacts in there. We loved to look at them and there was a brother. He was a Jesuit brother, he always wore his habit and all. He was the door keeper. He was a darling man, his name was.... I can't remember his first name. I should go to the archives and look that up. I can't go, I'll have to send someone. He was a hunchback. He was a little shorter than me. Of course, I've lost two inches since then. We would go and ring the bell and after a little while he would come and open it with a big smile." (in her 'little kid' voice) "'Mr. (name) can we see your... Museum?' and he would always go around with us. I don't remember an elevator. We climbed up four flights of stairs. You read about door keepers in books. That's what he was; the door keeper."

Jessies faith is very important to her. For years I would see her in the pews at my home parish. "I'm as old as that church. It was dedicated in 1912 in October and I was born that year in October. They're not getting rid of me. They'll have to carry me out feet first. I think they ought to let me have a say in things."
Whether or not someone is Catholic and practicing always comes up when she describes anyone. (The other thing that gets mentioned is any Italian blood in the family.) Her among her favorite Saints is St. Frances Cabbrini, better known as Mother Cabrini, an Italian lady who immigrated to the United States and founded many hospitals, orphanages and churches including the parish my family currently attends. Mother Cabrini eat dinner at the house Jessie lived in once. She was there before Jessie lived there but Jessie loves to tell me about it anyway. She also loves Blessed Padre Pio, also an Italian. Mostly there are a million people she has known in her long life that she will be very glad to see again when she gets to heaven. Her husband Clyde is waiting there for her. I'm not sure if he was Catholic when they were married or not but it seems he was not practicing. She told me about how hard she prayed for him and how happy she was when he came back to the faith.

Being 96 she has been thinking about death and coming to terms with dieing for a while now. Recently she had pneumonia in both lungs. Somehow she pulled through. "I don't know why I'm still here. I'm just waiting to go home." There are certain things you get to do when you know you want be on this earth much longer. "I read that book. I'ts a great book. All about what you should eat for arthritis. But I like all the things they tell you not to eat so if you know anyone who can use it, their welcome to it." No need to sharpen her knives, they won't be in service much longer. It's worth it to buy expensive meat but not to buy a new dress for her grand daughter's wedding. It makes sense, really. She's so excited to be leaving soon. "I was just thinking about heaven; you know we won't have to do laundry. I'm passed the time when I have to cook for people. No more cooking in heaven." I'm very glad to know someone who is so unafraid and happy to grow old and wait for her call to come home.

This post keeps getting longer and I haven't even scratched the surface. She once saved a baby girl's life when the child's mother left her below the low tide mark on the beach. She owned several houses and has no end of stories about renters. She seems to remember every priest who ever preached at our parish. There are stories of miraculously answered prayers and people she regrets loosing contact with and still prayers for after so many decades. This is my favorite story. After writing several little intro paragraphs to it I decided it didn't really need one.

"I used to be prone to fainting when I was a little girl. I used to go to eight o'clock Mass every morning before breakfast. I would walk to the church before I eat. Once when Mass was just over I could tell I was going to faint and so I hurried out of there and made it to the convent that used to be close by there. I knocked on the door and the sister came and opened it. They still wore their habits back then. I just had time to say 'Sister, I'm going to... faint' And down I went. They took me into the parlor and I remember hearing sister call 'Quick! get the brandy!'"