Auspicious Date – July 20

In 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon on my mother’s birthday.

I do remember the hoopla around watching the moon landing 56 years ago, and an astronaut descending onto the surface of the moon. We had celebrated Trudy’s 41st birthday on the patio before the big event. Little did I know that across the pond, in England, 4 years later, in 1973, a young Jane would give birth to a son, James, on July 20. That birth would ultimately bring Jane to Missouri and into our life, one of our great blessings. But that is another story.

Trudy, my mother, was born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 20, 1928. She was the third child, and the only girl, with five brothers. She had a charmed childhood, despite the Depression. She often told us of how grateful her father was to have kept his job in the steel business through the Depression. Trudy’s mother, Gertrude, an artist, always helped the many unfortunates who knocked on their door during those difficult times in the 1930s. That example set Trudy on the path to generosity and compassion.

My mother was brilliant, well read, and beautiful. In 1952, having completed her Master’s Degree at The University of Chicago, she crossed the Atlantic to study at Oxford for a summer. There, she met a dashing Royal Naval officer, Brian Barry. She returned in 1953 to spend a summer in London. In January, 1954, Brian arrived (a day later than expected) in Chicago, where he married Trudy, without ever having met her parents! They embarked on a life of adventure, to Malta, where Brian was Chief Engineering Officer for Lord Louis Mountbatten on HMS Surprise. Thence, to other postings in the British Isles, but in 1960 Brian took a job as a teacher at a private boys’ school near St. Louis, Missouri. Quite a change of direction!

Only in retrospect do I see how courageous Trudy was. Growing up, she was just my mother.

I think Brian thought Trudy would like being back in “America”, but she found St. Louis to be a “southern backwater town” by comparison to Chicago. She thought she was going to be the wife of an admiral in the Royal Navy, and ended up the wife of a schoolteacher in Missouri.

For we children (7 of us by 1964), it was a great adventure, and we loved living in the Missouri countryside. Our mother made our lives interesting and fulfilled, despite her own privations. We were extraordinarily fortunate in our parents.

I was a bit of a disappointment to Trudy, alas. I was a tomboy and a rebel, but I did always recognize how lucky I was to have had the exposure our mother gave us to literacy and culture. Perhaps I see that more clearly now than ever before…

Happy birthday to Trudy (1928 – 2015). We seven children were very fortunate in our parentage.

Meanwhile, around here, auspicious date or not, it continues to be brutally hot with no end in sight. Still, the world is beautiful and we are filled with gratitude.

Be safe, be well, be grateful and be kind. Slava Ukraini! Peace, please…