An American branch of the good ol' family tree

This is my entry in this week's Show and Tell which is hosted by Kelli at There is no place like home. I had been planning this entry and, as co-incidence would have it, the theme for this week's Photo Friday is "Old" so I am linking this post there as well.

I love looking at this picture. This woman probably died before I was born. I think the photo was probably taken in the first quarter of the twentieth century but the clothes are what we would think of as nineteenth century. To me, she looks a strong woman - strong features, strong shoulders. Do you think she looks tall? I seem to think she might be. My Aunt Molly, in the later years of her life, passed some family photographs to me. She included with the photo the following note:

• This is Auntie Cross - as we knew her. She was Mum's aunt and the mother of Charlie and Violet. I think she was Mum's mother's sister but I'm not quite sure. Charlie went off to China and used to send Mum materials, gifts - all sorts of things. You might have seen floating round the house - either yours or ours - silver ash trays with a big coin the centre and a little one near the rim - or a little pewter bowl with copper wire outside. They came from Charlie and he once sent Mum a real eggshell china tea set - you almost could read the paper through it but when you filled the cup with tea and lifted it up the tea weighed the cup down and you finished with a lap full of tea - hardly the way to treat your guests. Violet was a great friend of Mum's - she was my god-mother. For her day, she was a bit of a rebel in as much as she just refused to get married, getting very choosy about the men who approached her. Eventually she decided to go overseas. She set sail for Canada - but on a shore excursion on the way over, she fell and broke her hip. She was put into hospital in Vancouver where, of course, she knew no one. The wife of the doctor who took care of her in hospital befriended Violet and it was at her home that she met Jack Roberts - and, if he was as nice when he was young as he was when he was old, it's not surprising she married him. He was a widower and she went back to America with him. Now, in those days, if you wanted to go to America as a resident you were put on a list and had to wait until your number came up which could be years. If Violet had ever come back here for a visit, she would likely have to stay here for anything from months to years even though she was married to an American. So she didn't see any member of her family until I arrived on her doorstep back in 1960 in Columbus, Ohio. Charlie died while on some sort of patrol (I don't know what he did, actually) but there was some talk that he was murdered by natives - if you could call any Chinese natives. All over the years, Violet and Mum kept in touch sending each other letters, gifts, magazines, etc. etc. They died within a couple of weeks of each other. [This was in the mid 1960s.] Violet and Jack had one son who is called Rodney - but sometimes Dallas. I, of course, met Dal and his wife, Virginia, when I was over there and we have sent each other Xmas cards ever since. They have five children - Mum and Violet were cousins so you can work out what relationship exists between you and Dal's children. One more word about Auntie Cross - she visited us a lot when she was alive. When I became engaged to my first husband, she took me aside and offered her advice for a happy marriage - "Always", she said, "oblige your husband in the bedroom." So that is Auntie Cross who would be your great-great Aunt!

So, dear Reader, somewhere in the United States of America - almost certainly in the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio - are cousins. First cousins twice removed? Third cousins? Well, lets just settle for that quaint term, "kinfolk", shall we?

To-day is another cold/showery/cloudy winter's day in Melbourne and my SAD (seasonal affective disorder) has been responding in its usual way with graduated and increasing intensity all week.

But there is a bright spot this afternoon. My favourite movie of my favourite male star is playing: Cool Hand Luke (made in 1967) with Paul Newman.

What is always of interest in watching old movies or TV programs is to see who was just starting out then and later became a more well known 'name'. Cool Hand Luke is no exception:

Wayne Rogers - five years after this he would become well-known in our homes and hearts as "Trapper John" McIntyre in MASH.

Joe Don Baker - who first came to my attention in the wonderful British drama/mini-series, Edge of Darkness.(1985)

Ralph Waite - who we watched for years and years as the wise and wonderful John Walton Sr in The Waltons.

The ubiquitous Dennis Hopper who was well on his way before this movie.

The big surprise, though, for me was Harry Dean Stanton.

In Cool Hand Luke, Stanton is arguably the best groomed prisoner on a chain gang in the dusty Deep South that one could ever see. He sings "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" while accompanying himself on the guitar. Almost five decades later, we know him in another role with religious overtones as the lecherous, sleazy, corrupt Prophet Roman Grant in Big Love, that story of down-home polygamy in Mormon Utah. If you haven't caught up with this series, tune into SBS on Sunday nights at 8.30pm.

Where those we love abide...

Tell me, gentle traveller, who hast wandered through the world,

and seen the sweetest roses blow, and brightest gliding rivers -

of all thine eyes have seen, which is the fairest land?

Child, shall I tell thee where Nature is most blest and fair?

It is where those we love abide.

Though that space be small, ample is it above kingdoms;

though it be a desert, through it runs the river of paradise,

and there are the enchanted bowers.

Ibn Ahmed Attar, 14th Century Persia

One in spirit. One in death.

Herself drew Miss Eagle's attention to this news item about a couple who died, after 55 years of marriage, on the same night. It is a heart-warming story though sad for those left behind. Miss Eagle thought of the way Jesus said that, in marriage, the two shall become one. (Mark 10:8). It seems to Miss Eagle that this couple had truly become one - so much so that when one departed, the other had to go too. We don't know who went first but Miss Eagle has in her mind, her imagination that whichever one went first came, in spirit, for the other.

The family that tables together.......

Throughout history, humans have tabled together to break bread.

The simple ritual of the shared meal reunites us with our families and brings balance to our lives.

These words are taken from the review of Art Smith's book, Back to the Table: The Reunion of Food and Family. Art is Oprah's personal chef.

Counterbalance this with the views of Australian educationists that more children than ever are present at school with language difficulties. And what do they think is to blame:

"Families aren't sitting around the dinner table any more every night talking about what's happened during the day and engaging with the children," Ms Trimper said.
"Children are sitting in front of televisions more and computers playing computer games. It's dinner in front of the television, video games after dinner, or parents both working and time poor — all those issues have to impact on children."

Back in 2005, Miss Eagle recalls hearing or reading that Kathy Letts, that well-known expatriate Australian, had rid her London house of the dining room table so that the room could become a home theatre. Miss E was horrified. Letts was reported as saying that, if the family wanted to eat together, they went out to eat. More horror!

What about privacy - what if something unforeseen invaded mealtime: argument and debate, outrageous laughter and hysteria, practical jokes. All of these Miss E knows can arise at family meal time and a good thing too. But what happens in a restaurant or some public eating place: a child’s terror of having to behave?

The failure to table together as a family shows no respect: no respect for the food, where it came from, the person who prepared it. It shows no respect for ourselves and what connects us to life and to each other. And now the kids are paying the price at that most basic form of human connection, language.

In Britain, there is now a movement called Back to the Table - because Mealtime is Realtime they say. There are some big names swinging behind the campaign - including celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay.

Miss Eagle would love to hear from you, dear Reader, on this subject: your projects involving food and kids; kids recipes; fun meal time stories etc. If you want to email me to include your contributions as a post complete with pictures, all the better. If you really have something to say about families, food, and connection you might also like to guest on Food from Oz. Please email me.

Lets put fun, families, and people into meals. Let's get rid of the pit stop mentality where food is just a refuelling of whatever is handy. Let's take time to think about our food, how it is produced, where it comes from. Then let's take time with its preparation. And above all, let's take time for one another.

Life in my hands : Rings around my heart

PhotoFriday: Self-Portrait 2007

This is one of a pair of hands of a 62 year old woman. Miss Eagle is no glamour puss. The atavar on the sidebar is a wish - somewhere between Suzy Parker and Mame.

Over the years, the hands have been busy. See the profile. These hands have changed the nappies of three children, stamped thousands of library books, handed out thousands of leaflets and how-to-vote cards. They have helped to keep food and fluids up to a dying husband and they held the sobs when he left to continue his journey seventeen years ago.


But it is not the hands that Miss Eagle wishes to talk about: it is the rings. The ring on the ring finger is a sapphire and diamond cluster. This ring is a combination of Miss E's engagement and wedding rings. While her husband was dying, the engagement ring band wore through from years of rubbing up against the wedding ring. They were not a matched pair and the engagement ring was always a little larger. A long time passed before Miss E did anything about the worn through ring. Then she decided. As a symbol of life to that point, Miss Eagle would combine the two rings and mounted the setting on the wedding ring. So there is now a unified ring.

The ring on the middle finger is of great sentimental value. A large part of Miss Eagle's life has been lived on the Barkly Tableland - Queensland side and Northern Territory side. Miss Eagle purchased this at a Tennant Creek Show. It is of plaited silver strands and is the work of Carmel Wagstaff. Carmel and her husband used to manage the legendary Brunette Downs Station in the Northern Territory. So it is with great fondness that Miss Eagle thinks of the creative talent of Carmel and the wonderful people and places of The Barkly.

So - the hands hold experience; the rings carry emotion.