#3 -- The Endearing Marilyn Eileen Brown (1928-2006)

Daring Darlene to Tell

Dear FOLKS,

In today's article, I want to share with you the some of the special things about my mother. Marilyn Eileen Brown was born to Eugene John "Gene" Brown and Inez Viola Shinn on 29 April 1928 in Emmett, Gem County, Idaho where Gene was a grocery clerk. Earlier this week, I transcribed her birth certificate, you can read that article here. Before Marilyn was two-years-old, her parents and older sister moved to Hines, Harney County, Oregon where Gene had purchased a small local grocery store. It was in Hines that Mom remembered the most about growing up.

Mom's main interest was the people in her life. Her family and friends she held close to her heart. But she also enjoyed a variety of other things and I want to share those items with you.

IMAGE: Marilyn about age 10. A
traveling photographer stopped by
and took her photo on the back of
his pony in Hines, Oregon. From
the family photo collection.

For a while, Mom was a retail clerk and belonged to that union. The family lived in southern California and for a while, Marilyn worked as a grocery clerk for Safeway Stores. She also worked for a short time as a waitress. These were part-time jobs and the income sure helped.

Mom was also an active member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Ladies Auxiliary. She was an active member of F.O.E. Aerie #3054 in Issaquah, Washington for over thirty years, and she was the auxiliary's secretary for a major portion of that. This kept her busy with friends and the community for a long time.

Marilyn enjoyed playing cards. The games she liked best were solitaire, and pinochle. She also loved playing cribbage. Cribbage is really a game played between two people, but she devised a way to play this game for two by herself. How she managed to avoid cheating one of the two "players" is still curious to me. She figured how to play cards in front of the television with an over-sized board, like a large cutting board, sitting on the footstool in front of her chair. I think my sister made this board for her. Many hours were spent playing cards while watching her favorite Seattle Mariners or Seahawks from her easy chair. She was an enthusiastic fan!

Mom also liked to work crossword puzzles and kept dictionaries and language books at her fingertips. These helped when she tackled the difficult New York Times Crossword puzzles. She also liked to share paperback romance novels with her sister. I remember one trip we made to visit Marilyn's sister and we returned with our car's trunk so full of boxes full of books that there was hardly room for the suitcases. Mom's favorite book was "A Guy Named Joe," by Randall M. White, published in 1944. A World War II story based on the legend that pilots never die but return to guide new pilots. This book would become a movie of the same name, starring Spencer Tracy and others.

IMAGE: Marilyn while in a senior,
ca. 1946, Kent (Washington)
High School.

At other times Mom could be found sewing or crocheting. I think Mom made most of us a crocheted afghan blanket. She also liked to sew. She made many plaid short-sleeved work shirts for our dad. He wanted two pockets, and not many of those were to be found at the clothing store. She took ironing in stride too. Not that she liked it, but thought Dad's plaid work shirts should be ironed. She would call me on the phone and say, "I finished my ironing!" Guess she never realized that I was of the generation that didn't iron.

World War II raged while Mom was in high school. This influenced her growing up years to some degree. She knew friends who went to fight and others that worried they would be drafted. She would tell us about the mandated rationing that happened during those war years. Tires, gasoline and sugar were among the things she mentioned.

Mom like to dance, she knew how to dance the Jitterbug and would later learn to dance the Bop. Her favorite actor was Van Johnson and her favorite singer was Frank Sinatra. Next, she became a fan of the Everly Brothers, and would wake me up most mornings by singing "Wake Up Little Suzie!" Her favorite color was red and she was a lucky one who could wear that color too, although she could and did wear lots of different colors.

As our birthdays happened, each of us kids had a favorite cake she would bake for the occasion. My favorite was a dark chocolate two-layer delight, piled high with marshmallow frosting. The cake was from a mix, but the frosting she made from scratch. Here is the recipe:

IMAGE: Likely originated on the label of Karo Light
Corn Syrup bottle. Copied from Marilyn's recipe card.

Mom also liked to cook and bake and she was good at both. She had a sweet-tooth and loved to feed EVERYBODY. By tradition, she would wait until Easter to serve asparagus. She also held out until the Fourth of July for us to have our first watermelon of the season. For Halloween, she handed out homemade caramel popcorn and the neighbor kids in costume would head to our house first. I don't recall that Mom was ever a scout leader, but she played a supporting role by teaching young girl scouts sewing and cooking skills for their merit badges. She made sure her children were able to be a scout if they wanted. In addition to scouting, her children also played in Little League and the local soccer club.

Speaking of food, Mom's kitchen was often the scene of Dad bringing home wild game and such that was the product from his hunting trips. I can remember him butchering elk, deer and bear right on the dining room table. There was once too, a sink of bullfrogs and many times rainbow trout. Those were the days. There was one instance she wasn't very happy about. The story goes, that Mom was up early to make Dad his lunch and see him off to work. Dad usually had a packed lunch in a metal box, but this time he had left his nice new lunch box at work the day before. So Mom went downstairs to the garage and pulled his old lunch box from a shelf. She took it up to the kitchen and opened it.... Yikes! It was full of slithering garter snakes. Oh my, what a shock for so early in the morning. It left her shaken for most of that day. One of my brothers had been "hunting" snakes in the backyard and used that handy metal box to put his "new found" pet snakes in. It was one of those, "Don't you ever do that again!" conversations that brother had with Mom that day.

IMAGE: Thermos brand lunch box.
From the Smithsonian National Museum
of American History Library website.

It came to be that my folks would divorce. After 37 years of marriage, they decided to permanently separate. I know they hadn't been happy for a very long time, so while sad, it was likely for the best. This upset my younger siblings more than it did me, as by then I already had my own family. My mother and I continued to be best friends and do lots of things together. She was always fun to be with.

I hope this reminds you of the things your mother was known to do. I enjoyed sharing what I could remember with you. I want to thank my sister for helping me with her list of things of what she remembers, this helped me to remember more.

I hope your week is going well too. Have a great day everyone! See you next time.

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Copyright (c) 2018, Darlene M. Steffens