Friday, February 29, 2008

Ici Remembers a Wash in the Tub in 1925

My first childhood memory is my mother giving me a bath on the top of the family room table in a small washbowl.

I must have been very young- probably thirteen months or so - to fit in it. I always was a small, but very lively child, and, according to my mother, started to talk before I walked.

I clearly remember how I sat in the bowl and how my mother lifted up one of my feet and, pressing it to her cheek, said, "Silk and velvet little soles…"

She was a beautiful and very gentle woman, who looked always much younger than her real age. She had lovely porcelain blue eyes, light brown hair, and even after six children, had a good figure.

She was born in Nagyvarad, Transylvania, which that time was part of Hungary. Her mother raised also six children, three boys and three girls. She, Margarete Melcher, was the second oldest of the siblings.

She was smart and well educated, a high school teacher, majoring in math and science, which came in handy when we needed help in our homework.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kitty,

Idon't remember Mama telling us about her earliest memomory. She was very observant at that age as she was when we were young.

Anonymous said...

Kitty,

Idon't remember Mama telling us about her earliest memomory. She was very observant at that age as she was when we were young.

Anonymous said...

I am so glad that you are doing this. Ingrid interviewed my mother for a school project just weeks before she died. The interview was made into a little book that was distributed to my brothers and sisters. They were all so grateful for it. I love it too. Matter of fact, if there was a fire in my house that would be the first possession that I would grab.

Africans have a saying "When an elder dies, a library burns". So true.

LOL, Annette

Kitty @ Four Toms and a Mom said...

Thanks for the encouragement, Annette. Make sure you get copies of your mother's interview for exactly that reason. That's one of the reason I'm getting my mother's memoirs on a blog, so that if something happened to me or my home, it wouldn't be lost to everyone else in the family!

ILDIKO MARGIE said...

Kitty...
I had a conversation with Mama just last year when was concerned about her own memory...she was upset that she forgets things that just happened yesterday or last week..but was comforted by the fact that she can still still remember when her mother @ 1 1/2 or younger gave her a tub bath..
Margie

Kitty @ Four Toms and a Mom said...

Thanks, Margie. I'm so glad you are there with Mama getting her comments on her own stories!

Anonymous said...

Please give a copy of this wonderful dissertation to Mama. She is not aware of what you are doing and it would indeed warm her heart that others care about what she, Mama, is about.

Judy