February Reminiscences

          

          As I turn the page on the family wall calendar above my desk to “February”, I remember the many special occasions in this one month that I must buy cards for and send gifts.  I will make phone calls on birthdays, and decide where Art and I will go to celebrate our wedding anniversary.   February may be one of those winter months most people just put up with, but for me it is rich in family memories, and special days to celebrate.

            February 5^th, 1944 was Mother and Dad’s wedding anniversary.  Even now that they are both gone I think about them on February 5^th and remember the unusual story of their wedding that Mother loved to tell, and which she wrote about.

We were married on the 5^th of February.  One of the strangest weddings I’ve ever attended.  Thirty people here at our little house, the civil service in Spanish and very brief congratulations and champagne, wedding cake, etc.  Dancing and drinking until 10 pm that night, ending with the singing of the Chilean national anthem out in the street.

Left next noon next day for a 3 – day honeymoon at the seaside resort of Viña del Mar.  Then home, very hot, sunburned – to settle down to this wonderful business of being married.    (From Virginia Cory Sampson’s diary)

Virginia and Richard met in at Cornell College, and became engaged after graduation in 1942.  It was World War II that interfered with their plans.  Richard, on a scholarship to Yale Graduate School, dropped out because of the war and because there was a waiting list to join the Air Corps of the Navy, he ended up with a job at Panagra Airlines. He was sent to Cochabamba, Bolivia to be a Flight Dispatcher.  Mother taught high school in rural Iowa.  It took two years for her to get a passport and in January 1944 Dad sent her a ticket to fly to Santiago, Chile, where he had been transferred.  She traveled by herself for five days on propeller airplanes that only flew in the daylight.  It was the biggest adventure of her life and she loved to tell about it  Their small wedding took place after she arrived in Santiago following a two-year separation. She knew no one at her own wedding and was married by a Chilean Justice of the Peace who only spoke Spanish.  Mother always wondered why they had not thought to take any photos.  There are none.   Theirs  was a marriage that lasted 66 years.

50th Wedding Anniversary celebration in 1994

            February 20^th, 1949 – My brother, Richard, Jr. was born in Lima, Peru. But along with Mother and Dad’s unusual marriage, is the story of my brother having been mixed up with another baby in the Lima hospital where he was born. Mother told this story over and over but it seemed to me that towards the end of her life she would choke up and get teary at the horror what might have happened if my brother had not been born redheaded and blue-eyed in a Latin American country.  I think some part of her felt responsible for what happened.

I was 3 ½ when they brought my little brother home from the hospital wrapped tightly in a blanket.  The story goes that Mother went to her bedroom to lie down while the sleeping baby was put in his crib in the darkened nursery.  I fussed and begged to hold the baby until Mother got up and decided she’d better let me see him.  When the baby was unwrapped and the blinds opened Mother looked down at a black haired, dark eyed Peruvian newborn and was horrified. Dad took the baby, got a taxi as they had no car, and went back to the hospital.  The mix up had just been discovered as one of the nurses had taken off the baby bracelets and put the babies back in the wrong cribs.  I can imagine my father’s anger and Mother’s tremendous anxiety until they were back home again with the real Richard Jr.. Sometimes we teased my brother when he was naughty that we might have kept the other baby…but as we grew older it was no joke.  It was real drama.

Me, Mother and baby brother Richard Jr. in Lima, Peru

February 16^th, 1975 – Art and I were married in Orange, Connecticut, at my sister-in-law’s home.  It was the first Jewish wedding I had ever been to and it turned out to be my own.  We met in 1973 at the American School of Asuncion, Paraguay and by late 1974 we decided to get married.  We would leave Asuncion in December at the end of the school year and pool our earnings to travel to Europe and North Africa by ship from Buenos Aires.  We’d get married on the ship and then travel for several months.  It was all decided until Art called his mother to tell her our good news.  “Get married on a ship?”  No way…she would find a rabbi to marry us and she and daughter, Saralee, would plan the wedding. We just needed to get back to Connecticut by mid February.  I had the same reaction from my Mother who said, “You’re my only daughter…I want to plan a wedding.  You must come to Mexico City in February.” She’d make arrangements and get the Unitarian minister. So, the honeymoon came first, - our trip in Europe, Greece, and Tunisia - and we came home in February to two wedding ceremonies.

It was a snowy frigid day on February 16, 1975 in Orange, Connecticut.  We met with Rabbi Silver briefly before the ceremony and I walked down the stairway of my sister-in law’s split-level suburban house to meet Art waiting for me.  I wore a long A-line white wool dress with long sleeves, mandarin collar, and an elaborately embroidered gold vest that I had had made in Greece.  We were married by the rabbi, surrounded by Aaronson’s, Alderman’s, and Black’s – all of Art’s extended family.  My new mother-in-law was thrilled. 

February 22^nd, 1975 -A few days after later, we boarded a flight for Mexico City where my parents met us.  Dad was assigned to the American Embassy and they were living in a large and elegant home surrounded by high walls and a big wooden gate. On February 22^nd, Art and I put on our wedding clothes for the second time.  Dad escorted me down the long marble hallway to Pachelbel’s Canon in D and we were married by the Unitarian minister from a congregation in Mexico City. Mother had planned an elaborately catered luncheon, ordered a three- tiered wedding fruit-cake, and decorated the luncheon tables with multicolored Mexican linen cloths.  The guests were Mother and Dad’s American and Mexican friends and acquaintances, my Aunt Mary Blythe from California and Art’s Uncle Harry Aaronson and Aunt Ruth who wintered in Guadalajara. We decided we would celebrate our anniversary on February 16^th because it was the first and the legally binding one.

Newlyweds

This year we celebrate our 41^st anniversary next week and we’ll go to the Biltmore Inn for a fancy afternoon tea celebration.  It is something we have done before and somehow calls for a special occasion.

February 10^th, 1977 - Hayden Richard Aaronson was born on a hot summer day in Santiago, Chile.  Just yesterday I sent Hayden a Happy Birthday email as he turned 39 and could not help but repeat yet again the story of where and how he was born.  It, too, is another family story I have told many times.

In the mid 1970’s the dictator Augusto Pinochet was in power in Chile. Art and I were living in Santiago, working at the International School Nido de Aguilas and expecting our first baby.  It was an exciting time for us and yet, we lived under a toque de queda or a nightly curfew imposed by the government.  No one was allowed on the streets of Santiago after midnight and before 6 a.m.  Everything came to a halt in the middle of the night.  We had heard if you were caught anywhere after hours you’d be taken to jail.  I worried what we would do if I had to go to the hospital after the curfew. People told us we’d be fine if we hung a white handkerchief out the car window but I didn't trust the soliders and police on the streets.  Despite the labor pains all night I waited until the lifting of curfew before we headed to the Sara Mocada Clinica de Maternidad on February 10^th.

Art’s mother had bravely flown to Santiago, Chile by herself to see her new grandson but he did not come into the world until the day before she was scheduled to fly back to Connecticut. This was another worry.  I walked up and down the four flights of stairs to our apartment hoping that would hurry the baby along.  Hayden took his time…as he still does to this day. 

February 10^th in the early morning the time had come. I called the doctor and she said she’d meet us at the clinic.  It was a hot and dry summer’s day in Chile.  I checked in to the maternity clinic where I had a private room that opened onto an outdoor terrace.  Hayden was born at 1 p.m. while Art and his mother waited. The new baby was wheeled into my room in a crib decorated with lace sheets and coverlet.  Sara Moncada was the expensive clinic where upper class women went to deliver their babies.  I was served three course meals and waited on like a queen, while I spent hours gazing at my beautiful blonde, blue-eyed baby boy.. The nurses called him el rubio because they could not pronounce Hayden.  There would be no mixing this child up with any other Chilean baby.

Our apartment building on Avenida Pocuro in Santiago where Hayden was born.

Grandma Virginia holding newborn Hayden

February 21^st, 2014 – Austin Frederick Aaronson was born in Washington D.C. – our first grandchild.  We were not sure whether he would be a February or March baby but somehow it seems right that he was a February baby.  Hayden called us shortly after he was born with the news as we sat right by the phone waiting for the call.  He teased us along…we knew it was a boy…all went very well.  But what was his name???  Hayden and Jessica had done a great job of keeping this an absolute secret.  Finally Hayden said, "He will be called Austin Frederick Aaronson." He went on to explain, that he is named after both grandfathers. "We chose Austin after Art to carry on the “A” tradition.  Frederick is the middle name after Fred Huber. Austin carries on the Aaronson name – third generation now…Arthur, Hayden and Austin.  Perfect.

Over the years, I have thought about and remembered all the big events that have happened in the month of February.  As I grow older I feel the need to follow in Mother's footsteps telling these stories yet again so they are not forgotten.  Now that she is gone I have her stories and my own to share with family.

           

            

Watch, Grandma, Watch!

          Austin positions himself across the living room from me with a ball.  He looks like he’s preparing to make a winning shot.  He waves his little arms and motions for me to stand back.  I step back .  He lets go with a straight kick of the soft soccer ball. We are playing indoors because Washington D.C. has just had two feet of snow on the ground and the back yard is buried.  (All weekend while I was there, Austin would point out the back kitchen window with some anxiety and say “Basketball hoop…” to show me that it had fallen over. It was lying sadly on its side buried in the snow.) 

 

            “Good job…” I exclaim when the ball comes across to me.  “Cool,” says Austin and pronounces the “oo” like an exaggerated “u” sound.  “Cool” is one of his favorite expressions which he utters with great enthusiasm.   I kick the ball lightly back and he goes for it with a kind of footwork I have not seen a two year old perform. He laughs delighted that he has engaged me yet again to play with him.  He is surprisingly coordinated never losing his footing or tripping over his own feet.

            We played this game over and over on my recent visit sometimes with a balloon or some indoor ball.  He would start with curling his little hand to motion me to “come here”.  And then would say,  “Watch, Grandma…” which I loved.  He would either do his soccer kick or pick up his mini tennis racket and show me his swing letting go with a tennis ball.  Hayden has given him some tennis lessons and he practices although we are not sure whether he will be a lefthander or a right. There is no question that Austin has the “sports gene”, which is not surprising with two athletic parents who are enthusiastic professional sports fans.  Austin will sit next to Hayden when a tennis match is on TV and take it all in.

            Within an hour of being with Austin after 3 months, I realized I did not need to worry.  He was comfortable with Grandma and Grandpop as if he had just seen us. Hayden told me they keep pictures of all the grandparents out and talk to Austin about us when we aren’t there.  As I sat next to his car seat in the backseat of the red Mini we were having quite a conversation.  “You are going to come visit me this summer, “I told him.  And then talked about the fun things we would do when he comes to Asheville.  When there was a pause he suddenly piped up “OK!”  And after thinking for another minute or so he laughed and said “It’s a deal!” and held up his little hand for a high five. He absorbs words and phrases like a sponge but seems to interject them in the conversation at the right place. 

            Austin is a chatterbox as he takes in the world around him.  We had conversations about the animals we saw in the National Zoo – panda bear, alligator, elephants, and snakes.  When I would ask “remember the panda bear at the zoo?” and he would pipe up “panda bear in the snow” or “alligator mouth open”…and indeed he remembered the alligator with his huge mouth full of teeth. 

            He loves to imitate expressions and one of his favorites is “good idea” and “bad idea”.  I’m not sure if he knows what a good idea is but since adults say “good idea” enthusiastically he intuitively must know it’s something good.  Then he likes to tease back and say “bad idea” to get a reaction.  One of his very first phrases was "Jeter, bad boy!" which he heard his parents saying.  Jess told me she quickly had to correct that to "good boy"

            “What’s your name?” I asked him.  He shyly answered “Austin Aaronson” which is a mouthful of a’s for sure but he’s already got it down.  He’s learning colors and comes out with yellow, or blue or red when you least expect it.  Red Mini is a favorite since Hayden & Jessica have a red Mini car.  Austin can pick out Mini cars all over the city when we are driving around.  He’ll suddenly say “Mini” and sure enough we will have passed one or there will be one behind us.  He knows his cars.  Up in his bedroom there are two Matchbox suitcases full of little cars only these are Hayden’s cars from his childhood, which make them almost antiques.  Austin opens the suitcase and gets out a few and plays with them on the rug in his room.  I am overcome remembering my towheaded toddler, Hayden, loving those little cars that we collected and saved for so many years.

            Words and sports are Austin’s passion along with doing things by himself.  He wants to zip his jacket, spoon out his own cereal, hang on to Jeter’s leash and walk him, choose the book we will read, unbuckle his seatbelt, open doors,  climb stairs, and walk instead of ride in his stroller. That takes a lot of patience with a two year old but Hayden & Jess let him try it all.  He does have his moments when he needs a real distraction and, of course, it is the Iphone with the U-Tube videos of Sesame Street.  Only as a last resort does he get the IPhone. But watching his tiny finger hit just the right icon as he furrows his brow in great concentration is something I can't get used to.   I think how we never dealt with that when our kids were young but it’s impressive to watch how children today are born already knowing how to manipulate technology.

            I am back home now from a memorable time with Austin. I go around each day doing my usual activities but I carry a little voice that says “Watch, Grandma, watch…” in my head.  I am watching from afar waiting for the next visit.