Post by Honeylioness on Oct 13, 2015 20:39:25 GMT -5
Venetia and Louise Allen
In my childhood my mother took care of many things – food, clothes, shelter, medical care – but my nurture came from other women. Two in particular hold a special place in my heart.
Louise, her husband Arthur and her mother Venetia lived in a cozy old-fashioned house a few doors away from me. A two-story, peaked roof house with a porch wrapped around its right side, it estled into a hillside and a triple-lot yard.
A window on the porch was always left open for the seven cats who lived there and the two dogs were very much a part of this welcoming household. In the front hall on a small table was a snow glove, which you could shake either coming or going – but not both.
In many ways it was a plain house, but the clues to its true personality lay sprinkled throughout. The upright piano in the living room was crowded with smiling high school seniors in this childless house – evidence of years of open hearted welcome.
The kitchen’s wide table sat between two windows. The people eating place closely placed to the bird feeding stations just inches away. Here, you could eat your snack while enjoying wrens, sparrows, finches and others enjoying theirs.
The yard was a wonderful casually organized jungle with every kind of flower willing to grow in New England’s often harsh and capricious climate. I spent hours learning the names of flowers and species of birds.
Here I was accepted, encouraged, taught, petted and loved.
I learned to play anagrams and Chinese Checkers, to try new foods I wouldn’t eat at home, cross the street safely and saw what love lived out looked like – inclusive, gentle, welcoming and secure.
I would be a very different person without the influence of that home, that family, that love.
Venetia was the heart of it all, a tiny scrap of Victorian lady-hood, always in a flowered dress and Enna Jettick shoes. Her gray hair twisted up on the back of her head.
She may have been Victorian in appearance, but inside was a bright spirit, inquisitive mind and an abiding faith that touched all who met her.
~ Rebecca Dawson
In my childhood my mother took care of many things – food, clothes, shelter, medical care – but my nurture came from other women. Two in particular hold a special place in my heart.
Louise, her husband Arthur and her mother Venetia lived in a cozy old-fashioned house a few doors away from me. A two-story, peaked roof house with a porch wrapped around its right side, it estled into a hillside and a triple-lot yard.
A window on the porch was always left open for the seven cats who lived there and the two dogs were very much a part of this welcoming household. In the front hall on a small table was a snow glove, which you could shake either coming or going – but not both.
In many ways it was a plain house, but the clues to its true personality lay sprinkled throughout. The upright piano in the living room was crowded with smiling high school seniors in this childless house – evidence of years of open hearted welcome.
The kitchen’s wide table sat between two windows. The people eating place closely placed to the bird feeding stations just inches away. Here, you could eat your snack while enjoying wrens, sparrows, finches and others enjoying theirs.
The yard was a wonderful casually organized jungle with every kind of flower willing to grow in New England’s often harsh and capricious climate. I spent hours learning the names of flowers and species of birds.
Here I was accepted, encouraged, taught, petted and loved.
I learned to play anagrams and Chinese Checkers, to try new foods I wouldn’t eat at home, cross the street safely and saw what love lived out looked like – inclusive, gentle, welcoming and secure.
I would be a very different person without the influence of that home, that family, that love.
Venetia was the heart of it all, a tiny scrap of Victorian lady-hood, always in a flowered dress and Enna Jettick shoes. Her gray hair twisted up on the back of her head.
She may have been Victorian in appearance, but inside was a bright spirit, inquisitive mind and an abiding faith that touched all who met her.
~ Rebecca Dawson