AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills
Mabel and Elsie Are Leaving
Now that I have gotten to the point in life where I spend a few moments
every morning with the obituary section of the newspaper, I have come to
realize that we are fast losing a generation of Elsies and Lotties,
Minnies and Mabels.
These are the women in their 80s and 90s who saw the Great Depression
in its entirety, whose fathers were off fighting the First World War
while there was still something called the Austro-Hungarian Empire to
fight against. They were young women in their 20s and 30s when the
Second World War left them alone on the Home Front, listening to radio
reports from Europe where their husbands and brothers were fighting the
last good war of the century.
Their obituaries often have a great similarity - "She was a homemaker
who enjoyed quilting and gardening. She had six children, two of whom
preceded her in death. She was active in her church and was a member of
the Ladies Auxiliary Fire Department and the Ladies Aid Society."
They lived in a time when the country was still largely rural, when
canning and quilting were both a necessity and a social activity. Many
of them attended one-room schoolhouses and were married in the same
country church where their parents had wed and next to which their great
grandparents were buried. They did not often move far from the place
where they were born.
In the small-town newspapers of fifty years ago, their comings and
goings were recorded on the social page: "Charles and Sadie Tewksbury
report a visit for the month of June from her cousin, Minnie Cooper and
her husband Roy Cooper of Elmira, New York, along with their four
children." Family reunions, church suppers, Red Cross meetings were the
everyday entertainments and news events in the times between and after
the wars.
For the most part these women stayed at home and took care of the house
and children, or worked on the family farm. Most of them married for a
lifetime, and almost all of them outlived their husbands, and often a
child or two. They were accustomed to loss, to hard work, and their
rewards were usually intangible - a clean home, respectful children, a
place in the community.
Along with the loss of the Netties and the Irmas we are seeing a decline
in the great tradition of sociability, of social and civic activities,
that was a defining characteristic of America for its first 150 years.
I recently came across an article by Robert Putnam, a Harvard
sociologist, called "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital".
By almost any calculation, Putnam says, we are losing our connectedness
to each other as well as our sense of civic responsibility. In one
whimsical example he discovered that although more people than ever go
bowling, bowling leagues are in a drastic decline. Shriners and Lions
Clubs, Elks and Jaycees, women's clubs and Red Cross volunteering have
all taken nosedives.
Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the earliest observers of America, saw in
us a nation of joiners, forever forming associations. Our habit of civic
democracy on a local level was what made our national democracy so
successful, he believed.
As I write this I can glance out the window and see across an open field
to the Grange Hall, an old building with peeling white paint. One
Thursday evening a month a small group still gathers for Grange
meetings, but I cannot imagine that it is not the last remnants of what
was once only one of many strong and active civic organizations.
Putnam's disheartening message is that it is social interconnection that
assures a healthy democratic society, and from voting to volunteering at
the parent-teacher group to regular church-going to bowling in leagues,
we are no longer a nation of social people. Instead we are small units,
wrapped up in our own insularity in front of the television with a DVD,
or plugging ourselves into the disembodied Internet.
Their names sound strange to our modern ears - Lottie and Minnie and
Mabel. The sound of a far different, and some would say, better
generation. Funny old ladies with old-fashioned names. But will the
Grange Hall be empty when they have gone away?
(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is
copyright © 2007 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To
contact Walt, address your emails to wmills@chilitech.com ).
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