Emily and Jim An Introduction

My mother Emily was born in 1921. She has two birthday's, but that is a long story We will just spiral back in time to Vienna, March 25, 1921. She was born into a family that lived in upper class circles. Her father Hugo was with the American Embassy. Her mother Ann dressed well, dressed Emily well entertained beautifully and loved the opera Tosca. As my mother notes,they did not have religion, they had oper!! Her brother Bill was born nine years later. He went onto become a doctor. Every week they went to the opera. They had maids. My mother spoke German and English at home.She is still fluent in German and french as well. Her mother's hidden Jewish past remained veiled and unknown. What feelings did my grandmother have as they all witnessed the Anschluss in 1938. ( The Nazi takeover of Vienna) Later a Nazi flag flew from their balcony.Last year my mother and her brother selfpublsihed a memoir about that experience. My mother had many travels and much education. She met my dad much later in California when she stopped by to say good bye to a friend. Later they married. It was a second marriage for both of them.

My dad Jim grew up on a farm in East Texas, not far from Jacksonville.He picked cotton as a child and worked hard on the farm. His father started out as a farmer, but then got the call to preach and became a Southern Baptist preacher. Hell fire and brimstone. His brother Dan went on to become a Baptist missionary in Spain. His sister Anecia told him stories from the movies, igniting a life long love of movies. She sang "Red Sails in the Sunset" as they picked cotton.
My mother's parents were dead before I was born so I know them only through distant photos and stories from my mother. Thus our train trips to visit my father's parents in Texas are filled with vivid emotional images, smells, sights and the stern vision of my grandfather yelling from the pulpit" Are you saved by the blood of the lamb?" He was later obsessed with Jacob. My grandmother Inez was a blessed patient soul. She was afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis and yet carried on with a myriad of household chores and cooking. I can still remember her cornbread, black eyed peas, fried chicken and peach cobbler. I can still see their simple house on north 27th street with the big field all around it that my grandfather sowed with corn, beans, peas and okra.

This is the brief background to my parents lives. They have been married 57 years.I see them just about everyday. There are all kinds of ways to caretake a person.Sometimes it takes the form of telling their story, or preserving a memory.

I took this photo earlier this evening at the beach.