“For it is Mary, Mary plain as any name can be but with propriety, society will say Marie. But it was Mary, Mary long before the fashions came and there is something there that sounds so square it’s a grand old name” (Mary’s A Grand Old Name, written by George M. Cohen in 1906 – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmzxTtAe6bA as sung by Bing Crosby).
The above song was written the same year that Mary was born of Scottish parentage in South Philadelphia. Who is this Mary? A wonderful, lovable lady who lived in the home next to Barb and me when we bought our first house. Her all brick house with a slate roof was in the family since it was built in 1927. There was much history to the house. Originally owned by her sister Elizabeth’s in-laws, it passed down to Elizabeth and her dentist husband. Elizabeth was a refined lady who worked in her husband’s practice during his whole career. Hours were long, and because the house had a maid/cook Saunders, Elizabeth never experienced cooking. Although Mary and Elizabeth were extremely kind to Saunders, I guess it was somewhat natural, considering their ages, that they were still somewhat prejudiced with the African American maid. However, although Saunders entered the house through the back door, they took very good care of her. When Saunders became too old to handle all the work, an assistant, Bessie, was hired to help her. Mary and Elizabeth always made sure that they paid social security taxes for both the maids.
When Saunders died, her entire funeral was paid for by Mary, Bob and Elizabeth, and a white stretch limousine was sent to pick them up to take them to the Philadelphia memorial service. They were the only Caucasians in the church and were seated in the front row with the family. Yes, the sisters had some feelings from yesteryear that were not right, but they still had big hearts to do the right thing.
When her husband, Raymond, died in 1963, Elizabeth was left as the sole inhabitant of the house. Mary and her husband Bob would make weekly trips to visit Elizabeth with enough meals to last until the next visit. Eventually, Mary and Bob found it easier just to move in with Elizabeth. Bob was a brick layer for industrial furnaces, and many times Mary would get up before sunrise to accompany him to a job site to prepare estimates.
As you may have guessed from the title, the majority of this article is about Mary. She was a mere five feet and probably weighed 90 something pounds. Unlike the lovely, refined Elizabeth, Mary was a sparky live wire who said what she felt. Barb and I did a lot for Mary, and of course she reciprocated in helping us. One time I stopped at her house on the way home from work to find Mary and the single lady about her age who lived across the street fretting because the man who had taken care of their lawns and other gardening for years had given them notice he was retiring. Of course, with work, experience helping our two widowed mothers do their lawns and three sons, I had plenty of time to help them, so I volunteered to do all their gardening. My best moments were on hot days while working; Mary would come out to talk for a while with a two quart pitcher of instant ice tea. Many times, I polished off the whole pitcher.
Other times, I would work on her window air conditioners placing steel wool around them so birds would not build their nests there, changing smoke detector batteries and doing miscellaneous painting; one time in the middle of the night, when their burglar alarm went off, I even showed up with a baseball bat. Luckily, it was a false alarm.
Mary and Elizabeth were just like additional grandmothers to our three boys. This was particularly important to me because my last grandparent died when my mother was in the hospital delivering me. Boy did these ladies treat our boys great. They even babysat them as the boys got a little older. Our boys could do nothing wrong in their eyes.
If one of our sons got a new two wheeler for his birthday or Christmas, he would ride it next door to show it off. He was immediately invited in the house, along with his bike, and told to ride it around on their beautiful oriental carpets. The house was laid out so they could ride a circle from the living room through the kitchen and dining room and back into the living room.
It was the tradition on each Easter for the boys to get dressed up in their new suits, and Barb and I in our Sunday go to meetin’ clothes, and go next door before church to take a photo of them and the two sisters. Also, the wiry Mary, even in her early 80s, would get down on the floor and do exercises with our boys. As she advanced in her years, she would make the short walk across her front yard to ours and oops, down she would go and end up on her bum. She never broke or sprained anything. She would just sit there and laugh.
I hope you will read next week’s article so I can relate additional special times with Mary.
Jeff Hall, of Honey Brook, contributes columns to Berks-Mont Newspapers.
