In case anyone missed it, I was featured yesterday in Rachel Held Evans' Women of Valor series. Follow the link below to read the full essay.
I always pictured her with leathery hands, fingers calloused and worn from years in the kitchen. I pictured her in a blue dress with a full skirt, though in my mind her dress would be perpetually covered by an apron that started the day a bright white and became more and more bespeckled by the hour. I pictured her measuring out the ingredients for her pound cake by hand, plunging her thick, German fingers into the flour bin and pulling out a fistful for the mixing bowl.
In my mind, she is always caught in that period between the wars. Brought from Germany as a bride and a mother, the proud wife of a US soldier, then promptly abandoned and left to raise her children alone as the depression dug its claws into the land she had only just begun to call home. To me, my great-grandmother, called Granny by everyone I ever heard speak about her, is an icon forged and frozen in the years after her husband Archie left her alone to raise their three children in his country. Keep Reading...
Hulda Nite: A Woman of Valor
I always pictured her with leathery hands, fingers calloused and worn from years in the kitchen. I pictured her in a blue dress with a full skirt, though in my mind her dress would be perpetually covered by an apron that started the day a bright white and became more and more bespeckled by the hour. I pictured her measuring out the ingredients for her pound cake by hand, plunging her thick, German fingers into the flour bin and pulling out a fistful for the mixing bowl.
In my mind, she is always caught in that period between the wars. Brought from Germany as a bride and a mother, the proud wife of a US soldier, then promptly abandoned and left to raise her children alone as the depression dug its claws into the land she had only just begun to call home. To me, my great-grandmother, called Granny by everyone I ever heard speak about her, is an icon forged and frozen in the years after her husband Archie left her alone to raise their three children in his country. Keep Reading...
 |
| Granny (Hulda Nite), Granddaddy (Ralph Nite), and my great aunt Gladys Nite |
Beautiful story, beautifully written. Happened upon your blog post while doing some family research. Would love to hear more about that lovely Juliet, but will probably read this multiple times in the meantime. :)
ReplyDelete