Today is the third anniversary of our mother’s passing. A while back, my dad gave me a short fragment of an autobiography she intended to write but never finished. As he said, she was “too busy living.” That is so true! But here it is for you, and I think you will enjoy the time period it evokes, a world that doesn’t really exist anymore:

Gerry Arnold, 1/11/1926 - 10/7/2008

My grandmother’s house was a tall white Victorian with a bay window in front, the porch and stairs to the right, and my grandfather’s rose garden on either side of the front walk. There were palm trees lining the 17th Street side, and a large screened in porch at the back.

In the summer the blinds were closed against the valley’s hot afternoon sun. The house itself seemed drowsy. The Lister upright piano was stately along one wall of the front parlor. With no musical education and no innate ability, still I loved to strike the keys and try to imagine the music sound resembled the song I was singing.

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The room behind the parlor was a sitting room, sort of a fore-runner of today’s family – or great – room. My grandfather’s Morris chair sat next to the bay windows with their window seats. The beautiful rococo gilt frame mirror and oak library table with ball and claw feet were other furnishings I recall. But the Morris chair, with its black leather upholstery and wide wooden arms, was my favorite. I loved pushing the button that made it recline.

Most of all, I can still feel the three-year-old’s love for this kind (old) gentleman as he put my grandmother’s thimbles on the fingers of each hand and rat-ta-tatted drum like for a little girl’s amusement.

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Oh, how we miss you!