The final step of morning gardening in early July is to pick a few flowers to bring inside before it gets too hot. Whatever needs cutting back or trimming or whatever looks just beautiful gets plucked. I pile the cuttings up on the back porch and go inside to pick a vase and fill [...]
Gumma said that one of Papsi’s brothers — Erich, I think — I’ll look in the files to find out for sure — had difficulty establishing himself. Gumma remembers that he and his family went to South Africa to start a plantation in the bush. Her uncle went on a hunting trip and was gone [...]
“Odds and Ends” I found this card in a stack of photographs — vaguely from the 1980s — Woodstock to Florida. This is typical of Gioja’s filing. The green 3 x 5″ card with her loopy handwriting across it. What these particular odds and ends had in common, I do not know. What other odds [...]
Adie was Estebena Risse, our great, great aunt. She was Anita Risse’s sister – twin, I believe. She brought up Gumma and Dita after their mother died. They called her ‘Adie Dear,’ and she had been an intimate member of their household since their births. Both Adie and her sister died of stomach cancer not too [...]
Gumma said that when she was born her mother held her up in the rain (does it ever rain in El Paso, Texas?) and named her Gioja. This was just one of the many ways she was different from her very extraordinary sister, Dita. Her sister, Anita Estebana Cecilia etc., had seven names, seven attendant godmothers, [...]
Tagged Anita, Dita, Gioja, Risse, Stallforth