My Mother Is the Most Beautiful Woman In the World

I don't remember when I first read this book, but it was a very long time ago, and it made a lasting impression on me. Anyone else remember it? I looked it up on Amazon just for this post, and there's a "collectible" 1943 edition for sale for $59. I don't go back quite that far.

It's a Russian folk tale, but the version I read as a child was definitely 20th century. A little girl gets separated from her mother, who is working in the field on a collective farm. She asks the foreman (or whatever he was called) to help her find her mother. He asks for a description, and she says, "My mother is the most beautiful woman in the world." So the foreman and his helpers start rounding up beautiful women. The child shakes her head each time a gorgeous young woman is brought before her. "This isn't my mother. My mother is the MOST BEAUTIFUL woman in the world." Of course, we all know where this is going. The child's mother is rather large and quite ordinary looking in the eyes of everyone present except the little girl, who hugs her mother, looks around at the search party and says something like, "See? I told you so."

So here's a picture of Mama and me, and as you can plainly see, she's the most beautiful woman in the world. (I could have done better, but it's late, and this one was handy.)

Oh, found another one. I don't know whether Mama ever claimed that her mama was the most beautiful, or whether Gammar ever said it of her mother, but they weren't. Not as long as Mama was in the world. They wore funny hats. Mama wore gorgeous, colorful broad-brimmed hats. And no glasses. She had lovely hazel eyes and never needed glasses. (When I got glasses--I was about 15--she said it was from reading for hours on end. I'm near-sighted, but still...)

I don't think Mama ever really thought of herself as beautiful. Weight was an issue for her most of her life. I truly never saw it. After three babies she was heavier than she is in these pictures, but she wasn't...you know...the F word. Like the little girl in the story, I was asked to describe her at various times for various reasons, and I remember looking for the right word to describe her stature. She was tall for her generation. She carried herself like a duchess. Hair color changed at her discretion. Being told I looked like her was a compliment even when I was a teenager, convinced that I was not like her. She was so last decade. (You've been there, haven't you? Or was it just me?)

One of the last gifts she gave me was a cartoon book called "Oh, Lord, I Sound Just Like Mama." Nowadays I look for that sound to come from my daughter and granddaughters. They ask, "Where did you learn that?" and I tell them. Not just "From my mother," but I tell the story that goes with it. And I see her in their faces. My granddaughters love to sing, and I think one in particular might have Mama's beautiful soprano voice. The other one has her sense of style. I remember going shopping with Mama after I had had my three kids, and I pointed out something and said, "How about this?" She laughed. "That's not me anymore." She bought a pair of jeans. I'd never seen her in jeans. We were ranching in ND, and I couldn't believe it when she went horseback riding with us. Mama on a horse! Oh, yes, the girls love that story, too. Almost as much as they love it when I do something outrageous, like the Mashed Potatoes or the Watusi. The Swim! They love that one. And then I try to show them how their great-grandmother could jitterbug. (To my knowledge, their great-great and great-great-great didn't dance. Not in those hats.)

The last time I saw Mama, she looked very much like me. Not the way I look now, but the way I looked in the picture sitting on my great-grandmother's lap. She'd been through chemo, of course. We both knew it was probably the last time, but neither said so. I couldn't say very much, frankly, except this: "Mama, you have always been the most beautiful woman in the world."

Happy Mother's Day! Here's a fun link to a video by "Moms Rising." Plug in your favorite mom's name and watch her get the kudos she deserves.

Please gift us with a Mama story that you're saving for your grandchildren. I'll draw one name for an autographed copy of In Care Of Sam Beaudry--hot off the press--or a book from my backlist if you already have Sam.

P.S. GladysMP, you won Pam Crooks's drawing last week. Please e-mail your mailing info to: kathleen.eagle@comcast.net

Betina ponders: Family Stories and Writing

Okay, I've been a history buff almost as long as I've been a story buff. I had history teachers who told great stories unlike anything we read in our official textbooks. Travel only cemented my love of history. At age 14, I had one of those mystical museum moments while standing in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I felt like I was there, at the Continental Congress, listening, absorbing, breathing the same air. I was never quite the same afterward.

I guess it was only natural that I grew to love history; my folks loved it and had lots of stories of our ancestors. There were romantic tales of King Charles I's cavaliers being run out of England and sailing for the new world. There are some records that verify that family members arrived in 1640 or thereabouts. And there's the story about how some of the family were royalists during the American Revolution and were burned out by rebel neighbors and fled across the Appalachian mountains to eastern Kentucky. Like I said, great stories.

Interestingly, as I'm researching my newest book, I've run into some people with my birth name, Maynard, who also have interesting stories to tell. One of them, Frances Evelyn Maynard, who was generally called "Daisy," married Francis Greville, Lord Brooke, the eldest son and heir of George Greville, the 4th earl of Warwick. Apparently Daisy was something of a doozy. This is a picture of her.

She not only inspired the Gay 90's hit song "Daisy Daisy," she also went on to have a grand affair with the future King Edward VII of England. (Queen Victoria's son and heir). She would have been famous enough for that, but she apparently got a hankering for yet another fella and two-timed the future king with a buddy of his, Charles, Baron Beresford. This caused a major split between the future king and his friend and spawned a couple of embarrassing legal tangles that required the Prime Minister to intervene to keep it all from landing in the courts!

Cool! Royal betrayals and intrigues involving sex and power. All started by a little Maynard girl.

Dang, I gotta write a book about this!

As for the Krahns. . . not a lot of flash and dash in their background. When my boys did their 5th grade "family history" project, we didn't have much information on their dad's side. The Krahns were relative newcomers to America-- the 1880's. They settled into the heartland and into lives of productivity and boring respectability. Seeing my boys' disappointment, I mentioned that far back in history, the Krahn ancestors had probably been a part of the Hun hordes. Huns? Yeah, you know. . . barbarian invaders.

Barbarians! All right! The guys were thrilled. Real bad-ass barbarians in the family! I didn't have the heart to disillusion them. But it did get a little annoying when they started calling their dad the "Head Hun." They're old enough to know better now, but there's still a wistful pride in their eyes when they talk about the old Krahns. I can tell they're picturing great, shaggy, battle-hardened warriors who eat with their bare hands.

Anyway, we've now searched out the Krahns as far back as we can go in this country. It turns out that just getting here from Germany was an ordeal. The trip makes for fascinating and heartbreaking reading. The Krahns lost a two year old and a two month old on the trip over-- due to a measles outbreak on the ship. Something like 23 children died in steerage on that trip from Bremen, Germany to Baltimore. Just imagine what that must have been like. . . stuck in that cold, cavernous hold with sick and dying children and mothers going crazy with grief. Aghh. Those folks had to be tough as shoe leather just to survive.

See? Stories. And it all becomes grist for the mill. As a writer I view the world and all its history as source material for great love stories. Even my own history and connections-- loose as they are-- provide a million possible stories.

I could be at this until I'm 90!!!

What about you? Have you found connections to your family stories in your writing research? Ever written about them? Have any stories from your family history that you'd like to share? Got any ancestor skeletons you'd rather keep in the closet? Horse thieves? Bank robbers? Bigamists? Snake oil salesmen? Shady ladies? Come on, you can tell us. . .