Grandma Mary

I thought maybe I should post my own memories of my Great-grandmother, Mary Howell. I was very young when she died, so there's not much, but Nancee and I are the only ones in the family who may still have a memory of her.

She was Donnie's mother and lived in the big house that we used to have a doll-house replica of. She lived on the "ground floor"--even though it required going up several steps to get the the wide old-fashioned porch to get to it. The house itself was surrounded by large trees of many varieties. Grandma Pat always said that her grandfather, Ernest Frederick Howell, had come from England with a love of gardening and planted everything he could find, and that he had quite a few rather unusual specimens. Mom always said that my love of gardening must have come through from him. He also owned a general mercantile store in the Highland Park area that was fairly well-known for several years. He had a reputation as being stern with the children, but he died long before I was born, so I never met him.

Mary was the opposite. I remember going to the house and being sucked into the warm, old-lady smell of it, and then wrapped up in Grandma Mary's ample bosom as she hugged us each. I don't remember her as being very tall, and since I was only about 5, she may well have been on the short side. I seem to remember her with grey/white hair in an old-fashioned bun on the back of her head, and I think of her with floral prints, and she was soft and loving. It seems she had a piano in a small, parlor-like room, but I don't remember her playing it. It was a treat to go and we didn't do it very often, but there wasn't much to do in the house, and she didn't like us to be noisy. So mostly we headed outside to run around the back yard and explore the basement--which was full of all kinds of junk and antiques. No one then thought there was much difference! The one treasure I had been promised when she died was an old wind-up Victrola in a tall cabinet--just like in old movies. I believe it even played, and there was a stack of records. We were each to choose one thing we wanted from the basement as a memento, and that was mine. But when the house sold, the Victrola went with it. I doubt if Donnie remembered my request, or perhaps never knew about it--I was rather timid about stating what I wanted in those days. Ah well.

I remember going there once when I was about 5 and Nancee would have been about 3, to spend a few days with Ray and Donnie, who lived in the upstairs floor. I don't remember a lot of communication between the two families--I'm not sure my grandfather got along real well with his mother-in-law. But there was a stairwell at the back of the house that went between the two floors--from kitchen to kitchen that was fun to explore. It did feel like exploring since I was there so seldom; I wasn't particularly comfortable in the house and it all seemed strange everytime. About all I remember of that trip is a big soft bed in a bedroom that faced the front street and taking a trip on the freeway-probably to go back home--and seeing the Oscar Meyer Weiner Wagon on the freeway, going the other direction.

Many of the old antiquey things I have around my house came from that house when Mary died. In Mom's cedar chest is an ancient black mantilla that she has had since I was very young, and she said came from that family--for which she had no explanation except that "in the old days women covered their heads in church." But I don't believe anyone was Catholic, so I don't know where it would have come from. There is also a set of ivory dressing table items. There's a button hook, a powder holder, a brush and several other functional pieces. Also the brass teapot and the little table in the family came from Mary's house.

As I said, there aren't a lot of memories of Mary, but Mom loved the old house and growing up there with her older cousins, Bill and Dick. She had lots of stories--some of which ended up in Tag's Journal--her legacy to all of us.