Mattie
July 14, 2011
One of Alice’s earliest memories of Mattie is being tucked inside her big sister’s coat and there, within dark folds of cloth, being twirled round and round. They were eight and four—two spinning sister planets in happy conjunction.
In this game, Mattie would suddenly halt and ask Alice to guess what direction they faced. Until she guessed correctly, she had to stay with her head and body covered by the large coat (passed down from Marie to LaRue to Mattie).
Dizzy from her woolly orbit, Alice’s brain swirled with local landmarks.
“The kickball field?”
“No.”
“Antelope Hill?”
“No.”
“The Dahl farm!”
“No!”
“The Peterson house, I bet.”
“Finally!”
You would think Alice would then spring out from under Mattie’s arm into daylight and stay there, but instead she begged to be spun again. They’d move along to a different part of town and end the game only when Mattie got tired of playing.
According to her own writing about childhood, Mattie’s first memory is of the day Alice was born. The birth took place at home and, while this was happening, Mattie was asked to take her sister Lillian for a long ride in the children’s little wagon.
Because July 14th is Mattie’s birthday, Alice has been thinking of her a lot this past week.
She said she used to love lying next to Mattie at night in their crowded upstairs bedroom (six girls in two small beds), and looking up to watch her sister’s pale blue eyes travel back and forth across the page as she read a book aloud to all of them.
Mattie saved her money from babysitting the neighbors’ children and hid it in her family’s backyard, but she dug out some coins one December so she could buy Alice a copy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland for Christmas.
They sat on the stairway and Mattie read the book to her, but Alice didn’t like it. A tale in which a little girl named Alice falls down a hole and swims in her own tears was not her idea of a good story.
Illustration by Sir John Tenniel
In the summer, Mattie and Alice would sometimes each grab a long stick, tip the big metal rain barrel next to the house on its side, climb on top of it and roll it along by pushing their sticks like ferrymen with the dusty yard as their crossing. They must have imagined cattle too because they’d sing Ki Yi Yippee Yippee Yay at the top of their lungs.
On slow summer days, they’d wander the prairie. Mattie taught Alice the names of wildflowers, including two favorites, the bluebell and the crocus.
Prairie bluebells (John Carlson)
Prairie Crocus _ Creative Commons License by Montana Wildlife Gardener
One autumn day they came upon a pair of tumbleweeds, which Mattie (and everyone else in that area) called Russian thistles. In summer they’d been green.
Field of tumbleweed in summer
But now the big weeds had dried up and were almost light as air.
A mature tumbleweed in autumn
The two tumbleweeds were so dry and light, in fact, that they’d broken off at ground level. Each girl picked one and claimed it as her own. Mattie named hers Nigel and Alice named hers Nidgel.
They tied twine onto the stems and then took off running, holding Nigel and Nidgel up in the air. The tumbleweeds floated above and behind them, prickly balloons, their seeds scattering in the breeze.
Mattie kept family photographs, letters, census records, histories, birth announcements, obituaries, and newspaper clippings, as well as historical items related to North Dakota: Lakota Sioux cookbooks, arrowheads, drawings of brands from various ranches, giant rusty nails from the railroad that ran through town—she wanted to know and remember all of it.
Every night she watched the moon from her back steps, and she liked hearing stories, telling stories, and writing long letters to family members in a small, neat hand that is still visible on the spines of many of the books in the Bismarck Public Library, where she served as children’s librarian for thirty-three years.
She loved reading children’s books, even into old age. One of her favorites was this one, in which a character is based on her.
In her later years she wished that all six hundred thousand (plus) North Dakotans would one day leave so the sky could be open and clean for the thousands of birds that lived or migrated there every year, and the rivers and grasslands pure for all the animals that had proved tenacious enough to withstand the climate.
“Why can’t one state be just for wildlife?” she asked me. “And why not this one, with so few people?”
She was a reader, a dreamer, and the most practical romantic I’ve ever known, maybe the only one.
Mattie died ten years ago this summer. Had she continued living, today would be her 100th birthday.
On her death, this was the poem she wanted remembered for her:
- Do not stand at my grave and weep.
- I am not there. I do not sleep.
- I am a thousand winds that blow.
- I am the diamond glints on snow.
- I am sunlight on the ripened grain.
- I am the gentle autumn rain.
- When you waken in the morning’s hush
- I am the swift uplifting rush
- Of quiet birds in circled flight.
- I am the soft stars that shine at night.
- Do not stand at my grave and cry;
- I am not there. I did not die.
- -Mary Frye
- Among the things she left behind, I found this photograph of her, exactly as it is (no Photoshop tricks on my part). I think it expresses her beautifully.
Mattie on the prairie
- See more prairie life from the Montana Wildlife Gardener.
- For more of John Carlson’s photos, visit his blog or go here.
- One set of posts on this blog is devoted to an event in Mattie’s childhood. It’s called “A Family Secret” and is told in four parts.
July 14, 2011 at 12:30 pm
This is a beauty, Andrea! Thank you.
July 17, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Thank you, Leslie. I love hearing from you.
July 14, 2011 at 12:44 pm
that photo is wonderful in its mistiness – I know the love of prairie too – it is deep within my bones, too
July 17, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Bone deep. Yep, I get it. When I go back there, I just can’t get enough of it. It feels like there’s no sky here in the Northwest. That prairie is roomy enough for endless land, endless sky.
July 14, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Happy birthday, Mattie! I will never forget that image of Mattie and Alice with their pet tumbleweeds flying behind them.
Today is our daughter’s birthday, too … I think really, really good people are born on this day!
July 17, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Happy birthday, Anneliese!
July 14, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Had she lived, my aunt Audrey would have been 97 today.
The poem by Mary Frye is what we put on the memorial handout for my dad. I have it on my downstairs wall also.
I think people–like us– who grew up on the prairie might especially find it soothing.
Connections….
July 17, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Aunt Audrey. Did I meet her? It seems like I did.
Yes, that poem probably means more to prairie people, I agree.
July 14, 2011 at 10:22 pm
What a beautiful post and story. The image of your mother and her sister with the tumbleweeds is an amazing one that I will not forget.
July 17, 2011 at 8:35 pm
There were tumbleweeds around where I grew up too, but I never had the slightest bit of imagination about them.
July 15, 2011 at 12:39 am
Wow, Andrea, finally I begin to understand why you loved your Aunt Mattie so much! What a wonderful tribute to her this is. And of course she felt it in her windy, sunny, starry self. What a great Birthday Party you gave us all! Love, Rhoberta
July 17, 2011 at 8:33 pm
To have you get it is a really great gift to me. Thank you.
July 15, 2011 at 7:41 am
My life would be so bereft of the old, small town midwest (or, for that matter, just about all the i states!) if it wasn’t for you and Alice and Mattie and the gang. Fun reading with the soundtrack, too. And who knew that the prairie bluebell was a penstemon? I should have guessed. Thank you!
July 17, 2011 at 8:31 pm
Turns out (wouldn’t you know?) there’s an American Penstemon Society: http://www.apsdev.org/
Right up your alley.
July 15, 2011 at 5:03 pm
you just keep on plunkin’ the heart strings A. What a gift you have and are. Thanks for the songs. and great choices of photos.
July 17, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Plunkin’ sounds so very…southern. Where are you from again?
Thanks, Claudia. I love it that you read these posts.
July 16, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Beautiful remembrance, Andrea. That Mary Frye poem — which is new to me — is completely in synch with my perspective on life and death.
July 17, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Thank you, Katie.
July 17, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Ah, what wonderful images. Yes, Mattie had a great idea … one whole state for wildlife! Your post takes me in so many directions with the writing, songs & photos. A great tribute to your mother and aunt. Tumbling Tumble Weeds is a favorite song of mine and one of the choices for my husband’s memorial.
July 17, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Thank you, Phyllis. I’m glad you chose that song for your husband’s memorial. It’s been in my head now for days, and I’m happy it’s there to drift in and out of. Peaceful.
July 18, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Andrea, I don’t think I commented on this post, but it’s lovely. “woolly orbit”, and tumble weeds as balloons. Love.
July 19, 2011 at 9:14 am
I love that poem, and all the images arising from this post: the tumbleweed pets, rolling on the rain barrel, Mattie’s blue eyes reading. So beautiful. Happy birthday, Mattie.
August 19, 2011 at 2:23 pm
[...] I heard about Yvonne, the runaway Austrian cow, I was reminded of Mattie’s notes about the family cow in her memoir on childhood. Nebba, a black and white Holstein, was named [...]
August 28, 2011 at 11:28 am
[...] and Mattie attended a house party at the Mortensen’s. Mrs. Mortensen cleaned the library, she explained, [...]
September 26, 2011 at 5:44 pm
[...] older sister, Mattie, had recited and read poetry to her since she was small. Now, at thirteen, she had the chance to [...]
October 1, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Wonderful warm post, what a character your Aunt Mattie was. How beautiful to have these lovely family stories and how lovely for you to have had aunt Mattie and your mum to tell them to you. What a lot of love your family shared, it shines through!
October 1, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Thank you! I agree that I’m very fortunate.
I can’t find your blog. Are you on Twitter exclusively?
October 24, 2011 at 6:29 pm
[...] Efferdent story reminded me of my Aunt Mattie, who also easily saw more than one use for things. For example, when she was in her eighties she [...]
December 7, 2011 at 10:37 pm
[...] few minutes later, the adults (Alice, Mattie, my grandmother, my father, all snug inside the house with my brothers) heard a knock. Alice opened [...]
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February 14, 2012 at 2:30 pm
[...] ended and she came through the front door of her parents’ house, two of her older sisters, Mattie and LaRue took one look at her and collapsed [...]
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[...] miss Mattie,” she said. “She’d know all the details about Papa and the circus.” Soon it [...]