By Rochelle Bowyer
Winter 2020 Kaplan Award Winner
My household was anything but a patriarchy, it was a matriarchy.
The “Man” of the house responsibility starts and ends with the trash. One of my few memories of my father before he arrested and was never to be seen again was, leaning over the small front porch of our trailer park home in the small cul-de-sac of Little Bear Creek Rd. He would show my older brother and I the possums that fell into our trash can trying to find some scraps of food. He would then tip the trash can over and carefully help the possums’ escape, before tossing the trash into the can. My mom stayed inside and finished washing the dishes. This was the only responsibility for the “man” of the house.
This story, memoir, or whatever you want to call it, is not going to be about me processing my estrange relationship with my father or my history of “daddy issues” he has had enough ‘airtime’ in my past personal essays. I want to highlight the strong, yet, odd legacy of the women of my heritage, each woman I grown to idolize in a unique way.
When it comes down to the question of: if I were to eat dinner with someone who had died my top two choices are either my Great Grandmother or pharaoh of Egypt, Queen Nefertiti or with my great grandmother.
My great grandmother passed away when I was three. The only memories I have of her are self-crafted one’s birth from tales of family members. My mother tells me her name was Minna and adds that Minna means toilet in German. I think it’s just a miscommunication or myth created by one of my mother’s siblings. She is anything but a toilet, she is the definition of pose and elegance.
Every morning Minna would wake up and draw eyebrows above her blue eyes with a thin black pencil. She would then rest a wig with perfectly curled hair onto of her head. As a child she had chickenpox which caused her to lose hear hair, but it didn’t stop her from crafting her own version of beauty.
She would host parties at the Swedish Club which is located on Dexter. I picture parties as the parties that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about, expect less drugs and no death. Even though she would host, parties that I wish I could have attended, she worked to achieve her status of elegance and enough wealth to support both her children and stepchildren.
Minna first husband was way too good for her, he was defiantly out of her league. He was a drunken Welsh man from the McLeod clan. This nameless man and Minna had three daughters before she left them. She packed up her bags, took her three daughters, and set out to live her life to the fullest without him weighing her down.
It’s hard enough to be a single mother this day and age, I cannot imagine being a single mother of three in the 1950s, where women were still expected to stay at home.
She moved to Queen Anne and invested her money into properties earning herself a big enough fortune to support herself, her children, her husband and his children and still had money to travel the world. My mother said her favorite place was Africa.
My great grandmother didn’t live long enough to teach me her life lessons in person, but she taught me that no matter the stigma keeps moving forward.
Stories of my great grandmother Minna symbolizes strength in knowledge. She was able to stand on her own two feet and utilized her college education, to put herself in a place of success. I wanted to imbody her class, her elegance, and her brilliant mind. She was truthy a badass to have the strength to pack up her bags and leave her husband during a time where, being a divorce single mother was unheard of.
Out of the three children Minna had (not including her stepchildren) my grandma was the black sheep and exact opposite of Minna. My grandma was crude. Her favorite words are ‘asshole’ and jackass’ her catchphrase was ‘Where is my damn wine?’ or ‘C’mon its happy hour somewhere’ at any time after noon. She truly didn’t care about anyone’s opinion.
Once on a Cruise she didn’t feel like listening to the mandatory safety lecture and faked a diabetic reaction to be able to go back to her room early. To be fair she has been diabetic since elementary school, survived cancer, has arthritis, and probably takes a pill for every year I been born. Honestly, my family is shocked that she is still kicking and screaming for her wine. As a kid I used to make the joke that my grandma could have been shot and still would be walking. I think she is too stubborn for death.
She is my superhero with the sole job of drinking wine while sitting on the couch because she made one smart investment. Goals? Am I right?
She wasn’t a great mother but, became the best grandmother. She was divorcee like my great grandmother because my grandfather didn’t make enough money to be married to. Unlike most grandmothers she didn’t teach me the family recipes or shower me with hugs and kisses, but her actions spoke more than words. She was the type of grandmother who taught me how to flip a bicyclist off and jaywalk downtown.
When my mother became a single mother of two young children, my grandmother saved us. We moved into my grandmother’s duplex. We rented out the two-bedroom basement for $500 a month on Queen Anne. For anywhere in Seattle that was cheap. Every year my grandmother would take me to Westlake mall for back to school shopping. She did this so I wouldn’t be teased by the other kids and would be warm for the coming winter. She paid me to pick the raspberries that grew in her garden, even though I would land up eating them all, just so I had some “extra money”. For me, she was the prefect grandmother, crude and all.
As a child I almost cared to much about my image. I was scared that I wasn’t pretty enough, or I was too fat for my outfits. Looking back know those thoughts were ridiculous. But my grandmother taught me how to tune out the voices of the critics and embrace my inner tomboy. She full heartedly supported me in anything I did.
My aunt comes next, she second oldest, next to my Uncle. She is a dog lover and the person I go to whenever I need advance on hair or style. She is the only stylish one out of the family. Even though she values a good mascara she is a true fighter.
Her spirit oozes strength.
I was a senior in high school. She came over to our small basement home. Her face was covered in bruises, but I didn’t ask. I was terrified to open her pandora box. We sat on the couch together and asked me for a hug. Tears streaming down her eyes, she told me a story of pure resilience. We always hear horror stories online or in articles, but you never think it could happen to you or someone you love.
My aunt was kidnapped, raped, and escaped being trafficked.
“Rochelle,” her eyes red and a fire of both terror and anger rested in her eyes. “I bit his dick so hard, he punched and hit me…” She screamed loud enough for someone to take a risk and save her. Her rapist now lives behind bars, but not long enough for the crimes he committed.
Later, I heard her talking to my mother. “You know mom (my grandmother) must of experience some messed up things,” my Aunt said. “Mom told me once, that if I am ever raped to bite the dick, just like I did. That saved my life…”
The things that had happen to her shouldn’t of happen to anyone. Even after her experience she remains strong and fire spirited. Though hard, she counties on with life, slowly healing and every day spends less time looking over shoulder.
When I think of my aunt, I think of an unwavering fire that will never burn out. As a child I wished I could have been a boy. She was the one who taught me the power of being a woman. She was the one who taught me the value in female relationship and the strength of family.
Minna, my grandmother, and my aunt all have incredible, jaw-droppingly stories. Probably a lot of stories that will remain as skeletons in the closet— my mother’s story is the one I hold closest to my heart.
She is the definition of hard work, kindness, and growth. When she was 25, she accidently became pregnant with me, “happy mistake” as she puts it. Four years later and a spontaneous wedding aka a shotgun wedding she had my younger brother.
Her giving birth to us, confided her to the house.
During the short five years I spent with my dad, my mother wasn’t allowed to work and became the best stay at home mom she could be to two kids of her own and one of my older half-brother’s after he was taken away from heroin addict home.
She was the one who made the house go around. She did everything from caring to chickens to making sure every night we had a delicious homecooked meal for the least amount of money. One chicken was at least a week and a half of meals. Every night she and I would share a bed as she rubbed my back and read me Winnie-the-Pooh.
One year after my brother was born, my mother became a single parent and my brother, and I became the product of a messy divorce. My mother remained strong; I don’t remember ever seeing her cry (even though I know she did).
With no child support and no college degree, she started a new life with us. She worked full time and went to college fulltime, while somehow simultaneously fighting two different wars against Seattle public schools. The first war was to get support my brother, who had a slight hearing loss. The second was basic English lessons for her very dyslexic daughter (me). She put her children before anything and anyone. Even after a long day of work and school, she would come home and become a teacher to an ungrateful student (me again). She would spend an hour a day, sounding out words and helping me read English so I wouldn’t fall even farther behind in school. During the weekends, she would scrape together her energy to take us to parks or museums or even study calculus in the pouring rain during my soccer games.
My mother was the man women of the house.
My mother taught me all the values; I hold dear to my heart. She taught me how to have a strong work ethic. Through her unconditional love, she taught me the power of having family always right behind you— to catch you even when you feel like you have fallen a thousand miles behind everyone else. She taught me how to independent, strong-willed, and kind.
There is a long legacy of women in my family, each one giving me a new story to reflect on. Within the lives of these women, there are so many secrets to uncover, so many more lessons to be learned. I hope to keep unraveling these secrets and learn from their past mistakes and shames. One day, hopefully I’ll have a daughter to share these stories with. I want to show her, that there is no such thing as ‘man of the house’.