Elizabeth’s Mother

Elizabeth Stone and I were best high school friends who went to different schools. The Stones lived in a posh neighborhood in a school district that abutted mine, not very far away, but we’d probably never have met, except that my high school boyfriend was her boyfriend’s buddy (camp), and the four of us spent a lot of time together. Unsurprisingly, our high school boyfriends didn’t last all four years, but Elizabeth and I did … and more.

Elizabeth and I had common interests (international folk dance, folk music, books, crafts shops); however, our families were quite different. My parents worked in our family store, and we lived in a duplex in a middle-class neighborhood. I shared a bedroom, and our kitchen table was my desk before and after dinner. We lived with one phone, one TV, one bathroom, one car. My siblings and I all had part-time jobs. Elizabeth was an only child who wanted a part-time job, but her father nixed it. She had her own bedroom and a separate hang-out rec room in a multi-story home with landscaping and gardens. Elizabeth’s father was a prominent St. Louis attorney, yet her mother, who could have lived a life of leisure, was not what I had previously imagined a wealthy woman would be like.

My friends’ mothers and the women in my family were smart, capable, industrious, and resourceful, but they weren’t like Elizabeth’s mother, who understood my youthful, “learn-to-make-things-myself” personality. She was a talented seamstress, weaver, and knitter, who created clothing for herself and her daughter. All the clothes looked simple but were remarkable because of novel combinations of color and ethnic fabrics.

Elizabeth said her mother had thick hair and beautiful shoes and clothing, but when I was there, her hair was always pinned in a bun away from her face, and she wore comfy shoes and dresses that suited her many stain-producing activities. Her uniforms were variations of denim jumper-like aprons with very big pockets that she had designed for gardening, gluing, cooking, and painting. Mrs. Stone maintained vegetable and flower gardens, and she even tried to grow grapes with no success, but she kept the bare trellises erect as on-site sculptures.

Mrs. Stone painted most of the oils in their house en plein air, using easels, stretched canvases, brushes, oil paints, rags, and turpentine she always carried in her station wagon. Elizabeth didn’t accompany her mother on painting excursions because this whole-afternoon hobby required solitude.

I liked to watch Mrs. Stone sew, and I still have a fully-lined woven tote with zippered pockets and a clever closure she made for me. She often sent me home with vegetables or flowers from her gardens. She appreciated my interest in handcrafts and showed me books about indigenous makers.

My wonderful parents modeled fine character and hard work; they hosted our family’s cousins’ club, played Bridge, volunteered at synagogue, and turned us into library regulars. I was lucky to also learn values and skills from Mrs. Stone, a full-time creative soul, an artist, crafter, cook, and gardener. Elizabeth and I admired our unlike industrious mothers who each engaged in every task with enthusiasm and intention. Other women have influenced me, but Mrs. Stone is the one who understood my urge to create and encouraged me to find ways to incorporate that urge into everyday life. I was never a full-time maker; however, to this day, I love crafting. And, what about Elizabeth? She went to college in the northeast, married a lawyer who had interned at her father’s firm, is a mother and grandmother, and became a farm-to-table chef on the west coast. Naturally, she designs and sews her own outfits.