By Jo Ellen Collins
In my mailbox about a month ago came a packet from my cousin, Lynn: two letters in their original envelopes written by my mother, Helen Johanson Gifford, in 1945 and 1946. Lynn had just visited Swedish cousins we never met, although two of my other California cousins maintained a correspondence with them. The marvel was not only that the family kept these letters intact all these years, but that I now had a chance to re-create some of my mother's spirit some 60 years after her careful compositions. As my readers know, I lost almost all family correspondence and many mementos of my mother when my home burned down in 1970.
My mother died in 1967, almost 40 years ago, and in many ways I still mourn her loss. My daughters have never known her remarkable and vibrant spirit. I often think of how pleased Helen would have been at the news of my first pregnancy and childbirth only a year after she died. As an adopted child, I always harbored a totally irrational feeling that I wouldn't be able to bear children. However, I was blessed with two healthy childbirths: I have never taken that experience for granted and can identify with those who don't have such good fortune.
I took the letters with me on a birthday celebration weekend with my daughters. One night we sat in our hotel room calming down from a full day, and I read my mother's letters aloud. It was almost palpable, as though her presence could be felt. All the things I have told my girls about their grandmother were evident: her intelligence, her compassion, her warmth. We shed some tears at the absence of such a loving grandmother. As she tried to convey the early post-World War II landscape and feeling of Los Angeles to her distant relatives, we could hear her real voice.
Among other things, mother's letter was on the original letterhead and envelope of a hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Ventura. It was called the Pierpont Inn, and a flood of memories ensued. She mentioned that she had taken her little girl (me) and that we had emerged from the time together brown as berries.
My mother always carved out special times for just the two of us to do things together. I recall often leaving the extended family campsite on the river in Yosemite (Who can be in that spot anymore?) to hike to Mirror Lake early in the morning and then reward ourselves with coffee for her and warm milk with a teaspoon of coffee for me. When we lived in the San Fernando Valley we would escape in the summers to Capistrano Beach for a week or in the winter to Palm Springs, where she and I would bake as though on spits, her tanning mixture one of olive oil and vinegar. We smelled like salads and were blissfully unaware of the dangers of skin cancer. My mother was my favorite female companion in the whole world: I don't recall ever being bored for a second in her presence.
Later on, I spent three days of a honeymoon at the Pierpont Inn, dismayed that the paths between the hotel and the beach were being bulldozed to build the Ventura Freeway. Thus, the brown envelope with an artistic rendering of the inn was like a friendly little ghost guiding me back to some wonderful times.
In her careful penmanship with fancy uppercase s's and c's, are her words, reminders of the young girl who spoke only Swedish until she entered kindergarten in Oakland and probably diligently practiced that handwriting. In one paragraph she writes, "My little girl Bitsy is a fine student and gets the best grades in school. She is not only talented but also very pretty. As her nickname implies, she is small and petite, with big brown eyes and blond braids." Could I have been given any better birthday present than that example of unconditional love, in her own words?
As I wrote an e-mail to a friend this morning and began a different column for this paper, I realized that perhaps this generation will not have the luxury I have had of feeling the physical delight of the weight of an ancient 10-page letter. Where will the records of these kinds of experiences be? I know the real treasures are in memories and in the experiences themselves, but I also know that I now possess tangible proof of the spirit of my mother.
Jo Ellen Collins
