I went to my mother’s gravesite in Mankato yesterday to pay respects and put flowers there. She has been gone from this earth for 4 years but lived here for 95 and a half. The trip was a time-travel phenomenon from beginning to end. Trying to explain it to Zig in the car on the way back was difficult and fell short of the real feelings that I experienced; my perspective on so many things has changed.
First of all, the city of Mankato has changed, but it still feels like a familiar, almost a hometown for me. No, I never lived in Mankato, or North Mankato where my grandmother actually lived and where my mother grew up; but I spent so many summers and holidays there that its aura is of familiarity. The landmarks of crossing the bridge from North Mankato to Mankato, which I did almost everyday when I was there in the summer seem almost right, but the changes have obliterated many of the landmarks. The old railroad station that was on the Mankato side and the large, luxury hotel are gone. Gone is the through-traffic Front Street where Brett’s Department store, Woolworths Five and Dime, the Candy Kitchen and Martin and Hoer’s Jewelry Store where Grandma worked. Nevertheless, the smell and feel of the downtown is still there for me in my mind’s eye.
The shade tree-lined residential streets remain with their old, but well-kept homes as do the stone churches and the “newer” section on the south side (not so new any more). But the river is almost unrecognizable. I loved to walk down the sandy road beside my grandma’s house to the river’s edge and watch the lazy pools of bubbles from the carp and turtles, with waterfowl gliding along from time to time. Throwing stones into the river and trying to skip the flat ones was an hour’s entertainment. It was a lazy, hazy day of summer. Now the highway activity is the background and there are no stone-throwing places to stand in the town anymore. So sad.
My mother lived long enough to see most of these changes and I know that it saddened her as well, but she really did have a wonderful attitude toward life that I wish I had inherited. She was the original Pollyanna—she was glad, glad, glad: to be alive, to have every new day. Of course she had her ups and downs and I haven’t forgotten some of her less wonderful qualities—but who cares? What I really think of when I think of her is a woman who was intelligent, curious, talented, sweet and loving and who enjoyed life to the fullest. She made fun out of everything. It was a quality that she evidently shared with her grandmother. I never knew my great-grandmother, but that was the overriding comment that everyone made about her—she made fun out of everything.
My mother taught me a lot about the Mankato area. When she was young, it was still safe to roam the woods and hills and caves that surrounded the valley town and roam she did. She had three brothers who took her many places. She loved to tell the story of how she learned to swim. She and her brothers were wandering on the outskirts of town when a band of gypsies appeared on the road. The four children were just crossing a bridge and since the rumors were that gypsies liked to steal little girl children, her oldest brother tossed her blithely off the bridge into the stream below and ordered her to swim. She was about 5 and didn’t know how to swim—but she was so angry at her brother that she began kicking and flailing and—all of a sudden—swimming!
First of all, the city of Mankato has changed, but it still feels like a familiar, almost a hometown for me. No, I never lived in Mankato, or North Mankato where my grandmother actually lived and where my mother grew up; but I spent so many summers and holidays there that its aura is of familiarity. The landmarks of crossing the bridge from North Mankato to Mankato, which I did almost everyday when I was there in the summer seem almost right, but the changes have obliterated many of the landmarks. The old railroad station that was on the Mankato side and the large, luxury hotel are gone. Gone is the through-traffic Front Street where Brett’s Department store, Woolworths Five and Dime, the Candy Kitchen and Martin and Hoer’s Jewelry Store where Grandma worked. Nevertheless, the smell and feel of the downtown is still there for me in my mind’s eye.
The shade tree-lined residential streets remain with their old, but well-kept homes as do the stone churches and the “newer” section on the south side (not so new any more). But the river is almost unrecognizable. I loved to walk down the sandy road beside my grandma’s house to the river’s edge and watch the lazy pools of bubbles from the carp and turtles, with waterfowl gliding along from time to time. Throwing stones into the river and trying to skip the flat ones was an hour’s entertainment. It was a lazy, hazy day of summer. Now the highway activity is the background and there are no stone-throwing places to stand in the town anymore. So sad.
My mother lived long enough to see most of these changes and I know that it saddened her as well, but she really did have a wonderful attitude toward life that I wish I had inherited. She was the original Pollyanna—she was glad, glad, glad: to be alive, to have every new day. Of course she had her ups and downs and I haven’t forgotten some of her less wonderful qualities—but who cares? What I really think of when I think of her is a woman who was intelligent, curious, talented, sweet and loving and who enjoyed life to the fullest. She made fun out of everything. It was a quality that she evidently shared with her grandmother. I never knew my great-grandmother, but that was the overriding comment that everyone made about her—she made fun out of everything.
My mother taught me a lot about the Mankato area. When she was young, it was still safe to roam the woods and hills and caves that surrounded the valley town and roam she did. She had three brothers who took her many places. She loved to tell the story of how she learned to swim. She and her brothers were wandering on the outskirts of town when a band of gypsies appeared on the road. The four children were just crossing a bridge and since the rumors were that gypsies liked to steal little girl children, her oldest brother tossed her blithely off the bridge into the stream below and ordered her to swim. She was about 5 and didn’t know how to swim—but she was so angry at her brother that she began kicking and flailing and—all of a sudden—swimming!
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