Mom and Dad Book Released

Both of the paintings on the two covers were made in an afternoon during one of the regular visits Anne and I made in the final years. I’d brought my oils along and paged through Dad’s old album for subject matter, finding two that interested me, plus a third one of a car. I set up in the living room and chatted lightly with Mom and Dad as I worked. When finished, I left the paintings with Dad, who always enjoyed my art, having been a painter hobbyist himself. They remained on the mantel. Mom, in her final years, suffered from macular-degeneration so I don’t know what she would have thought about the art. She was never without an opinion. It was after they were gone, in compiling material for this book, that I came across the source photo again and I turned it over to see if there was a caption. There was. In pencil Mom had written the very clear sentiment: “I hope a more terrible picture of Hy and me will never be taken. Sept. 16, 1935.” What an irony that this became the cover of the book. Sorry, Mom. But we often saw things different.

It’s been several months since this blog featured the ongoing saga of my parents. That’s because I stopped editing their material for posts and began compiling it for a book. And that book has just seen light of day.

I must say it was a labor of love for me as I combed through photos and memories and worked to match them up with the text. That text was supplied, thanks to brief autobiographies each contributed to a family reunion a decade or two back. Without that, there would have been very little to go on at all, but for vaguely remembered stories my parents would recount as folklore. Added to that were emails my mother would send me. She always said, “I could write a book.” Once I said, “Why don’t you?”

That never happened, but she was always a great letter writer, and as she’d get carried away to somebody recounting some aspect of her childhood, she’d forward a cc to me. So stories and many opinions from those sources also fill out the book in a colorful way.

Not that there’s color otherwise. The photos from those early days are all black and white, or sepia. So, whenever I did have a color photo to include, I toned the color way back to give the book a consistent look.

Many of the photos are from Dad’s camera, photography being one of his hobbies from early days. It was forensic delight finding photos I never knew existed. In some cases, when I didn’t have a photo, I’d make a drawing, just to help the reader visualize.

And who will the readers be? Anybody, really, as the book is available on this website and on Amazon. Of course its family who will find it most useful as the years go on. Every member of our family–our children, my siblings, their children–have a copy. My brother has researched the addresses of one hundred friends and other relatives still living and sent them a copy.

I must say all the time I put into making this book had an effect on me I didn’t anticipate. I’ve always known we had good parents (okay, Mom, there was that difficult stretch), but spending this time and digging deeper has brought me to appreciate these two individuals as just that–two people with interesting stories, a matter-of-fact overcoming, and an unassuming strength of character in all circumstances. I might have realized that anyway, but making this book has made me see it better. If you read it I think you’ll see the same thing.

For a look at a few of the book’s pages and how to get it, go to the “Store” then “Books” section of this website, click here.