A woman of many talents....

Sunday is family history day. I look forward to this day more than any other day of the week--I log on to xmradio.com, set the player to channel 4 (40s/big band music) and curl up with my ancestors. It has been said that I have more fun with dead people than with the living and while I staunchly maintain that this is NOT true, I have to confess that it could certainly appear that way. Well, maybe a little. Dead people don't leave dirty clothes all over the bathroom floor or steal other people's cell phone chargers when they can't find their own. But I digress....

Today I'm sorting through papers and photographs that belonged to my mother's mother, whom we affectionately called Dardy. Born Maria Ignacia Robbins in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the 24th of May, 1897, Dardy was a character in every sense of the word. If you looked up "perfect grandmother" in the dictionary, there would be a picture of her there. I've never known anyone with a wider array of talents or a more wicked sense of humor. She was a gifted seamstress--when we shopped together, I would point out a cute dress that I liked, and she would go home and duplicate it. From scratch. Without a pattern. She was a natural musician and could listen to a song on the radio and duplicate it on the piano although I don't believe she ever had a day of formal training. She was a gourmet cook--creating masterpieces from fruits and vegetables that she grew herself. She was a linguist--shifting effortlessly from English to her native Spanish (especially when she didn't want us to know what she was saying!) She was a woman of great dignity--but delighted in sitting on the floor to help me play with doll houses well into her sixties.

In the interest of space and time, I'll keep this post brief and focus on just one of her many talents. She was an artist. I just can't resist posting a couple of her drawings. This first one was torn out of a letter she wrote my mother--there's just enough of the letter left to indicate that this is a depiction of what she imagined the latest potty training session looked like. That's me, by the way, on the commode. In front of the TV. There's also a brief reference to my first visit to the emergency room after ingesting a bottle of Vitalis. For those of you under 50, this would be akin to drinking a bottle of liquid hair gel. Perhaps this potty training session immediately followed that episode, but I can't be sure.




This next is a portion of some drawings I found that are literally disintegrating. Drawn on both sides of a sheet of flimsy brown paper, there are images of a young couple cuddling on a couch, a few images of women in 40s style dress, and then this image of a woman in beach attire. I LOVE these drawings! As you can see from the image at the top of this post, Dardy also loved the beach. She and my grandfather, Colonel, lived in Hawaii during the late 30s and early 40s. She was apparently quite good at the hula. I think she was quite good at everything.

I had seen these drawings before today's family history session. But I did find something today that I had never seen before. Didn't even know I had it. It's a signed letter from none other than Norman Rockwell, written in November of 1955. It reads:



"Dear Mrs. Shutt: It was certainly thoughtful of you to send me an idea for a picture. I have just returned from a two month trip around the world, or I would have written you sooner. Your suggestion is really very good, but I usually paint only my own ideas. Not that they are better than some of those sent me, but because I believe I paint them best. I do greatly appreciate your interest, and thank you for writing. Sincerely, Norman Rockwell."


I'm not surprised that he took the time to personally answer her letter. He has always seemed like a pretty decent guy. I'm just surprised he didn't take her advice. Who knows, maybe my potty training picture would have ended up on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post....