Category Archives: family

Great Grandpa’s Copper Pennies

Some eye remind me of blue china plates. Some are as green as pine trees. Others are as dark as chocolate truffles with eyelashes resembling ruffled paper cups. But my great grandfather had eyes the color of copper pennies.

His name was Leon, and his eyes took on the glint of a new penny when he smiled–a smile that spread out wide like he was a grown-up pixie with a face full of childish adventure. His smiled possessed a spark of mischief for which everyone forgave him because his mischief was wrapped in an effervescence of charm.

My father drove Mom and us kids to Winona, Minnesota from California during the summer when I was four years old. That was the first time I ever met Great Grandfather even though my father had told us many stories about him as we sat at the foot of his brown arm chair, our arms propping us up from behind. Dad sat back in his chair, one foot perched on the other knee, his face hazy behind the smoke of his pipe.

In one story, Dad told us how he moved away from home when he was fourteen to live on Great Grandpa’s 761 acre farm, a collection of wet emerald hills and valleys, prime for alfalfa crops, acquired piecemeal through the years. After school each day and even on the weekends, my father drove the tractor, tilling the soil. “That’ll keep you outta trouble,” Great Grandpa had told him.

Dad described the big, rambling, clapboard house that Great Grandpa had built on the property. A porch, big enough for stacking up piles of firewood near the front door for the winter, spread across the whole front of the house. The house was two story, had running water and two inside toilets, modern conveniences for the time it was built. Built as the mansion for Great Grandpa’s plantation, it was nevertheless a humble abode, reflecting the unassuming personality of its owner. Furniture was utilitarian and sparse. The walls were hung with religious icons and little else.

In 1961, when Leon sold his farm to the State of Minnesota to be The Memorial Hardwood State Forest, vandals ransacked the house, trying to find the still Leon had built and used during Prohibition to produce liquor for himself and his friends. Sheetrock was slashed and kicked in, floorboards were pried up and cupboards were destroyed in the search for a secret chamber; the chamber and still were never found. My father believes that the still is buried in a hidden grave somewhere among the hills of the fields, rust and useless now.

Great Grandpa was one of the first babies to be born in the town of Winona. His father Ignacias founded the town with his four brothers during the 1850’s. An ideal location on the Mississippi to set up a sawmill and take advantage of the logging industry farther up north. By the time Leon began farming, he had passed his family sawmill obligations to the Brom family who later became his relatives when his son Leon Jr. married Lillian Brom, my grandmother.

Years before Prohibition, Leon took on the job as Winona’s first sheriff, but this too has passed by the time my father arrived on Great Grandpa’s farm in 1943. By then, Leon had earned a reputation as a respectable farmer and had contributed a significant amount of money to build Winona’s first Catholic church, St. Stanislaus.

Perhaps my father inherited Great Grandpa’s looks from being around him so much. All the men of my father’s family line bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. In pictures of them as toddlers, they have white-blonde hair and doughy-soft limbs. Later childhood pictures show how they grow into strong-limbed young boys, hardy-looking, and clear in complexion. As young men, they are debonair and tall. Eventually, they mature into handsome broad men with rounded edges, kind creases around their eyes, and erect, stocky frames. Their chests and arms provide strong hugs and they are masculine enough to accept love in return.

I have a picture of Great Grandpa Leon when he was 96 years old. He is standing, holding a fishing rod, his eyes cast down and his thumb resting on the handle of the reel. His wrinkles are life creases: the knob of his chin, slightly bulging jowls, cheeks puffed out as if they are storing nuts for the winter, and eyes recessed under a frown of concentration. His hair, thinned since youth, glows a lustrous white. His face and posture are regal like that of an older priest or religious man.

Leon lived until he was ninety-eight years old. Up until his last two years, he fished down at the family boathouse on the Mississippi or chopped wood for the fireplace. On Sundays, he spent an inordinate amount of time at church. The pastor was his friend, and he showed his friendship by spending time and money on the parish. Perhaps, Leon was playing all his cards carefully to reserve that scarce space for himself in heaven.

That summer when I was four and first visited Winona with my family, Great Grandpa Leon was already over eighty years old. My father drove our station wagon onto Grandma’s graveled driveway on a hot and sticky June afternoon. Us kids tumbled our of the station wagon and stretched the endless cross-country miles out of our crampy, gangly limbs. Giddy with excitement to explore the new town, we asked for permission to scout out the neighborhood. The three of us set out down Sixth Street toward downtown, striding under the sprawling shade of the great leafy high-arching cathedrals of elm trees that protected our blond heads from the hot sun.

We had barely walked a block when we met a man with the glint of a penny in his eyes. He looked at the three of us, and, slowly, a smile brightened up his face like a church candle lit at Mass on Easter Sunday. Stopping in front of us, he poked his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fist full of candy.

“There’s enough for all of you,” he said.

Shy at first, we were hesitant, but looking up into his glowing face and sparkling eyes, he looked trustworthy. Kind creases softened the skin under his eyes and the honey hue of his irises cast diamonds of light into the air.

“Thank you very much,” we repeated over and over again, clutching our tiny, wrapped packages of pleasure.

Running back to Grandma’s house, we found Dad and Mom sitting with Grandma around the metal kitchen table. “We met a very nice man who gave us this candy!” we exclaimed in unison like angels with new wings.

“Don’t you know who that was?” Dad asked, turning around from looking out of window. “That was your Great Grandpa.” Dad sat back in his chair and laughed, then leaned toward us and opened his eyes wide until we could see the copper pennies in his irises.

A Belly of Snow

Where I live it never snows.  Hardly ever rains.  Winter starts and finishes with fog huddling close to the ground like a damp layer of dust coating a glass tabletop.  The one day it did snow, I was stuck inside.

“You have to stay in the house, Carlota,” said Mama, tucking the blanket around me in my wheelchair.  She was always so careful with me.  “The ramp to the yard is icy and dangerous.” 

Usually I liked Mama’s special attention, but sometimes it got in the way.  Like now.  I wanted to feel that snow, ball it up in my hands to see if it stuck.  It would be fun to make a snowman.  I thought about how I’d carve the cheekbones and eyebrows on the head.  Javier, my little brother, would help find bark and sticks for the eyes, nose, and happy mouth.  I’d wrap my red scarf around its neck.

I pressed my face against the window, the glass feeling like a jar of chilis just taken from the refrigerator.   The yard was all white, the trees draped with snow lace doilies.  I watched Arnoldo, my older brother, Maria, my sister, and Javier playing in the yard.  They were lying back in the snow, swooshing their arms up and down to make angels.

Mama carried baby Jessie to his bedroom.  As soon as she was down the hall, I wheeled myself over to the door, opened it, and rolled out onto the patio.   The air gripped me like the draft from the freezer, chilling and exciting. 

“Carlota, what are you doing out here?” Maria asked.  “Mama told you to stay inside.”

“I’m just coming out for a little while, to see what it’s like. Mama won’t mind.”  I turned to the ramp and stopped at the top.   The cement looked slick and glossy like a mirror, reflecting the snaking branches of the mulberry tree.

With my hands gripping the rims of the wheels, I inched down the ramp, braking, almost going nowhere.

“Careful, Carlota. It’s really slippery there,” Arnoldo said.  He dropped a fistful of snow.  Javier gawked at me.  Maria’s mouth opened.  I couldn’t tell if their faces showed fear or admiration.

The chair twisted on the ice, and I lost hold of the other wheel.  The chair slid across the glassy surface, crashing into the rail, thrusting my chest and head over the side like I a floppy, rag doll.  My rib muscles throbbed. 

Maria, screeching, ran to me, grabbed my collar, and folded me back into the chair.  Arnoldo gripped the wheelchair’s handles, braced himself against the opposite rail, and pushed me back up to the patio.

“Are you all right?” Maria asked, hunching down and peering into my face.

“My chest hurts .  .  .  where I hit the rail,” I said, breathing hard.  I rubbed where the wood had stopped me, feeling to see if my ribs were broken.  “I’m O.K.”

“You almost killed yourself, you fool!” Maria said.  “Does Mama know you’re out here?”

I didn’t answer.  I looked down at my legs and noticed that my shoes were jammed behind the footpads.  Javier lifted my feet and placed them on the pads.

“Let’s cart you back in there before Mama finds out what you did,” Maria said.       Javier held open the screen door as Arnoldo drove me back into the house.  Long before Mama came out of baby Jessie’s bedroom, I was back, looking out the window.

I leaned my arms on the sill and breathed mouthfuls of fog onto the glass.  Arnoldo was shaking his head as Maria squawked at him and flapped her arms. 

After a while when she calmed down, Maria walked out into the yard under the naked walnut trees with Arnoldo and Javier following behind.  As I looked at the sky through the craggy branches of those trees, a tear drizzled down my cheek onto my lips.

Stupid wheelchair!   I wanted to be outside.   I wanted to play in the snow with everyone else.   It wasn’t fun being cooped up in here with nothing to do.

I was surprised Maria didn’t tell Mama what I’d done.  Instead, she told Arnoldo to get the red wagon from the patio and pull it out under the trees where the snow was smooth and thick.      

My brothers and sister filled the wagon with a mountain of snow.  I watched as they packed it in, patting it with the palms of their mittens, building it higher than even the wooden slats on the wagon’s sides.  Arnoldo dragged the wagon up the yard to the side of the house out of my view, everyone trailing behind him.

I sighed, turned my chair away from the window, and rolled over to the desk where I laid my head on my folded arms.  I had nothing to do, and, now,  couldn’t even watch Maria and the others playing.   Was Maria still mad at me for scaring her?   Is that why they went to play where I couldn’t see them?

“Carlota, go to the garage. Maria is asking for you,” Mama said from the kitchen.  I could hear the chopping of her knife on the cutting board. 

As I turned my chair around towards the garage door, I felt a flutter in my chest, a lump in my throat.  Would Maria tell Mama what I had done?

I opened the door and rolled down the ramp.  Maria, Arnoldo, and Javier stood in the middle of the garage floor, next to the snow-filled wagon.  They were all smiling with big, toothy grins.  Arnoldo patted the snow like it was a big belly.  Javier laughed so big that I could see the spaces where his two teeth were missing.

I squeezed my eyes shut.  Something good was about to happen.  Something warm and comfortable and happy just the way I liked it.  Like when I woke up in the morning and smelled fresh tortillas.  Like when Mama gave me her ribbons and sewing kit to decorate my doll clothes, or when Daddy wrote poems to me on the back of my birthday cards.  This something would be like that. 

“Now you can have snow, too,” Maria said. 

I wheeled over and braked abruptly in front of the wagon. “Help me build a snowman!” I shouted as I dug a hand into the cold, white mound.

Outside the garage window, sunshine peeked through a gray cloud.  The snow would be melting soon.  Daffodils would poke their heads through the dirt liked it hadn’t been cold at all.

It never snows where I live. It hardly ever even rains.