As stated in the first installment of this series, my intention is to share some stories from Glug’s life (my life) that I think you’ll find interesting. Since it was my Dad who dubbed me with the moniker “Glug”, it seemed appropriate to start the series by telling stories about my Dad and our relationship. Since this second chapter is about my Mom and our relationship, I want to point out that she rarely called me Glug. Most often, whether it was used as a term of endearment or an expression of discontent, she used my first and middle names together … Gary Ray.
In Part 1 of this series, I noted that my most significant Life Former was that my Dad left my Mom when I was only three-years-old. With my Dad, it seemed that the result was, mostly, voids in my life due to my Father’s lacking presence. With my Mom, it was pretty much the opposite. It seemed that, through her determination, those voids were filled with love. When my Mother passed away in 2016, I published my eulogy for her in an article entitled Love Was Her Life’s Theme. I think that did a good job of summing up that aspect of her life.
Gerry
My Mom’s full name was Geraldine Elizabeth (Ray) Wiram. Everyone called her Gerry. She was born in Greenville, IL, to E. K. and Clara Ray. E.K. was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad (aka PRR or the Pennsy), working the route between St. Louis and Indianapolis. When Mom was nine-years-old, the family moved to Terre Haute, IN, the midpoint of that PRR route. Mom’s only sibling was her older Sister, Thelma. A Brother, born between Thelma and Mom, had died in infancy.
The people I knew as Grandpa and Grandma Ray, Aunt Thelma and Mom started becoming part of the Terre Haute community through the Pennsy, neighborhood activities, school activities, service organizations and probably most important of all, the Second Avenue Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church. The relationships that were developed during that time are too numerous to mention. But many became loving relationships that Mom nurtured throughout her life.
I do want to mention two relationships that were of particular importance though. During that time, my Aunt Thelma met a handsome young man, named Bob McIndoo. For the sake of brevity, let me just say that I ended up knowing him as Uncle Bob. He was a man I truly admired and Mom loved him dearly, as she did Thelma’s and Bob’s children; my late Cousin Ron, my late Cousin Janet Sue and my Cousin Jim.
The other particularly important relationship developed during that time involved another handsome young man named Chet Wiram. His Dad worked on the PRR too, they lived in the same neighborhood, they went to the same schools and they were together in the youth group at Second Avenue EUB. Eventually, a romance blossomed. When he was 21 and she was 19, they married. Of course, that worked out to the benefit of my Sister Nancy, our late Brother Dick and myself.
As previously noted, my parents’ marriage ended after a dozen years or so. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t share some special and very good times. Nearly all of those times were before I came along. So I don’t know much about them. I had the most visibility to the time Mom and Dad shared through pictures taken when she went to be with him in Southern California for his R&R with the U.S. Navy during WWII. Her making that 4200 mile roundtrip via train says a lot about her and her willingness to do what was necessary for the sake of their marriage. Apparently, that sense never ended for her. When Dad passed away in 1974, I was designated to give Mom the news. When I did, I heard a groan come from her that I later described to my siblings as a sound I’d never heard come from a human being.
My Grandparents, Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, Sister and Brother all have warm places in my heart and interesting stories of their own. But, for now, I’ll limit this to a tragic story that affected all of my Mom’s family for many years.
Tragedy Onboard
Immediately after finishing his education in Greenville, IL, E.K. Ray, my maternal Grandfather, started working for the PRR. I think he started as a Ticket Seller and/or Ticket Taker. Eventually, he secured a position as a Locomotive Fireman. In those days, a Fireman’s job was to shovel the coal firing the boiler, producing the steam that powered the locomotive. Since E.K. was a big strong young man, he was well suited for this very physically demanding work.
In the Winter of 1941, E.K. was a Fireman of the PRR crew on a run to St.Louis. Although the freezing cold weather added to the challenge of that job, he was enjoying being aboard a locomotive with a new automated feature for getting coal into the fire that heated the locomotive’s boiler. It consisted of an auger that connected the locomotive to the trailing coal car. For the most part, it relieved the Fireman from having to constantly shovel the coal. One flaw in the system was that the section of the auger between the locomotive and the coal car was open to the elements. As a result, the coal being moved by the auger could get frozen and jam the auger’s operation. Unfortunately, somewhere near Effingham, IL, this happened to the auger on Grandpa Ray’s train. When he recognized the problem, Grandpa stepped out into the freezing open air and tried to kick the frozen coal loose in the auger. When he did; he slipped. The auger caught his right foot and started feeding his leg into the mechanism. Since the soft tissue of his leg wasn’t enough to jam the auger’s operation, the only way to stop it was to completely stop the locomotive. By the time the Engineer was able to stop the locomotive, the auger had fed Grandpa’s right leg into the mechanism past his knee. Since there was no way to release Grandpa’s leg from the mechanism and the train was a long way from any major medical facility, they had to cover him with a tarp until a surgeon could arrive to amputate his leg.
What a gruesome tale?! Since this occurred over 6 years before my birth, I wasn’t involved in the immediate aftermath. I only have a vague understanding of that. Grandpa did survive. He was off from work for a year and no doubt, much healing and rehab took place during that time. For the rest of his life, he used a hollow wooden leg that was far from being as useful as present day prosthetics. It seems that the Pennsy did a lot to take care of him. I don’t know if there was some legal settlement but Grandpa always seemed to be able to afford a more luxurious lifestyle than his peers. A year after his accident, he returned to work as an Engineer of locomotives in the PRR switching yard in Terre Haute. He ended up retiring after 47 years with the PRR.
I never knew Grandpa with two legs. For me and almost all of my generation, as well as subsequent generations, we knew him as the Grandpa who let us knock on his hollow wooden leg when we visited. He always drove new Oldsmobile 98s, specially modified so he could operate the accelerator and brake with his left foot. Whenever he and Grandma would arrive at their home, Grandma would hop out of the car to be Grandpa’s automatic garage door opener. He always had a riding mower at their retirement home so he could get around to do gardening on their property. One of my clearest memories of Grandpa is being at church before he arrived and hearing his wooden leg noisily clomping down the center aisle as he entered the back of the church.
During Grandpa’s rehabilitation from the loss of his leg, he took up painting. Though his level of painting skills probably never would have brought him great renown, I liked his work. My favorite was of a beautiful sailfish that he had painted on a basement wall in the home I knew as Grandpa’s and Grandma’s when I was growing up. Sometime after my grandparents moved to their retirement home, their previous home burned down and along with that, the sailfish painting was destroyed. However, family members, down through his grandchildren, still treasure having E.K. Ray paintings in their homes.
Obviously, this story of the tragedy that befell my maternal Grandfather has many interesting aspects. The main reason I’ve included it here is because it says so much about the tenacity of the generations preceding mine. The way my Mother met the adversities in her life made it clear that she inherited that resolve.
Damaged But Not Broken
As previously mentioned, my parents divorced when I was only three-years-old. I don’t know the exact date of that but it had to be in late 1950 or early 1951. That made us what was then known as a “Broken Family”. That condition was not as common then as it has become. Ours was the only “Broken Family” I knew. Likewise, “Single Mom” was not a prevalent designation in those days. But, when my Dad left my Mom, she became a “Single Mom”, facing the challenge of raising three tender age kids on her own.
Mom responded by pouring her life and love into her children. In the process, she found the job that would provide her living for the rest of her life. She became a Long Distance Telephone Operator. In the beginning, that meant working a split shift and riding the bus two round trips per day, so that she could see her kids off to school in the morning and be there when they came home in the afternoon. She recruited my Dad’s youngest Sister, Aunt Carolyn and several neighborhood ladies to stand in the gap for the times she couldn’t be there. My Sister joined in with that more and more, as she got older.
Thinking about my Aunt Carolyn being recruited to help Mom care for us kids reminds me of how different neighborhoods were in those days, with many immediate family members living close together. At the time of Aunt Carolyn’s recruitment, she was still living at home with my Paternal Grandparents just three blocks North of our home. Grandma and Grandpa Wiram were moving to a smaller city about 20 miles to the East and Carolyn wanted to stay in the neighborhood to finish her Senior year in high school. Other family members living nearby at that time included: My Maternal Grandparents, 5 Uncles, 5 Aunts and 7 Cousins.
I suppose, when I describe the living conditions our “Broken Family” inherited, it can sound pretty pitiful. At that time, we lived in a four-room (not four-bedroom) house. Mom shared her bedroom with my Sister and I shared a bedroom with my Brother. Our only plumbing was water coming into the kitchen. Our backyard separated the house from a shed that included an outhouse. Our bathing was done in a round galvanized metal tub, using water that was heated on our stove. We had a coal-fired furnace that was in a pit under the house. Of course, in those days, no A/C. Mom rode a city bus to and from work. Otherwise, we mostly walked to wherever we needed to go.
As pitiful as those conditions may sound, we did not have a pitiful life. Over the years, our circumstances were improved. A key upgrade came when Mom was able to start making payments on a used 1951 Chevrolet Bel Air. And, sometime along the way, each of the three kids got bicycles. However, the primary factor keeping our life from seeming pathetic was my Mom’s determination. Though none of our possessions or activities were elegant, Mom always made sure all of our basic needs were taken care of. However, looking back, what I appreciate most is when I think about all the affordable entertainment she arranged. This included things like going to the Dairy Queen on a hot Summer night, with each kid being able to get one inexpensive treat. Or, driving out to “the country” to a root beer stand called The Pine Mug where they had a weekly sale of foot-long hotdogs and root beer in frosted mugs. And there were big events such as the annual Fourth of July Fireworks Show at Terre Haute Memorial Stadium. We wouldn’t pay to actually go into the stadium though. We would all pile into that Black ‘51 Chevy and drive to park near the PRR Roundhouse where Grandpa Ray worked. Although you couldn’t see the ground-level fireworks inside the stadium, you could see all the aerial fireworks and do so while drinking RC Cola and eating popcorn along with Mom’s peanut butter and chocolate fudge. Of course, gatherings with family and friends was a mainstay. Holiday meals and Summer picnics centered on yummy dishes to share. Mom was known best for her chicken and noodles recipe. Persimmon pudding was a Holiday treat she would make just for me. I still make her pigs-in-a-blanket dish every New Year’s Day.
In addition to regularly arranging affordable entertainment for us, as a family, Mom was always there for the kids’ individual activities. Somehow Mom managed to afford weekly piano lessons for Nancy. These were on Saturdays. We all went along on these outings. I assume this was Mom’s way of managing the cost of transportation and child care for Dick and myself. Although Dick was a little bit on the short side, like many Hoosier boys, he aspired to be a basketball player. In Junior High School, as well as in High School, Mom attended every game that her schedule would allow. And the same was true for me; with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Little League Baseball and High School Football.
Mom – Far right, last row.
Glug – Second from left, front row.
Earlier, I said that Mom responded to the circumstances of being left by my Dad by pouring her life and love into her children. That didn’t stop with my generation. As much as time and geography would allow, she was there for each of her grandchildren. Nancy’s kids: Bob Jr., Lee Ann & Angie; Dick’s kids: Lori, Leslie & Matt and my Daughter, Misty each have rich stories of Grandma’s involvement in their respective lives but I’m leaving those stories to be told by the grandkids themselves.
Gerry and Family and Friends
Throughout her life, Mom continued to add many to her circle of love beyond our immediate family. This included friends from The Avenues, our neighborhood in Terre Haute, especially those from the public schools she attended and our church, The Second Avenue EUB Church. The same was true of her move to the Southside Church of Christ, after the EUB ceased to exist and when she moved from the Avenues to Marywood. Those relationships continued to grow as she became an empty nester, when she retired and even when she moved to her final home, Bethesda Gardens. As you might expect, during this time, all three of her children thought it might be best for Mom to come live with one of us. But Terre Haute had been her home since she was nine years old and she was determined not to leave. Terre Haute’s allure generally escaped her children when they thought of a place commonly known as Sin City and that you could smell before you could see it, if the wind was just right from the direction of what once was the chemical manufacturer known as Commercial Solvents.
– at Bethesda Gardens
Although there were things about the place that she was so fond of, like fish sandwiches at the Bramble Bush, it wasn’t the place she clung to, it was her loved ones she wouldn’t let go of. These were everything to her. At Southside, it was Dorothy and Helen. Even when they were in their late-80s and early-90s, Mom would pick up the other two on Sunday morning so they could go to church together. She became somewhat of an adopted Grandma to Glenda Jones and her family in Marywood. At Bethesda, she developed close relationships with workers at that assisted living facility, especially Daphne and Jan. And she thoroughly enjoyed her relationships with many of the other residents. The best example of these were found at her dining room table. This seating group included one guy and four ladies she had worked with at GTE, as well as one lady she had known since high school. One of the ladies from GTE was Effie Nash, her best friend for over 60 years. At Mom’s funeral, Effie said that in all those years they had never spoken a cross word to each other.
My Precious Memories
When Mom went home to be with the Lord, she was 96 years old. That means that I got to have a wonderful Mom for 68 years. So, as you might imagine, although this article is already much longer than I’d like for it to be, I could continue to go on at even greater length. Instead, let me wrap up with a few precious memories that involve just Mom and me.
As a Native Hoosier, many of my memories tie in to weather events in Indiana. With Mom, the first of these that come to mind is how we would deal with every Spring’s season of thunder storms and tornadoes. As mentioned earlier, the home where I grew up had a pit under it, containing a coal-fired furnace. All by himself, my Dad dug out that pit to make it a full basement. That allowed for the coal-fired furnace to be replaced with a forced-air gas furnace and for a shower to be installed in one corner. There was a wooden bench outside the shower. When heavy thunderstorms struck and when we got a Tornado Watch or Warning, Mom and I would head for the basement, along with our Boxer, Rebel. Mom would sit at one end of that wooden bench and I’d sit at the other end, while we were both petting Rebel who was up on his haunches between us.
Another very memorable weather event involving Mom and me was the night my Daughter, Misty, was born. That afternoon, I was working as a Department Manager at the JCPenney in Crawfordsville, IN, when I got the call telling me that it was time for my Wife to get to the hospital. I don’t recall when I contacted Mom with the news but it wasn’t long before she embarked on the 60 mile drive from Terre Haute to Crawfordsville. However, before she got on the road, a huge thunderstorm hit her route. But, she drove through that storm to be with me in the hospital’s Husbands Waiting Room while the storm continued raging outside. In those days, Husbands weren’t allowed in the Delivery Room. So, Mom and I kept company with each other in the waiting room until a little after midnight when a nurse came out to tell me, “You can go in to see your Wife now and she will tell you what you have.” Her choice of words threw me off for a minute as I thought “Aren’t there only two choices?!” But I went in to be informed that we had one of those two choices … a beautiful baby girl, who we named Misty. Of course the next person for Misty to meet was her Grandma.
One further anecdote about the night of Misty’s birth is a New Daddy Story. As a Department Manager at JCPenney, I had 24/7 access to the store and to its print shop. So,when I finally decided to leave the hospital to get some rest, I chose to stop by the store on my way home in order to print a sign to put in the employee entrance, to let my coworkers know about my Daughter’s birth. The sign noted Misty’s length, weight, hair color and that she had no teeth. Hey! I was a brand new daddy. What did I know?
I’d like to tell you that, after Misty’s birth, her family “lived happily ever after” but that wasn’t the case. When a marriage ends in divorce, there’s usually plenty of blame to go around. I’m thankful to say that, subsequently, both Misty’s Mom and Dad returned to walking with the Lord and extended forgiveness to each other. However, this weather related story took place prior to that. Late in 1978, my employer offered me a promotion to a job in the Marketing Headquarters in Southern California. My biggest consideration in accepting the promotion was that I had just succeeded in getting full shared custody of Misty. I ended up deciding that, in the long run, accepting the promotion would be best for me and my ability to provide for Misty. When I accepted the promotion, the plan was for me to start the new job on the first workday following New Year’s Day. That allowed for Misty and I to spend time together at Mom’s around Christmas before I started the long drive West. On the day of my departure, a big ice storm/snow storm hit. I can still remember looking in my rearview mirror through the ice and snow to see Misty and Mom on Mom’s front porch, waving goodbye to me. As you can imagine, at the time, I was wondering if I’d made the right decision. It turned out that Misty ended up spending more time with me in Southern California than she had post-divorce in Indiana. She came out for 6 weeks during my first Summer. The next year, she came out for the whole Summer. Then, for the next two years, we decided to have her go to school in Indiana for one semester and in Southern California for the other semester. We decided that was causing too much instability so, after that, she went to school in Southern California for the entire school year and she spent the Summer in Indiana. That worked well until her Sophomore year when she met who she thought was “Mr. Right” and she stayed in Indiana from that point forward. During all these changes, Mom was right there for Misty in Indiana as well as spending time in Southern California, helping to meet numerous challenges. That, also, provided countless adventures for Misty and I to share with Mom. Although I won’t detail these, they are treasured and rich memories.
I think it’s fair to say that most guys share being fans of one or more sports with their Dad. For me, it was sharing what’s known as Hoosier Hysteria, the deep-rooted cultural obsession with basketball in the state of Indiana, with my Mom. It started with our going to the basketball games of the high school where she, my Sister, my Brother and I graduated. That was Terre Haute Gerstmeyer Technical High School (Tech). It had one of the top high school basketball programs in Indiana in those days. In my opinion Hoosiers is the best sports movie ever made. It featured a small town high school winning the state championship. Tech was in the final four of that tournament in 1953, 1954, 1956 and 1957. A related treasured memory for me was getting to go to the Indiana Theater in my hometown to watch Hoosiers with my Mom.
Another great related memory came during my first visit home after moving to Southern California. Mom asked if I’d like to go to an Indiana State University (ISU) preseason basketball game at the Terre Haute Civic Center. She said, “I hear they’re going to be pretty good this year”. We went and I was stunned with how good ISU was. That was due to the incredible talent of their star player. I said, “He even made the Refs look good.” His name? Larry Bird.
Probably my favorite Mom and Hoosier Hysteria story came in 1987, at the end of what’s known as March Madness, the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament. The championship game was between the Indiana Hoosiers and the Syracuse Orangemen. Unfortunately, on that date, I was in Seattle conducting a Regional Dealer Sales Meeting. The meeting concluded around the time the game started and my flight out of SeaTac was scheduled around the time that the game should end. I was traveling with my Service Manager, Dennis. When we got to the airport, we popped into a bar to see how the game was going. No surprise, it was a very close game. I said, “Just watch, this game will get down to the last few seconds and one team will win by a point or two with a final shot.” Dennis didn’t care and he set off for our boarding gate. As predicted, with 4 seconds left in the game, Indiana’s Keith Smart sank a 16 foot jump shot to put Indiana ahead, winning the championship 74-73. With that, I cheered and started down the concourse toward my boarding gate. As I did, I saw Dennis walking back in my direction. His melancholy body language told me that we had missed our flight. So, I walked over to a payphone (no cellphones yet in those days) and dialed Mom’s number. She answered by saying, “Wasn’t that a great game Gary?!” She knew who was calling and why.
As Mom aged, although she wasn’t without health issues, she was blessed with generally good physical and mental health. After she moved into Bethesda Gardens, eventually, she needed to use a walker. That didn’t slow her down from socializing though. She joined in most activities and she said, “Any time the van is making a field trip, I’m on board.” No doubt, that social activity was good for her mental health. Of course, as people age, it’s common to have short-term memory issues – i.e. while you can easily remember details of events from many years ago, you might struggle to remember things from earlier today. So, it didn’t worry me when that happened with Mom. But, there came a time when I recognized that something more significant was happening. When we moved from Southern California to Washington State, my business travel, that made it possible for me to visit Mom often, was greatly reduced. At the same time, Mom decided that she was no longer up to making the Midwest/West Coast roundtrip. One of the things I did to compensate for these changes was to make a weekly telephone date with Mom. For many years, at 7:00am PST/10:00am EST, I would call Mom. No matter where I was I’d make that call. And, Mom would always be there to answer. We both thoroughly enjoyed those calls. However, during the last year or so of her life, Mom started missing them. When I would finally connect with her, she would tell me that she had simply forgotten our date. Of course, I recognized this as a significant milestone in her aging.
My recognition that Mom’s aging was advancing led to the final precious memory I want to recount. As the Christmas season of 2015 approached, my Wife, Ruth and I discussed how we wanted to spend our Christmas break from our jobs with Vancouver (WA) Public Schools. During that time of year; visiting family, friends and the weather in Southern California was always appealing to us. But, as I thought about whether or not Mom would be around for many more Christmases, we decided that I’d go to spend Christmas with Mom while Ruth went to Southern California. I’m thankful for that decision. It turned out to be Mom’s last Christmas and we thoroughly enjoyed sharing it. I could go on and on about this memory but I’m choosing to sum it up with the attached video. It shows Mom in her apartment at Bethesda Gardens when a Music Therapist came to visit. I can’t begin to tell you how I treasure still getting to watch Mom tapping her foot as the therapist sings “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” And, I think that provides a fitting conclusion to this story of Glug and Mom. She completely enjoyed the life God blessed her with and I was incredibly blessed to get to share it with her.
