The Dauntless Dame 

My Cinderella Mother

 This biography of Annie Cecelia Hart Curry by Jane Frances Curry  reflects how a daughter saw her mother from childhood from Annie's death when Jane Frances was 26 years old.  I include it with the essays because it was written by someone from her own experience, and writing back in time from another era simply could not capture the sense of life in early 20th century Abilene.

Many readers now live in large cities, and I for one tend to project my sense of living in Kansas as living on a farm.  This is an example of living in a small city, not very different from Claremorris or Knock. 

Jane Frances also mentions several relatives, who may be of interest to the reader.

I received this essay in handwritten form, presumably that of Jane Frances.  I have included several pages as icons.  Press on the icon to read the original in full size.

 Born September 25, 1866 in Pennsylvania, seventy-five miles up the river from Pittsburgh, an only child, bereft of her mother at the age of two, of her father at the age of twelve, she was really a little orphaned Annie; and “Annie” was her name, “Annie Cecilia Hart”.

And, a “sweetheart” she was, too!  With her dark auburn hair, her wide-set, clear grey eyes, her peaches and cream complexion, her graceful, erect carriage, she was, indeed, a ”princess in disguise”.  Through all the vicissitudes of her life, she was never to lose these outstanding attributes; God just augmented them.

After her father’s death, some of his relatives took Annie with them to their home in St. Louis, Missouri, until some more permanent plans could be effected for her.  From St. Louis, she journeyed to Abilene, Kansas, to join her “Aunt Jenny Berry’s” family.  “Aunt Jennie” was her mother’s sister, and, since her philosophy of life was “there’s always room for one more”, albeit she and Uncle John had  a large family of their own, Annie was welcomed into their midst.

Uncle John Berry was a partner in the Berry Bros. Mercantile Store, the largest store in Abilene. He had a nephew, Thomas Curry, who had emigrated from Ireland, and he, too, was interested in the store.  Since he was in a strange land, Uncle John and Aunt Jennie took him “under their wing”, also.

So, it was a big busy household, and Annie became an integral part of it, learning and doing right along with her “adopted sisters” and her beloved Aunt Jennie.  Because of her disrupted life, she had very little formal education, but she learned from doing  — and, later was to be our monitor.

She learned to cook-and how!  Anything and everything-except cream puffs!  Angels food cake defied her temporarily but that she conquered eventually; cream puffs never!   They were to be the “exception that proved the rule”, for her culinary accomplishments were legion!

Of Course, these and her many talents evidenced themselves progressively.  Life was like a great play, as it demanded, she responded, so effortlessly, each latent talent just seeming to be a waiting its cue.

When Annie was nineteen, she and Thomas were married.  She now assumed a double-role of “wife and mother”.  She and dad built their own home (which was to be our home all our growing years), and started their own family.  Dad, although of slight build, was a fine-looking, successful young merchant, about ten years older than mother.  She was a lovely, accomplished, healthy young woman; and they produced a fine family of six girls and three boys, the last two being twins, a boy and a girl.

Their future seemed assured but fortune is fickle.  About ten years (and five children) after their marriage, tragedy struck a staggering blow- the Berry Bros. Store burned to the ground!  And, with it, many hopes and plans went up in smoke.

Uncle John and his family move to Kansas City for several years; then back to a farm near Tampa, Kansas.  He was resilient by nature and was very successful in his varied endeavors.  Dad remained in Abilene, trying to recoup his holdings, even clerking, but he seemed to go into a gradual decline.  He developed a nervous stomach which was to plague him until his death.

So, mother took over and assumed another role, that of “bread-winner”.  Even though she bore and reared nine children, even though, due to my father’s progressive ill health, she became the support of the family, never did her spirit falter nor her beauty fade; never did I hear her complain.  Adversity just spurred her on to greater achievements, and they were endless.

As I have told you, she learned to cook.  That, also, was progressive; nothing daunted her but the cream puffs!  If you have ever been to the West Coast, California in particular, you may be acquainted with the famous “Mrs. See’s Candies”.  If Mother had wished to specialize in candies, you might well have become acquainted with “Mrs. C’s Candies”- or cakes, or pies, or breads, or meats, or preserves, or, well just about any food you can dream up- except, of course, cream puffs!  And all cooked on or in a big, coal-burning range, in wonderful heavy iron utensils, skillets, big pots, what not; slow cooking in all of these enhanced all the flavors!  When gas became the cooking medium, it almost  stymied her; foods seemed to cook too quickly, to burn too easily; so, she had to surmount that difficulty, also.

While she specialized in cooking just to feed her family, she concentrated on another creative art which she had acquired along the way – sewing.  Had she lived in a sizable city- Abilene was only a small town- her role would have been that of a “designer”.  Like with cooking she did not require recipes, so, with sewing she did not require patterns.  She would drape the most beautiful materials over her client’s torso, and lo create a new style, which often appeared later in the leading fashion magazines.

However, although many were her skills and accomplishments, Mother’s most outstanding attribute was her unquenchable spirit- it permeated the atmosphere.  While she was just too busy to assume a demonstrative role; while she was a strict disciplinarian, still we knew she loved us, and we loved, admired, and respected her.  And always we kissed her “Good Night”.   If she had retired before we did, always we went to her bedside and kissed her on the forehead.  In that way she knew we were safe for the night; that was a “custom” well into our adulthood. 

Speaking of discipline, albeit she never raised her voice, when she spoke, we knew she meant it!  Because of her training, to this day I cannot tolerate a door-slammer!  We would fly through the house and out the front-door, leaving the screen-door to slam in our wake.  We did not get very far.  Before we could vanish, she would materialize at that door, ordering our return.  We knew why.  She did not have to raise her voice; without a word, we would re-open and re-close the door quietly; then we were free to run.

That is only one of the many good habits she taught us; which motivated our entire lives and bore rich fruit.  Because there were so many household tasks to be done, we all had to do our share.  Because we had to help her and because she would not allow us to do sloppy work, as we grew up, and ever since, it has been and is easier to do a job right than wrong.

As I say, her spirit pervaded our home.  One day, when I was small, I was sitting at her feet as she worked, her feet treading the machine like it was an organ.  I looked up and saw her smiling, like she had a happy secret all her own.  When I asked her why, she replied, “Oh, was I smiling?” Her multiple tasks and responsibilities never seemed to create a tension; always she seemed to be relaxed, so merry, so gay, so light-hearted!  Sometimes- and how we love it- she would arise from her machine and “trip the light fantastic” clear through the house!  She added a little extra tip-of-her-toe to the waltz step which none of us ever captured.  And once in a while, too, she would sit down at the piano and play her one piece.  Just a combination of chords, but she added a little lilt to that, too; it was the most beautiful music I ever heard!  She loved music and was only too happy to afford lessons, both instrumental and vocal, to any and all of her children so inclined.

We also had a big Victrola, for which Mother collected some fine records.  One of her special forms of entertainment was to get her piece-work-crocheting, embroidery, cross-stitch, or some kind of handwork for her seldom-idle hands-all ready; then put a favorite record on the Victrola, and while she sat in a big platform rocker, enjoy a resounding Caruso aria while she worked and rocked and hummed.  He was superb; he was super!

Mother, herself, had an untrained but naturally pleasing, melodious singing voice, contralto in range, so, while it could always be detected in harmony, it was a very mellow sound. And, as she spun around at her various tasks, she was often singing softly, loving the rhythm.  If she happened to notice me trudging along behind, without missing a beat, she would start singing “A, B, C, D, E, F, G---,” and that is the way I learned my “ABC’s,” effortlessly.  When I started to school, I knew not only the alphabet but how to write my name and the rudiments of reading.  I thought I was pretty smart but- I found out I was not smart enough!  On the first day of school, when the teacher inquired our ages, I told the truth – that I was “Five”. So, I had to return home, in tears, because at that time there was no “Kindergarten” and one must be “Six” to enter the First Grade.  Since it is such a vivid recollection, it must have been a devastating disappointment!  But Mother never permitted us to “lie” or call anybody a “liar”; if we did, we got our mouths washed out with soap!

Our home was built on a big corner, cater-cornered to our neighborhood school.  It was set back on the lot with a beautiful lawn and lovely elm trees to the north and east.  We children had to tend the lawns and weed the sidewalks, which at that time were brick.  When the trees shed their leaves, what great piles we raked – and made into leaf-houses, with thick walls and all kinds of “furniture”.  It was work but it was, also, fun.  When we weeded the walks Mother always paid us a whole quarter to each one!  This we saved and pooled for the purchase of a great five-gallon freezer of ice cream from the Creamery for the 4^th of July.  Everybody enjoyed that because they made the most luscious ice cream; and we ate that while the “older” ones shot off our night fireworks.  So, our work not only helped Mother; not only kept us busy and out of mischief, but it furnished us with play, fun and sociability.

On our big corner, toward the back, on the south and the west, we had what really seemed like a small “farm”.  When the five kinds of apple trees and the many cherry trees were in bloom, it was like a fairy garden!  People would stop their carriages, as they drove down the street, just to feast their eyes and their noses- it was so beautiful and so fragrant!  South of the house, grapevines bordered the walk from the back-porch to the barn.  There were, also, sizable patches of peas, beans, strawberries, and a great tomato garden, one plum tree, one peach tree, and even an asparagus bed, which burnished both food and fern.  Dad even grew one horseradish plant; and, since he was well enough to do gardening and perhaps because he came from Ireland, we had potatoes galore!  We had not only a nice-sized potato patch on our home lot but, down the other side of the Rock Island tracks, he had a great plot of them.  It seemed to me, when I was helping to reap the harvest, like an “acre”; it was probably nearer a “block”. 

And, we all had to help with all of this growth, from seeding to harvesting; then Mother took over for the preservation of all of these foods.  Every season the shelves in our cellar were filled to overflowing, even though we had given loads to our neighbors,  Though I was small, I helped a lot, too; but, when I got too tired, I would slip away – either to the cool interior of the spacious grapevines, where I would pluck and savour the luscious fruit, or up into a tree, with a book.  The trees at that time were not “buggy”; one could find a cool, comfortable niche just perfect for reading, which was my favorite pastime; from the time I could put two words together, I loved to read.

However, there were many other sources of entertainment.  How she managed I shall never know, but Mother was a natural hostess.  Her work did not deter her from welcoming our many visitors, both friends and relatives, from near and far.  They all loved Mother and must have a visit with her.  And, if she had to work all night to finish an “order”, which she did more than once!  - still she would never disappoint them.  So, we had many visitors in our home and at our table.  Mother was too busy to go out much, but she always seemed to find time for “company”.

She had one visitor, however, who “almost scared me to death”, and, whenever he came, which was maybe once or twice a year, I would “shinny up a tree”, and, if possible stay there until he left.  Like every body else, he loved Mother, and she was not afraid of him although she knew he was “different”.  You see, he was a “bum”- a real honest-to-goodness bum!  Not because he had to be but because he wanted to be!  He could, I guess, be called a “congenital bum” because he never did like “to be fenced in”.  He was Mother’s uncle; he had a sister in town but he didn’t bother going to see her.  He had two nieces he loved and would visit, and Mother was one of them.  He had money; that is, he and an “inheritance” which had to be put into a trust fund and doled out to him sporadically because, not needing money for the life he lived, he had no respect for it and treated it accordingly.  He was happier, without it.  He would stay around Abilene for a while, residing with his other niece, because she had no family, doing little chores for her, and acting like the gentleman he was born to be until presto! he started drinking the vanilla!  The confining pressure of conventional life had just been too much for him; he was ready “to hit the road”.  Of course, I couldn’t stay up in the tree that long but – I stayed as long as I could!

In her moments of leisure, late at night or on Sunday afternoons, Mother loved to relax playing cards.  The favorite game then was “500”.  Often at eleven o’clock at night, an older brother would come home and, opening the door, he would greet Mother with “Come on, Mother, let’s have a game!  And she never refused.  It seemed to act as a stimulant, washing away all of her fatigue.  Since she had had her “hour’s rest after lunch” a must! – she never seemed “tired”, always ready for any emergency.

With all of the “food-gardening” and all of her various tasks, how did she ever find time for “flower gardening”?  She did!  She raised beautiful pansies, sweet-peas, nasturtiums (how I loved to chew their stems), a rambler-rose trellis, and a honeysuckle vine shaded the front-porch, with its porch-swing, from the hot western sun.  One day she was pruning that vine with those great shears when they slipped and severed the artery in her wrist.  Did she panic?  She did not; she just stood there holding her wrist in a vise, instructing somebody to call the doctor; he arrived, sewed her up, and – she was ready to go again!  The only illnesses to which she succumbed were regular bouts of the old-fashioned grippe, which seemed to materialize every winter for a week or two.  Perhaps the enforced bed –stay revitalized her for, except for those and an attack of those nasty shingles, I never knew her to be ill.

My father died when I was a Senior in High School; Mother lived ten years longer.  During that time the twins finished school, so, with all of her children either married or working, since she was free of family responsibilities, Mother moved her alterations business to an uptown office.  That she thoroughly enjoyed!  She had two big office-rooms, comfortably furnished and carpeted, equipped with all pertinent paraphernalia; and there she was “Queen of all she surveyed”!  She continued to be a “hostess”, she served as confidant to the young, but, young or older, it made no difference- they all enjoyed “dropping-up”, for it was up quite a flight of steps.

For her work, she walked back and forth from home to town, about ten blocks each way.  Then if for any reason she had to go uptown again, that meant double the exercise; but she never seemed to tire.  When we were little, she always took us up to the weekly band-concert, which was a real thrill, everybody meeting and mingling around the bandstand.  And the band was comprised of some quite-skilled musicians, too.

As Mother went back and forth, she visited and passed the time-of-day with her neighbors.  (We did not have any idea until after her death what a “good neighbor” she had been.)  Sometimes, when she was accompanied by some of her daughters people could not resist calling, “Mrs. Curry, you are still the best looking one of the bunch !”  and some of her daughters were pretty handsome, too!  But, her indomitable spirit set her apart; she had no “identity crisis”; her orientation was complete.

While she had great personal pride, I would say she was the most selfless, unselfish person I have ever known.  Everything was for everybody else except- like with the cream puffs, again the exception must prove the rule.  But this time there were two exceptions; and they were such simple, little ones!

She loved pretty handkerchiefs, and I know she had quite a collection of them, which she had received as gifts from near and far.  I know when I would visit a new city, I always sent her one as a memento, as did other people.  But, would she ever lend one to any of us?  No; she said we would just lose hers as we had lost our own; and she was probably right.  Now, remember the hankies; more about those later.

The other exception was just as simple when she would go to the City to visit my oldest sister, always when she returned, she would bring us a box of delicious candy from a special confectionery.  Now that box also included some of her favorite kind of soft vanilla caramels but- she always bought a little extra supply of those for herself.  Those we could not have!  It always tickled me- two such tiny exceptions to prove such a big rule! 

After she was free to come and go, she indulged in a pastime which had come into vogue- she loved going to movies!  She did not miss a one of them if she could possibly attend, she was an ardent fan!  If any one wished to accompany her, okay-they were welcome but not necessary.  However, since she seemed to know about everybody in town, once she got up there, she always had company.

And what fun those movies were- a source of real relaxation!  Although they were the “silent movies” with “canned” conversation and action accompanying the picture in sub-titles, there was no “tinned” music.  That was truly “live”, planed on a real piano, by a real live pianist-and, when the picture got lively, so did the music!  Each week they showed a sequence of a “continued picture”, and, when they concluded that installment with the announcement on the screen “Next Episode Next Week”, with Pearl White seeming to hang from a sheer cliff by her fingernails, the music went into crescendo, the piano would “rock”, and the crowd went wild, “one” in fascinated horror!  No wonder Mother liked them; they erased away the tensions of the day; it would be a new day tomorrow.

Just try to imagine living through the era from the nickelodeon, which preceded them, to the silent movies; from outdoor to indoor toilets, from the big tin bathtub in the kitchen to the big porcelain tub in the bathroom; from cold water in the well and cistern to hot and cold water in the sink; from candle and kerosene-lamp lighting to electricity; from stagecoach to luxurious Pullman and diner train service; from Pony Express to telephone and telegraph; from dirt roads to pavement; from horseback and carriage to the “Tin Lizzie”; from “Nip and Tuck”, our snorting fire-horses, to fire trucks; from the great cattle runs and saloons to canned beef and “Carry Nation”!   Mother did, and she was ready for more!

Since her children were all “on their way”, she sold our old home and equipped a new apartment up closer to her work.  She never got to sleep in it!  The day she was supposed to move in, she was stricken with what was to be her final, fatal illness.  That was in the summer; the very time when she had planned to visit me in San Antonio, Texas, and, if she liked it, stay there and start over!  She was skilled, self-confident, self-reliant, and, undoubtedly would have achieved any goal she set; but she had at last met her conqueror.  Pernicious anemia of the spine brought her to an abrupt halt; but still she did not give up.  When two of her children walked into her room the most difficult thing they were ever to do- she looked up at them and said, “Well, I didn’t know I was going to die-and I don’t think I am, either!”

That was on Wednesday, and that night she had a premonition of imminent death.  What was her reaction?  She began preparing for it!  Each of her nine children was called to her bedside and pertinent instructions given.  In my own case, she knew I carried an insurance policy with her as beneficiary; she wondered if she should sign any form of transfer.  I am relating this incident to depict how lucid were her faculties to her very last breath.  She left us that Saturday afternoon, November 20, 1926- a beautiful day for a spirit to trip to the “wide blue yonder”.

And it was truly her “time to go”.  Although she was only sixty, her hands were too full for anything more.  While she was on her deathbed, the City Council voted her the “Most Outstanding Woman in the Community”.  From all walks of life, men, women, and children came to pay their respects.  The homage paid to her was her eulogy.  Only after her death did we learn of the scope of her generous, compassionate neighborliness down through the years.  Some of those who came to pay tribute, though now adult, remembered the mittens she had made for them when they were little and cold.  Though poignant, Mother’s death was not sad; it was completion; it was fulfillment.

As we sorted her effects, we missed something- the handkerchiefs!  And the most diligent search discovered not a one of them!  We had to smile through our tears – her dauntless spirit was still with us! R.I.P.!

 Essay received in handwritten form from Thomas E Curry, October 2007.  Julie McKee Hanson,  transcribed the essay into computer format and emailed it to me 31 October 2007.  Many thanks to both of them.

most recent revision:   6 November 2007

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