Heading West on Mother's Day

After a wonderful stay with Stephanie & Blaine Braucht at their tranquil and spacious farm in Mercer County Illinois, I finally turned around to face the sun again.  The West.   But, before re-tracing my great, great, great grandfather's journey to California in 1849, I had to pass through Iowa, the home state of my mother and the adopted state of my maternal grandmother.  Fortuitously, this happened on Mother's day.  Sentimental indeed.

First stop: Resthaven cemetery, where my uncle, cousin and grandparents -- including the California-born grandmother, Stella Sharkey Barker--are buried.  Stupidly, I didn't plan ahead and had no clue where to find their graves in the seemingly endless rows of headstones.  So, I placed a stone from the headwaters of the Feather River at the base of a pine tree near the Pond there.

Per my mother's childhood memories,  "[We] would go out to the small, new Des Moines Airport to watch the planes take off and land which was a real thrill in those early days of aviation, or out to the Resthaven Cemetery to see the swans which were kept there on a small lake."  

The elegant swans , "Jack & Jill,"  are still there.  It's curious how patterns of behavior repeat through the generations....When I was a child in Mountain View CA my parents took me to see the swans at Rickey's in Palo Alto [later Rickey's Hyatt House] .

"Jack & Jill" at the Pond, Resthaven Cemetery, Des Moines

Swan at Rickey's in Palo Alto CA

Next I wandered over to WaterWorks Park.  This gorgeous park and arboretum is as large as New York's Central Park and includes an invitingly long bike trail along the Raccoon river.  It was another favorite of my mother's family:

"One family custom was to have breakfast picnics at Waterworks Park in the summertime. Frank called it "having breakfast with the Lord" because the Park was so large and filled with beautiful walnut, hickory, and other typical Iowa trees."   Again, an echo in my own life... my parents would drive over the Santa Cruz mountains to have 6am "breakfast with the Lord" on the beach.  I remember the early light, the cool fog and the smell of bacon....

Leslie & her mother Frances, far left, at beach in Santa Cruz, ~1953

At WaterWorks Park, I watched three sisters unpack breakfast while their mother and the rest of the family were busy taking group photos.  So, it seems that "breakfast with the Lord" continues unabated....

Mother's Day Breakfast, WaterWorks Park, Des Moines

A last word about mothers.  Here is what my mother said about her mother: "As always is the case, her children grew to appreciate their mother more as they themselves matured and realized how much their mother did for the family which was taken for granted during childhood. [She] was an "exposer." Stella did not lecture to her children about "culture," but she exposed them to any opportunity to grow which was available in their environment. In childhood every morning as they got ready for school and had breakfast, the radio was turned on to WOI, the Iowa State radio station, which from seven to eight played light classical music in between announcements of the livestock prices in Chicago. Frances cannot hear the Poet and Peasant Overture or music from Carmen without being carried back in memory to those breakfasts before leaving for school."

My mother was another "exposer":

- Full breakfast each morning with oatmeal, toast, eggs, bacon, orange juice, 1955-1968

- Full size world map on the wall next to the dining table

- Season tickets to the San Francisco symphony, near cello section, 1964-1968

- 1958 Van Gogh exhibit at the San Francisco Legion of Honor

- Tickets to the classic greek tragedy, Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, at Stanford University, ~1962

- Subscriptions to National Geographic, Time, Look, Life magazines

- Neighborly care, Lucy Drulias, 1965

- Student exchange, Mexico City, 1963