Living Up to Mom

My mother’s father was a preacher. He was also a plumber. Our family likes to joke that he was in charge of the “salvation and sanitation” of the community. Thomas Conrad Forbes installed the baptismal in a little white clapboard one-room schoolhouse. My mom painted the picture of the River Jordan that hangs over the baptismal. I still remember Easter Sundays in that church. I remember the hot sun streaming through the windows and the smell of the starch in the men’s freshly ironed shirts and the rustle of the petticoats under my new Easter dress when my legs got restless with all the sitting. When I grew up my family all lived in southern California. We were spread from Carlsbad to Agua Dulce where my grandparents lived, but on holidays we were together—-especially Easter. Easter was even bigger than Christmas in our family. Christmas may have brought us Jesus, but Easter brought us a place beside him forever.

My grandpa didn’t start out as a preacher. He worked in the copper smelter in Douglas, Arizona where my mom was born (down by the Mexican border). Mom told stories from the dust bowl days of stuffing the cracks under the doors and by the windows with rags to keep out the choking, blowing dust. She talks about not enough food to eat during those depression days. Grandma learned to cook with rice, beans and corn tortillas in her Douglas days. They were cheap and filling. My family recipes are things like chili, tamale pie, tacos, pinto beans, cornbread and enchiladas which is pretty funny when you look at pictures of my mother, Patsy Forbes, with her fair freckled skin, green eyes, and Scottish, Irish, northern European ancestry. My grandfather had thick dark, wavy hair and high cheekbones that I have heard came from a native-American connection, Cherokee, perhaps. My grandmother was fair and blonde as a girl. After the copper smelter was shut down, Grandpa joined the Naval Reserve, and worked as a welder in the deep dark hulls of the battle ships being built on Coronado Island during World War II. He wore clean, neatly pressed tan pants and shirts daily, but they often had burn holes from his work. Grandpa moved the family (there were 5 children by that time, including mom) to Linda Vista into Naval housing. My mom remembers those days as the glory days resplendent with a victory garden, a cow, a baby bull, 2 goats, chickens, rabbits, two dogs named Mutt and Jeff, tap dance lessons, violin lessons, and plenty of food to eat. Mom remembered the “miracle” of walking into a “new home filled with furniture.” She could still remember the Marine corps bunk beds in the bedroom she shared with her other 4 siblings, and she remembered the matching living room furniture, “blonde wood, with beige, thin striped upholstery and cactus painted on the front; a sofa, two chairs, table and lamp completed the look. It was the first and last matched furniture I had ever seen. I was five. The furniture was beautiful. I was still hungry.”

After the war, grandfather worked for Kaiser-Fraiser Construction Company and traveled to jobs. He worked for many months on the Soledad Prison as a steam and pipe fitter. He studied and took tests and advanced to the top of his field as welder, steam and pipe fitter. He worked at UCLA for many years until he got his own contracting license and then opened his own business in Agua Dulce as a Plumbing Contractor. It was during this period that he also studied, passed tests, and became an ordained minister in the Disciple of Christ Church. He died on October 20, 1977 and until the day she died I could still see the shadow of his death on my mom. She loved him so. I’m not sure exactly when the poverty began again, but the only period of my mom’s life where she talked about getting enough to eat were the Linda Vista days.

The family always went to church. In fact, grandma wouldn’t let grandpa court her until he started attending church with her. After grandpa moved the family to Linda Vista, they all joined a Disciple of Christ church called the University Christian Church in downtown San Diego. Mom was 5 years old. Mom said it was the “hugest” congregation she ever belonged to. She sang in the church choir there and didn’t stop singing in church choirs until about 3 years before she died when her osteoporosis left her too debilitated to leave her assisted care home for outings. At 5 years old, when she wasn’t singing, she had to sit in the front row of church where her parents could keep an eye on her while they sang in the adult choir. She went to Sunday School before church and when she went to pick up her baby sister, Phyllis from cradle roll after the worship service she was given a graham cracker and a glass of milk. Food is always a vivid memory for mom.