House of Worship

Grandma Kate and Kathleen at Oak Street.

Home has been on my mind of late. Sometimes home is a physical place that's still maintained and kept safe for your return by those you love. Sometimes home is a moment in the past that offers no return but is unchanging and steadfast in recollection. For many in my extended family, Oak Street will always be home and yet it will never be home again. The house still stands, but my connection--our connection--to it has been shifted to another plane, another place, another time.

As a child, I spent many nights at Oak Street, usually in the summer. My grandpa, Ira, usually went to bed first. He slept in mother's old bedroom on the first floor. My grandma, Kate, went to bed next or at least started her nighttime routine next. Though she always seemed to go to bed early she was always the last to lie down. I always stayed up with great Aunt Della to watch the news, not caring what I heard or saw, only reveling in the thought of how late I was being allowed to stay up. She sat in her appointed chair and sewed or embroidered, or she would fix a tray for herself with a snack of apples, salt, peanut butter and cheese. Her routine was the most interesting to watch and was one of the reasons I made a point of staying up at night.

Kate was secretive about her nocturnal doings and, being a modest woman, used a lighted closet for a dressing room. Ira dressed in the small room tucked above the kitchen and behind the bathroom, the room we called the attic. You could tell it was his because it was just like him: modest, quiet and straightforward with a soft memory of Aqua Velva in the air.

Della was more robust and open about her bedtime preparations. You could hear her groan when she removed her corset and girdle. I secretly marveled at what appeared to be yards and yards of lacing and elastic and wondered how big she might really look without them. She donned men's flannel pajamas--large and shapeless--and wound whole rolls of toilet paper around her head and topped it all with a pink hairnet all to preserve the curl of her hair. We called her "The Sultan" and teased her often about her "turban."

Not one of the three old people was without some measure of bridgework which, at night, were removed and left in various locations about the house, most often in the kitchen to my horror. Kate would sometimes leave hard candy or loose change in a convenient coffee mug on the kitchen hutch and I, hoping to pilfer something worthwhile, would more often than not be rewarded with someone's teeth instead. Della had the most complete set of dentures and would be a striking sight when she emerged from the bathroom at night. The bathroom door would squeak open and the Sultan would step out onto the creaking floorboards in full regalia. Her pink turban rose high above her head with wisps of snow white hair peeping out. Her flannel peejays flowed about her and her pink robe hung to her knees like a grocery sack. Her terrycloth, rubber-soled slippers each sported a full-blown embroidered rose at each peep toe. Since her teeth spent the night in another room with two effervescent tablets, her jowls hung loose and low--not unlike a turkey.

Kate, by contrast, didn't worry about such things. She slept with no thought for her hair in a long, plain nightgown that often failed to hide the varicose veins in her legs. I always slept in her room in a bed reserved for her sister Myrtle. I had tried sleeping downstairs in Ira's room but his snoring had given me ample reason for staying upstairs, as I'm sure it did Kate.

She would bring a glass of water into the room and set it on the nightstand between the two beds. I would squeeze my eyes shut and pretend to be asleep, watching her the entire time. When she was younger, she would kneel by the side of the bed to pray but when her knees would no longer obey her in this she would lie in bed stiff and straight as a board as she pressed her Bible to her chest and filled the room with prayer. I listened and learned as she remembered each of us by name, every child, grandchild, niece and nephew, every friend and neighbor old and new. She offered up our problems, our hopes and even fears. Sometimes she read a Psalm or a lengthy passage, holding the Book up to the shaft of blue streetlight that spilled across her bed. Once done with her devotion, she lay on her side and slept, rarely rising until the next morning. Last to bed, first to rise, she was the quiet, steady life of the house and of the family. Filled with a deep abiding faith and unswerving love of God, she was the foundation of a home she made into a living house of worship.