Tomorrow my grandmother would have celebrated her 102nd
birthday. She missed it by three days, having passed away in her sleep on July
1st.
Even though “Oma” has been subdued and sweet these past few
years, I will always think of her as our psychically powerful matriarch – able to
bend strong wills with a slight glance, or a sharp word.
And she did have more than a few sharp words in her
lifetime. And opinions.
She was an artist, Erna was. In every sense. She demanded
aesthetic compliance – once I brought her a geranium in a garish hue and she
made me return it for a subtler shade, one more muted and deserving of her
carefully tended wine barrel planter.
When a person brought her a gift, she’d carefully unwrap it,
salvaging the paper and storing it in a pile in her attic where, the following
year, she would wrap a new gift for the person in the very paper. She didn’t
need to label it. She knew who gave her what.
Erna Freisinger was known
locally for her paintings. Palette-knife oils, originally. Landscapes,
still lifes. She moved onto acrylics in her sixties. Watercolors in her
seventies. One of her painting hung in a bank. Another was the cover of the
Warwick phone book. The one pictured below is one of my faves – it hangs just
outside my office. If she’d ever seen my display of her paintings, she’d have
had a word or two. Once, I remember her bustling into our house, hammer in
hand, to adjust the display of her work throughout our rooms and hallways.
My Oma was Viennese through and through. I think she never
got over having to abruptly leave her homeland in 1939, my one-year-old father
in tow. The
Anschluss – the Nazis. My grandfather and his partially Jewish blood. Opa
had managed to flee to America right after my father was born, and when Nazi
occupation became inevitable, Oma and my dad slipped out on the very last boat
from Italy. Oma never liked being unsettled. Her life revolved around family,
duty, loyalty, pride. Art.
And yet, she had a whimsical side.
Once, we convinced her to scale the chain link fence of the
country club pool for an illegal midnight swim. She often escaped to open
fields and forests to collect things that she would later weave into wreaths. She
was a “lefty,” busying herself with handwork projects involving yarn, fabric,
textures. She made hundreds and hundreds of cookies every Christmas, and Opa
would grab my sister and me to deliver tins of them to nurses and patients.
The one time she hit me, it was because I spilled milk in
her kitchen. A moment of clumsiness, and boom, broken glass. A mess. She
slapped me across the face. And then lamented it the rest of the day.
Apologizing over and over for her loss of temper.
To say that my Oma was a role
model would be overstating it. Would sound like an elegiac move: she’s
dead, let’s praise her. She wasn’t who I aspired to be, but she demonstrated a
unique will – fierce, enormous. And for that, I am grateful. For the shining
example of spending half her life – the last half – the 50+ half – being known
for her art. Being known as an artist.
Especially with my second book
coming out in September. A book that draws a lot from the life of a
misunderstood Austrian figure. Imagining Empress Elisabeth as a carefree girl
before circumstance and duty morphed her into a legendary mad woman has
expanded my consciousness, along with my understanding of proud women
generally.
So, Oma, happy 102nd birthday. Born on the 4th
of July was a legacy you never wanted, but endured for more than a century.
What a lovely and realistic remembrance --- your Oma led quite a life. That photo of her on the beach? She looks like she could take charge of everyone out there in an emergency. Calm confidence.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Teri. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she was mid-snit that day. Relaxing on an Italian beach wasn't exactly her favorite activity. That's my gorgeous mom in the background - as usual, smiling through what may have been a grumpy mother-in-law vacation!
DeleteThis is a wonderful tribute to a woman, unique and influential.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lisa. She was quite a complex collection of force and desire. A huge part of my childhood.
DeleteI'm guessing your Oma would have loved the truth of all you just shared about her, and the knowledge that you learned from her. Her life and the truth, two great things to celebrate.
ReplyDeleteWell put!
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