Up All Night

Love, Mama

In a recent issue of Garden & Gun Magazine, readers were asked, 'What did you inherit from your (Southern) Mother?'  The magazine is published in Charleston, SC, hence Southern Mother.

Among other qualities and traits, respondents answered: the value of hand written thank you notes. Hand written anything anymore seems to be somewhat of an anomaly. 

Interestingly, when I was growing up, an in-person thank you was more valued than a note. It was not hard to accomplish as most our family all lived in the same city and all lived in Virginia. We were in and out of our aunts' houses and Grandmama's house constantly, and not just for holidays and celebrations. It was a wonderful time to grow up, from my perspective.

So, what did I inherit from Mama? That thin stream of creativity that runs through my veins, that led me, in part, to my playful job at Stampin' Up! Growing up I had cigar boxes full of crayons and chalk, scissors and paperdolls, felt and buttons ~ Mr. Levinson at the drug store saved the boxes for us. I made clothes for the paperdolls and fashioned rooms for them from file folders and magazines. (I did have a wonderful tin doll house ~ 2 stories, each room had 'wallpaper' and drapes and rugs, oh my! I wonder if that's why I entertained the idea of Interior Decoration for a bit?)

Mama liked to sketch, just little scenes. There was an open space beneath our stairs to the second floor at home. That's where the telephone was, on a desk that fit snuggly into the opening and was outfitted with a lamp, pencils and a scratch pad. (There were scratch pads all over the house!) While Mama talked on the phone she would sketch on those pads: birds, flowers, sailboats, little girls; her sketches reminded me of Tasha Tudor, one of her favorite illustrators.

I can't draw, but I can stamp. I can pull together colors, although it takes forever as I second guess every combination. I am in love with the Stampin' Blends for coloring images, and water brushes for watercoloring.  I lean toward images of all of nature that she loved and taught to me. In my collection of stamp sets, you'll find Hydrangea Haven, Daisy Lane, Sand and Sea, Pansy Petals, Beauty of the Earth, and so many more.

I think I picked up her sense of wanderlust, just driving down the road to see where it went, and to see what was happening. She wanted to see the storms, the snow covered roads, and what washed up on shore after the hurricane. 

I am so lucky to have grown up with regular visits to museums, listening to music, trips to the library, country drives on Sundays, family gatherings, home cooking ... 

but the one beautiful talent Mama had that I did not inherit is gardening. I appreciate gardens, and I know flowers and shrubs, but I cannot grow them.  She said she had no luck with roses, but she tended the most fragrant and delicate of roses, the Dr. Van Fleet climbing rose. It blooms only once a season. It is pale, pale pink and just perfectly formed. But once budded, it opens very quickly and drops its soft petals in a matter of days. This rose was the most popular of 29 roses that Dr. Van Fleet cultivated, and it was the most popular rose in American in 1923.

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-van-fleet-roses.html?m=0

And this is from Mama's Dr. Van Fleet, grown from a cutting and living in the garden at the Hunter House Victorian Museum in downtown Norfolk.

What did you inherit from your mother?