Happily, my brother Todd and his wife Alice soon had children, taking some of the onus off of me. For my nephew Raymond Craig Smoot and niece Mary Alice Vinehout, and for any of my cousins or my parents' friends, I'm making this page to curate a list of my blog posts that concern generations of my family.
Before I get into specifics, I recommend The Privilege is Mine (12/2017), a look back on the many ways my family gave me a boost in life that others lacked. A literal boost is my earliest memory, developed into a reflection on the rest of my life in the poem On Track. What Dad gave me with my name is the basis for a homily that I delivered for an informal worship service at St. James: Names and James (08/2010).
For me, the number five has always stood for "family," i.e., Mom, Dad, my older sister Kim, my younger brother Todd, and me. We lived in Pittsburgh PA, Chicago IL, and then Atlanta GA. There we five posed for a studio photo in 1976 when Kim would soon be leaving for college, and we wouldn't all live under the same roof again.
The second of three children, I've always embraced my middleness. Born 6:30 pm on Wednesday, July 15, I can claim to have been born in the middle of summer, the middle of the month, middle of the week, the middle of the evening, the middle of the hour -- in 1959, between decades. Perhaps inevitably, I was drawn to the Episcopal church, in-between Protestant and Catholic. I taught middle school 40 years, and middle school taught me: see The Gospel for Educators.
Here's a photo of the three siblings in the summer of 1966, ages 9, 7, and 4, shortly after we moved into our Chicago home. Then there's a photo from their visit with me on my birthday, ages 63, 65, and 68 (photo by my sister-in-law Alice).
Memories of our family singing came back to me at a jazz concert where I heard three songs that Mom and Dad often sang (02/2022). Mom played our compact electric chord organ while Dad played guitar. This was in Pittsburgh, 1966 and earlier. Besides the love songs they sang to each other, they involved their small children in folk songs, a favorite being a gruesome one about Dunderbeck, so mean, who fed pussy cats and long tailed rats into his sausage-meat machine.
During the summer of 1967, we took a family trip out west. My article Wyoming in a Car, 1967 (07/2017), conveys what it felt like to be a child in that family. I tell about Dad, Kim, and a bear in Yellowstone (10/2020). A memory from that same year remains a key incident in my relationship with my brother. That memory and a favorite childhood photo are tucked into my review of an artist's memoir, We Were Brothers.
My other blogposts about the five Smoots concern times much later in our lives.
- I remember my father Thomas Smoot in a eulogy About My Dad: In Memoriam (10/2010). I reflect on working for Dad, in the summer after eighth grade Summer job, 1973: Scrubbing Decatur High Stadium (06/2024) and my teen years Prep Kid in a Factory (09/2022). An author wrote that the dead never talk to us in our dreams, and it was true in a dream of Dad, retold in Conversations with the Dead (12/2011). A poem about my father and me is also a theological reflection, Our Father.
- Mom's Feminist Marriage starts in 1963 but covers decades (11/2023). Her story continues. See many articles summarized and linked on my blog page Dementia Diary.
- My sister Kim wrote the obituary for her husband Bert Remembering Bert V. Carter (11/2020).
- Since Bert passed away, I've enjoyed weekly visits with Kim, including a visit to our mom Miraculous (11/2021). For fun, we paid homage to an American icon for July 4th One More American Gothic Parody (07/2022)
- Dogs were almost always a part of our family, and my adult life, too. Read about 60 years of Smoot dogs, with photos, at My Life in Dogs (07/2019). Mom and Dad's Sassy kept Mom company for years after Dad's death. See Easter Vigil about how Sassy's final days coincided with those of Jesus (04/2018). For a look back on Sassy's wonderful little life, and the good she did for Mom, see "I'm Lost Without My Dog" (05/2018).
Some of the stops on my world tour are places I shared with Mom, Dad, Todd, and Kim. Others were important to Mom and Dad:
- Read about our family connections to Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Cincinnati, and my personal connections to other places, in NY, PA, CI, CH, MN (07/2020)
- At Mt. Rushmore (08/2020), we had lunch in the same burger shop that appears in the classic movie North by Northwest, just a couple of years after that movie was made.
- We visited the tiny town of Smoot, Wyoming (10/2020), named for Senator Reed Smoot. The family's ancestry reportedly stretches back to Ireland. See Cyclin' to Dublin (09/2022).
- We also visited Yellowstone National Park (10/2020)
- Mom and Dad had some adventures in Reno, Nevada (10/2020) where Dad saw more of a secret government facility than he was supposed to see, and where he developed a new hobby.
- I explore the Smoot family connection to Barbara Pierce Bush, wife of President George H. W. Bush and mother of President George W. Bush. "W." is practically my cousin, I write, in a virtual visit to the Bush family home in Midland, Texas (08/2021)
- I recall visits to California to see Dad's family in Los Angeles (06/2021) and San Francisco (04/2021).
If you read those posts in chronological order with others from my virtual world tour, you'd have the outline of my memoir, should I ever decide to write one. See Biking to Places I've Lived or Loved: A Memoir.
This photo, taken in 1969, shows my great-grandmother "Mama" Craig (center) with her three children. Thelma (1902-1991), on Mama Craig's left, was my grandmother, eldest of the three. Her husband Lee Maier died before I was born. Thelma's sister Opal married "Sig" Clark and lived her life on a farm in North Henderson, Illinois. Frank Craig was born in 1925, the same year as his nephew, Thelma's son Jack.
Though Mom was born in Chicago, both she and Dad grew up, went to college, and married in Cincinnati. Before I was born, my father's family moved to California, out of easy reach; but, wherever we moved, Cincinnati and Mom's family remained just a day's drive away. About Mom's family, I've posted these articles:
- A reflection on a visit to my grandmother Thelma Craig Maier and great-grandmother Myrtle "Mama" Craig for just one glorious fall day when I was six, Memory and Ritual: Solace at the Solstice (09/2015)
- An appreciation of my grandmother Thelma Craig Maier Remembered on All Soul's Day (11/2021)
- My mother's brother Jack, older by nine years, married Blanche Frisch. With eight children, their family was confused in my mind with the family in a famous movie: see My Role in The Sound of Music. Jack is eulogized by my brother Remembering Jack C. Maier 1925-2005 (07/2022)
- My Aunt Blanche Maier was my mom's sister-in-law, but Dad remembered her as a big sister to both of them when they were teens and newlyweds. I found resonance between my feelings at Blanche's memorial and a book of poetry that I'd taken along for the trip: Linda Pastan's "Last Uncle" and My Last Aunt (09/2009). I write more generally about how the Maier family merged in my young imagination with Hollywood movies in My Role in the Sound of Music (02/2023).
- I'm proud of a poem that expresses the protective power Grandmother had in my childhood sense of self, carrying over to this day. See Wingtips at my poetry blog First Verse
- In fall of 2021, Kim and I visited Galesburg IL to see Mom's cousin Pat Clark Mathers, widow of Gene Mathers, daughter of Opal and Sig Clark. We also caught up with Pat's daughter Elizabeth Mathers Timmons and daughter-in-law Rosemary Clark. North by Northwest to Galesburg (09/2021) is a photo-shopped souvenir of that visit that includes a link to a video that we made for Mom. My poem Ghost Story reflects on my two visits to Pat's home town 50 years apart -- through the eyes of my imaginative 10-year-old self. [For simplicity's sake, I conflated the home of Pat and Gene with that of Opal and Sig; I never saw Sig after my first visit, and Opal, only once more.]
The following memory about my Cincinnati relatives appears in an article about kitchens: I remember when my cousin Michael had succumbed to AIDS, how we all waited with Aunt Blanche in the kitchen while the cars lined up for the drive to the cemetery. All dressed up in black, coffee and snacks on hand, my cousins, their children, and two grandmothers [Thelma Maier and Blanche's mother Annette Frisch] stood or sat watching The Price is Right. The millionaire grandmother [Annette] yelled at the screen, "I could get that twenty percent cheaper!" We all laughed; then it was time, and the tears started. From an article Kitchen Reverential (07/2021)
By the time I was born, my father's parents Harriet and Dewey ("Mamaw and Pop") had followed their elder children Harriet Ann Kriete and Jack Smoot to California, too far away for frequent visits. In the 15 years after Pop died at 77 (the same age at which my dad would die in 2010), there was a geographical reshuffling, and I got to know my relatives on Dad's side. The color photo was taken in my Aunt Harriet's home in North Carolina, ca. 1993, where Mamaw lived with her for many years. Jack and his wife Ginny lived nearby. We see Mamaw (Harriet Radcliffe Smoot) seated, surrounded by her children Jack, Harriet Ann, and my father Tom. Inset, the children with their father Dewey Smoot, ca. 1962.
- I wrote an overview in Memories of Mamaw (06/2021) about Harriet Radcliffe Smoot, grandmother on my father's side.
- One of my favorite blogposts of all centers on a celebration of July 4th with Harriet Ann, Uncle Sam and Aunt Harriet. (07/2018)
Here's a favorite photo that I recently discovered among Mom's things. It's little me, age three, with my "Pop," my grandfather Dewey Smoot at age 63:
- My Niece's Wedding (06/2021) celebrates Mary Alice's marriage to Jay Vinehout. My nephew Raymond Craig Smoot took the beautiful photo.
- Sudden Clearing tells of my niece, newlywed and moving to Japan, visiting my mother. As the title suggests, Mom's clouded mind suddenly cleared.
- Superman and Pokemon at Advanced Middle Age (01/2022) reflects on something my nephew and I have shared.
- Raymond helped me to see my dog Mia's terminal illness in a different light: My Life in Dogs.
Below Mom's photo, we see me and my brother, Mom and Dad, Thelma, the family of Jack and Blanche ca. 1966, with, inset, a photo of adult Michael.
[About Michael: When he came out as gay around 1970, his parents felt that he would be a bad influence on his younger siblings, and he left home for San Francisco. He took a detour to Atlanta to say good-bye to my parents, who had always felt especially close to him. I didn't understand the situation until a couple of years later when Mom looked back on the visit. They were supportive, but they also gave him a book by a Methodist pastor about sex, hoping to "convert" him back to normal. When he developed AIDs, his parents welcomed him back to their home, where they gave him hospice care. Mom, Dad, and I saw him on a gurney out back on Blanche and Jack's spacious patio. He didn't open his eyes or speak, but he smiled when we spoke to him. A month later, he had died.]
On the desktop, there's Frisch's Big Boy, symbol for the family business, a photo of Mamaw at 100, a tiny Kabuki doll carved in ivory by a Japanese artisan around the time of Shakespeare (that Dad brought for me after his business in Japan), and a piece of china (stamped "Nippon") that Mama Craig gave to my mom. Wiped out by glare, there's a photo of Aunt Harriet, her son Dan with Lois, and Harriet Ann's daugher Ann with husband Ken Bloch, their children Arwen and Ryan, and their partners and children, ca. 2005.
The other wall includes a portrait of Mamaw and Pop amid a number of collages, including one I made for Todd and Alice around the time of Craig's third birthday. A collage from Mamaw's 90th birthday celebration gets a closer look in my article Memories of Mamaw (06/2021). The collage that chronicles Dad's surprise party for Mom's 60th birthday in 1994, is printed below, with some commentary:
Left to right across the top of the collage, you see Mom's entrance from the elevator at the top of the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta, where she thought she was joining a retirement party for a business associate. She put her hand over her heart when she realized that everyone was there for her; just beyond Mom, we see Alice with Craig in her arms, and mom's cousin Pat. Dad was delighted; then we see Mom and Dad's dearest friends Alfredo Burato of Milan and Jim Archer. In the upper-right hand corner, there's Bert Carter and my sister Kim.
Across the middle of the collage, we see the Smoot siblings Kim, Scott, and Todd (holding Craig), and a grouping of Mom and Dad's friends: Doll Williams, neighbor to us and longtime secretary at Dad's business, next to Jim and Joan Archer. Dad gave a speech. To the right of that, Mom is greeting her brother Jack Maier. On the far right, we see Jack Smoot and his wife Ginny. My aunt Blanche is drinking wine in the lower right hand corner, and, way down there, I'm playing a song that Dad commissioned for the occasion. [If I locate it, I'll type the words here. I based it on Mom's lullabye to us, "You are My Sunshine."]
My memoir, should I ever decide to write it, is contained in the blogposts from my virtual world tour. As I rode my bike in Atlanta, I traced the miles on a map, aiming for places meaningful to me. If you start at NYC and follow the arrow links, you'll get the story behind each place. (back to the top)
For the purpose of memoir, however, these posts make more sense grouped by decades:
- First 10 years
Midland TX is about family history before I was born; Los Angeles and San Francisco, Dad's side of the family in California; Reno NV, Mom and Dad; Pocatello ID near where Dad lived among the Blackfoot Tribe; Yellowstone National Park, a family trip that included stops at Smoot WY and Mt. Rushmore SD. Three hometowns appear among other places in one page: Chicago IL, late-1960s home; Cincinnati OH, hometown of my parents; Pittsburgh PA, mid-1960s home. Salzburg, Vienna, site of The Sound of Music, gave me an excuse to remember summers with Aunt Blanche and Uncle Jack. - Age 11-21
What high school made of me is implied in my post Vienna After Midnight. Just after graduation, I traveled with the high school choir to Poland and Russia. Stories of college are wrapped into posts set in Oxford and London, England; Durham NC at Duke University; and in New York NY, esp. Broadway (on a page with Chicago, Pittsburgh, others). - Age 22-32
Milan and Venice in Italy, where Dad's business venture brought changes; Tête D'Indien and Quebec City in Canada, visited when I was 28; Paris and what I learned there; Montgomery AL, where I visited the Alabama Shakespeare Theatre many years; Jackson MS where I taught at St. Andrew's School 17 years; Shreveport LA, where I made a life choice. - Age 33-43
Dublin, Ireland, place of family origin; Washington DC, where I found my tribe at the Sondheim Celebration. - Age 44-61
Marietta GA where I taught at The Walker School until my retirement; Boston MA, my pilgrimage to a place that occupied my imagination for 20 years; - Shillington PA and why I write this blog; Minneapolis MN where I visited my Aunt Harriet Kriete and my cousins, her progeny. The first year of COVID was my last year of teaching middle school, when I had to learn a lot of new things on the job. With so much in flux, I clung to routine, and Joni Mitchell's song about a romance in Greece was part of that routine: Matala, Crete: Where Carey Met Joni.
- Age 62-now: in retirement
Every morning starts in Jerusalem with a reading from the Psalms. Posing for a selfie in Petra at the request of my friend Susan (who once toured there for real), I take the occasion to reflect on our friendship, now that we're both retired.
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