Snow Days

1953 Tonawanda NY

I grew up with Lake Erie lake effect snow. Two years ago we moved away from Lake Michigan lake effect snow.

We got about 9"-10" of snow for our first snow fall yesterday--no laughing matter--but I've seen worse...

1960, sleding down the plowed snow at the Kuhn's barn

In the 1950s & early 1960s in Tonawanda NY, we had several snow days a season. Those were snow days! We stayed in the kitchen with the gas range running. Mom hung blankets up to keep the heat in. The bedrooms were unheated; I wore a flannel nightgown and was buried under heavy blankets.

Our snow covered willow tree, 1963

One year Dad had to climb out a window because the snow had piled against the door and he couldn't get out. Dad had a snow plow and worked at night to clear the factory parking lots. One night he came home with frostbite.

We would drive up to Niagara Falls to see the ice jam in the Gorge. The trees would be covered in ice.

Niagara Falls in Winter. 1963

The Gorge below the Falls. 1963

Sledding in the front yard. 1963

A shoveled walk at the Kuhn's house. 1963

When we move to Metro Detroit we laughed at the 'snow' days. It started snowing in December and we got a little bit every day or week. In those 'mini skirt' days, before tall boots, I'd get to school and have to warm up my cold, red legs.

I married and we lived in Delaware, Ohio for three years. The snow melted by noon. Sometimes there was ice. It melted by noon. 

Then we moved to Philadelphia where the snow was cleared with a broom and people used umbrellas in the snow. There was one huge storm while we lived there. In February I recall wearing a velveteen jacket one year. I had a lightweight jacket that served me for 'cold days'.

We went to see the reenactment of Washington Crossing the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1975. It was a tradition at Washington Crossing Park, PA.

Washington Crossing Park, PA

The Delaware River, Christmas Day 1975

When we moved to Hillsdale, MI and I had to buy a winter coat, gloves, boots, and a hat! We taught our son how to sled and how to make snow men.

Snow day in Hillsdale, MI my son and husband making snowmen

We lived in Lansing, MI for nine years. There were some early and some late storms while we lived there. 

2005 Lansing MI

A heavy snow bending the trees. 2005

 March 2005 we had a late snow that covered the tulips! 

2007-8 we were in Montague, MI in a house in the woods.

 They got the Lake Effect snow there--93" our first year!

Even in March there was snow...

We had one winter in Norton Shores, MI. There was a brutal wind off Lake Michigan. The back of the yard was all wooded and untamed. Turkey, deer, and Pileated Woodpeckers visited daily.

 Norton Shores, MI, just on the other side of a sand dune from Lake Michigan.
 Deer bedded down in our yard

We lived two years in Delton. The parsonage view was of farm fields. 

Delton Dec. 2011

Then we lived in Pentwater, MI, once again on the Lake Michigan shore. In 2013 my husband conducted Christmas Eve worship so we couldn't leave until Christmas Day. It was miserable with horrid visibility, and our son was a four hour drive away. In good weather. This was NOT good weather....

Trees were bending and splintereing under the heavy snow.
The damage was evident in the spring.

First rest stop...we had to clear the snow off our car.

Winter 2014 in Pentwater we had about 190" of snow! Every day my husband had to dig out the mail box...

As if a resort town wasn't empty enough in the off season...it looked like a ghost town in witer 2014.

Our dogs had a tiny shoveled patch in the yard to use. The streets were icy and unsalted, so no walks for doggies.

So, I am feeling lucky if 10" of snow is all we have today.

Snow today

My Old House

It was my home, my community, my playground. The center of a secure world, the place that gave me roots. My first home, that when lost, was mourned over and recalled with vivid regret.

1865 Military Rd in 1965, from Rosemont Ave
Taken on a visit after we moved.

1865 Military Road in the 1940s. Those are Lilac bushes along the side.
The front porch was not yet enclosed.

My girlish dream was to grow up and buy the house back. Instead it was torn down. Lucille Kuhn took photos of its destruction. She said it resisted, its ancient frame still strong.

My Grandfather Lynne O. Ramer once wrote that the house dated to the 1830s and had "Indian arrows" embedded in the wood frame. I don't know who built the house and first owned it, but a 1915 Tonawanda map shows that H. Kuhn owned the land up to Maplewood except for a strip belonging to H. May, right across from what may be Ensminger Rd.

I have a visual memory and think in pictures before words. My memories are like looking at snap shots from my life.

I remember once going to the top of the attic stairs to watch Mom search for something stored there. I was not allowed to follow; Mom said the floors were not very strong. But I saw the light glaring in from the octagon window and wanted to look out it, sure I would see the Niagara River and Grand Island bridge. It was forbidden.

I hated going into the basement. The stone walls and dirt floor were lit by windows on the Rosemont side. On the other side was a storm cellar door, the kind I'd seen in movies like The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy's family goes into the cellar as the tornado is coming. But there were spiders and webs and dark corners and I knew there were rats in the house. Mostly I hated the spiders.

When I wanted to make Barbie clothes, Mom sent me down to find a box of fabric on a shelf. Instead I found a box of clothing. I didn't know if that was what she meant. Inside was a beautiful white blouse with white embroidery. I snipped a piece off. Somehow it would not turn into a Barbie dress. Later Mom retrieved the box, which were hand-me-downs from Patty and Lynda Greenwood, meant for me. She held the blouse up and wondered what had happened. I felt sick thinking of that beautiful blouse.

Mom and I at the front of our apartment. The steps were new, replacing
the long wood porch, and Mom's garden yet to come.

Each side of the yard had its own personality. The front yard was separated from the gas station by a white fence. In the spring Crocus popped up there, and later the Iris bloomed in a row. Mom had a small garden in front of our door with Portulaca that blossomed in the sun and daffodils in the spring.

The first photo I took with my Brownie camera
was of the crocus along the fence between
the house and the garage.

1965 photo of the front of the house from Military Rd
One more willow planted by my grandparents!

The side yard along Rosemont held lilac bushes grown large and dense. I would gather large bouquets in my arms, and smother my face in them to enjoy the perfume. I remember selling them along the road once. A man stopped and bought some. It was where Dad installed a swing set. The biggest Weeping Willow tree was also there, the tree that towered over Rosemont with its newly built houses.

Dad and I on the porch on Easter. I don't recall that oil tank.

The side of the house had an open, deep porch. I don't remember my family sitting on it. But I climbed over it, leaned over to grab the willow tree branches, and played fisherman dangling over a willow branch stripped of all its leaves save one at the end to be my catch. My brother learned to go up and down the step to the porch. We had a movie showing him going up and down again, intent and placid even when he fell.

Entrance to the smaller apartment in back.
Grandmother Gochenour with her daughter Mary and Mary's children,
and our Rosemont family friend Lou Randall

At the door to the smaller downstairs apartment where my grandparents was a Hollyhock bush. My grandmother showed me how to make a 'doll' out of the blossoms. And I remember there was a large horseradish plant that came up every spring.

Rosemont, the willow, and me

Then came the driveway with twin posts at its entrance; the photo above shows a dirt drive and no posts. My cousins and I would race up and down it. Below is a photo I took several years after we moved showing one of the posts. You can see the L shaped branch of the tree which I liked to climb.

1965 photo of 1865 Military Rd
Note the Texaco sign next door on Military Rd

At the end of the driveway were the garages with the 'rabbit coop' at the end. I didn't know that Dad has raised rabbits there as a teenager. And next to the 'coop' was a fenced in area where, Mom told me, the outhouse had once stood.

This photo of Janet L. shows the garages behind her. 1962.

Tom on the slide. Rosemont in background.

Tom near the swing set; the gas station in the background.

Snow hill in our front yard, behind the gas station
Aunt Alice Eniss and kids

The far side of the house parallel to Rosemont had a fence separating our yard from the shops next door: the Schwinn bicycle shop, the Texaco Station.

This photo of lil' me shows the side yard and fence
and behind where the Schwinn store would be built

And of course in front of the house along Military was the gas station built by my grandfather Gochenour, where my father worked.

The gas station in the 1940s

Our apartment consisted of a large farmhouse kitchen, a living room with an enclosed porch at the end, a bathroom on the first floor. The stairs went to a landing with a wall scone to light it, then turned, a few more steps leading to a hallway and the four bedrooms.

On the left was a small room with a large closet. You could see out the window to Ensminger Road and towards the river. Then came the largest bedroom at the corner. It was mine as a little girl, with gray wallpaper of black and white kittens playing with a ball of yarn. I was frightened by their eyes, black pupils on white, that glowed in the dark and needed my pink duck nightlight. There was a shelf along the wall on which sat my Little Golden Book collection. I read books by the nightlight when I was supposed to be asleep.

At the other end of the hallway were two bedrooms, parallel and equal, that I am sure were once one big room. They had folding doors. I was later moved into the bedroom parallel to Rosemont, with two windows looking at Rosemont through the willow branches. My bed looked was near the window that looked toward Rosemont from across our driveway. The windows were low enough to the floor that I could lay on my bed and look out to watch  the streetlights come on. In summer mesh screens were fitted in the window and I listened to the comfort of the Robin's evening song as I drifted off to sleep.

The bedroom next door was my Grandmother Gochenour's room. I sometimes went in to visit her. She had a huge collection of pennies and a cypress tree root.

When my brother was born his crib was in the smallest, first room, next door to the room that had been mine but now was my parent's. Mom lined the shelves with her books. I would pick them up and look into them. I was told the books were for 'adults', as if they were forbidden. Later I read some of them; they were mostly historical fiction books.

In Fifth Grade we had a homework assignment to make a plan of our house. I remember Dad helping me, teaching me some basic drafting rules. Sadly all my school papers were tossed when we moved so I do not have it.

Many years later I wrote a poem about the house.

 The View From Windows

by Nancy A. Bekofske

Rescue is out of the question,

going back not an option open to me.

Gone are those lofty trees like green umbrellas,

the purple flag of iris near the white rail fence,

the fragrant French lilacs, purple and white,

my world--my first world--and a life rooted

in a sense of place, no longer exists in space.

I remember the view from every window in every room.

Windows to the wider world.

I could see traffic on the burdened road;

the pushy hopefulness of yellow crocus in sooty snow.

From a doorway, looking across the room and out a window,

a water tower seen in a flat land, horizon's sentry.

From an upstairs window, I could see to the river,

the perpetual flame of the gas works,

the mangle of pipes and tanks.

Drying dishes, a glance to the left revealed a doorway,

pink hollyhock, a gigantic horseradish plant.

From my bed, looking across a gravel drive,

ironposted streetlights lit small box-like houses,

while from another open window I could hear the wind

playing in the branches of willows

(how they swayed like a girl's long hair in summer,

but in winter were plaited in clean ice).

These trees my touchstone;

I knew my house by its being next to the biggest tree,

I told others so, believing my own veracity.

At times, an airplane--no jet, not then-- droning

overhead would shake my world of make-believe to its roots

with reality's heavy awareness.

My heart would beat a faster tattoo, and restless,

disquieted, but directionless, I rushed outdoors

to breath freer air, escape the restraint of walls,

to seek the questions I already felt swelling

in my girl's breast, the mystery I could not name.

I only knew that I must shake off

girlhood's cushioned hermitage, to live and work,

now, suddenly aware of mortality's unaccustomed weight,

because I heard, and looked up from play,

to catch sight of a mystery outside my window,

common, yet profoundly unsettling.

Stories My Mother Told Me and Other Memories of Mom

Joyce Ramer (left) and Doris Wilson

My earliest memories of my mother Joyce Ramer Gochenour was watching her blond ponytail swinging across her neck as we went downstairs from our apartment. I remember a lounge outfit of black pants and a quilted red jacket trimmed with gold roses embroidered on black. I remember the music she played on the record player.

Mom did not write down her memories but she told some stories over and over and I never forgot them. Some of these stories have been shared from Dad's memoirs. Here is how Mom told them. 

Joyce Ramer baby photo

Mom was born Juy 26, 1931 in Kane, PA, the first child of her parents Lynne O. Ramer, who taught mathematics and history in the high school, and Evelyn Greenwood Ramer.

1935 Evelyn Greenwood Ramer and Lynne Ramer

After graduating from Susquehanna College and seminary, and earning his teaching degree from Columbia, Lynne taught at Hartwick Seminary in New York State from 1926-1930. Evelyn Greenwood, age 17, was his student. He fell in love with her. That summer he traveled the country, working odd jobs to pay his way. He came back at summer's end to ask for Evelyn's hand in marriage.

Lynne took a job teaching mathematics at Kane High School in Kane, PA.

The Ramer house in Kane, PA was a duplex

Evelyn Greenwood Ramer and daughter Joyce

Kane HS yearbook photo of Lynne Ramer

Following Mom's birth came her sister Nancy in 1934, and then twin brothers Don and Dave in 1935. By age 21 my grandmother was overwhelmed running a house with four children. My grandfather was raised on a farm and orphaned at age nine. He had worked his way through college and seminary by working in the school kitchen. He could do anything and often stepped in to handle things when his 'child bride' was overwhelmed.

Birth Certificate of Joyce Ramer

Evelyn Greenwood Ramer and Joyce

Joyce Ramer's school class photo. 

Joyce Ramer

Nancy and Joyce Ramer. Don't you love those 1930s dresses!

The Ramer kids spent summers with Eveyln's parents Delia and Cropper Greenwood at their home in Watervielet, NY. Cropper had immigrated from England and sent money for Delia's passage. They lived in Troy, NY where Cropper was a chauffeur for Thomas Connor. Delia was a nurse and took care of Johnny Monroe, who had no heirs, and Johnny left them the house to repay her. It was a large house in the country, with a wide pillared porch.

Cropper Greenwood at his home where the Ramer kids summered

My Aunt Nancy told me there was a hill they liked to sled down. Mom said they loved listening to the radio, especially liked Fibber McGee and Molly.

Mom liked meat but hated peas. Her brothers hated meat. She did not understand why the siblings couldn't just trade for the foods they preferred. Instead they were not allowed to leave the table until they cleaned their plates. They hid the food in the soil of the potted plants and along the ledge under the table. Gramps did not allow elbows on the table while eating. A rap on the knuckles awaited offenders.

The Ramer Kids: Joyce, Nancy, Dave and Donald at
Charlie and Annie Smither's home in Miltoy

As a girl Mom went ice skating on a river. One day she and her friends were skating and she broke through the ice, going under water. She could see the blue ice over head. Luckily, she was pulled out and survived.

Joyce Ramer

In 1941, when my mom was thirteen or fourteen, my grandfather lost his teaching job. The family moved in with my Great-grandparents Greenwoods, and Evelyn's brother Freddie got Lynne a traveling sales job selling frozen foods to stores across New York State.

Then WWII brought work at the Chevrolet aircraft factory in Tonawanda, NY where he worked as a testing engineering. He needed to prove he was an American citizen and returned to Milroy to search for a birth certificate. He wrote later he did not find it, but people vouched they were at his birth and he got the job.

1952 Lynne Ramer at Chevy Aviation Lab, Tonawanda NY

The Ramer family moved into the Sheridan Parkside housing project, quickly built duplexes to house the war time workers in the local factories. Fred Greenwood and his wife Dot moved to the projects, too. Their daughters Patty and Lynda where born there. At the end of the war they moved back to Troy, NY.

Moving was an adjustment for Mom. Her gingham dresses were acceptable in the rural school she came from but in the sophisticated 'city' school she was out of style and needed a new wardrobe. She liked men's jeans and shirts for casual, skirts and blouses and sweaters for school, and always saddle shoes with white wool socks.

Fashionable Mom posing in men's jeans and shirt, saddle shoes and a Navy hat

Mom's teenage years living in the Sheridan Parkside Projects, jitterbugging at the local dances, and hanging out with her friends, especially Doris Wilson, were her happiest memories. They did not have a lot of money during the Depression but her mother sacrificed so Mom had new dresses for the prom, and she always had a quarter to give Mom for the Saturday movie.

Mom said the Project kids hung together and were not integrated into the Kenmore High School. The 'new kids' of the projects had their own social gatherings, dances, and  hang-outs.

Mom loved to dance. She was the jitterbug queen of the Project. She danced with the boys and when there were no boys she danced with her girlfriends.

Mom and her friends would fool around in the Sheridan Park. One winter Mom and her girlfriend watched as the guys turned their backs and pissed their names into the snow! She claims she didn't see 'anything'. (She did have two little brothers.) Another time the gang used their heels to dig their names into the sod of the golf course. They were, of course, caught and punished.

Mom on the right

Mom's best friend was Doris Wilson. Even after she left Tonawanda they kept in touch. She told me that no matter how far the distance or long the time, when they were together again their relationship never changed.

Mom's sophomore photo (left)  from Kenmore HS

Doris told me that Mom could get miffed and give her the 'silent treatment'.  After a day or so, Doris would make the first move: she knew Mom loved tuna fish sandwiches, so she'd made a big sandwich and take it to Mom. After that they were always best buds again.

Doris Wilson and Mom

Mom also loved saltines and peanut butter. One time she was sitting on the steps of her Project house and a boy passing by commented, "No wonder you're so fat." That hurt. Mom also relished baked bean sandwiches, and after we moved whenever she returned to Tonawanda she stocked up on Grandma Brown's Baked Beans.

Mom saw my dad on the bus and tried to get his attention. She was fifteen and Dad was sixteen--and very shy, even though my Aunt Pat Ramer told me that all the girls all had a crush on him. To get Dad's attention, Mom stuck her leg into the bus aisle as he came along. He tripped. It didn't work; he didn't talk to her. Then Mom got a mutual friend to bring Dad to her house when Doris was with her. He didn't talk, just watched those silly girls wrestle. It took a long time before Dad came out of his shell, but Mom finally got her man!

My folks' love affair did not go smoothly. They had their problems. All the kids smoked in those day, as did the adults, and Mom took up the habit at age 16. Dad came from a conservative family. He demanded that Mom give up smoking. She told him that no one was going to tell her what to do. She was not a woman to be ruled. They broke up for six months.

Mom dated another boy during that time while Dad moped about. He started smoking too, and came and apologized to Mom and they got back together. Mom said she was lucky she didn't stay with the boy she'd been dating as he later was charged with bigamy!

Mom told me many of the same stories that Dad wrote about, including how he took her to Putt's farm in the Alleghenies and left her in the woods while he went hunting. She sat there a long time, alone and got mad at him: some date! Dad would pick her up on his motorcycle and take her to school. One time they hit a bump and Mom was bounced off. Dad kept going, not noticing. Mom got mad. On their honeymoon at Niagara Falls in January, 1949, Dad brought comic books because it was too cold to sight-see. He thought he was providing entertainment. Mom got mad: some romantic honeymoon!

Mom's graduation photo from Kenmore HS

Mom worked as a comptugraph secretary at Remington Rand in their first year of marriage. Mom said she'd leave the vegetables in the pot on the stove in the mornings to make dinner faster at day's end. Mom never liked working. When her girl friends started having babies she told Dad she wanted to start a family.  Mom quit work while pregnant with me. She was 21 years old when I was born and Dad was 22.

Mom and me

I was a cholicy baby who cried all day and all night. In those days babies were fed formula, and I couldn't digest the milk. Mom took me to her parent's house in the Project so my experienced grandmother could help.

Dad had been greatly disappointed that I wasn't a boy. I was to be Thomas. He avoided me until one day when Mom left me in his care. While changing my diaper, a job I'm sure Dad disdained, I smiled at him. That changed everything. I was OK. Seven years passed, and two miscarriages, before Dad got his son, my brother Tom.

Mom and I on the right, Dad and Linda Guenther on the left

Mom told me stories about my antics that got me into trouble.

The old house had rats and poison was placed in the crawl spaces. One day I came out the front door of the house and saw a dead rat. I had never seen a dead thing and was heartbroken. I picked it up--by the tail--and brought it to the door, crying for Mom. Mom was horrified. She yelled at me to drop the rat and go wash my hands. I did drop it..On the floor of the house on my way to the sink! Mom had a fit. She said after she threw the rat out the door and it came to and ran off. It wasn't quite dead yet!

I was an artistic child. I loved crayons and paper dolls and the illustrations in the Little Golden Books Mom brought home from the A&P grocery store. My artistic experiments got me in trouble.

Mom wore bright red lipstick, and it fascinated me. One day I got a hold of it and colored all over the wall. I got a spanking. Another time I found the baby powder and poured it out all over the rug. I got a spanking. I drew pictures of princesses on the inside covers of her books. I don't know if I got a spanking for that because my grandfather's books were similarly decorated--perhaps by Mom.

Mom did support my artistic interests. She gave me drawing sets from John Gnagy with pencils, erasers, sandpaper sharpener, paper, chalks and pastels. They are still available at http://ow.ly/p37j306FIlF.

Mom loved to paint. She took up painting classes at adult education in the school. She did Tole painting, decorating a metal wastepaper can and letter holder. After trying watercolor she switched to oil painting. I would sit and watch as she explained her process. Later in life she took oil painting classes with a local artist. Mom could get in the 'zone' painting, losing track of time.

One of Mom's early paintings owned by Alice Ennis

Mom also loved to read. She liked historical fiction, especially about the kings and queens of England. It must be genetic, because in college I fell in love with British Literature. Mom stayed up late into the night reading and sipping Pepsi. Which explains her unwillingness to get up early in the morning!

The Club. Mom is on the right, my Aunt Alice is next to her.

Mom stayed in touch with her Project girlfriends. They had The Club, meeting monthly of friends. They went out, or gathered at each other's homes for food and cards.

Mom was always singing snippets of songs, which I wrote about in Songs My Mother Sang Me which you can read at http://ow.ly/ofa2306BMbD. She also played records of her favorite hit songs. Two recordings I vividly recalled I later identified as The Poor People of Paris by Les Baxter and Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Perez Prado. Her love of dancing never left her, and I would come home from school to find Mom watching American Bandstand. She also loved going to the Ice Capades and I remember going many years.

Mom loved home decorating and decorating for holidays and wrapping presents with bows. At Christmas I looked forward to the decorations she brought out: a Santa face, the cardboard fake fireplace, the aluminum Christmas tree with blue ornaments lit up with a changing color light. You can read about my posts on 1950s Christmases at http://ow.ly/8Xoc306BM2f.

Christmas 1955

Doris told me that if someone liked something Mom had, next time Mom saw them she would give them what they had admired. She loved giving gifts. Christmas was so much fun for her. I always had a big pile under the tree. I wanted to grow up and have lots of money so I could give it to children who did not have what I had.

*****

When Mom reached puberty she developed a skin condition, psoriasis, an autoimmune disease. Her condition worsened with each pregnancy. She also had psoriatic arthritis. After my brother was born she suffered her first major joint loss. Mom wore a neck brace and she had a device hanging from the door which was used to keep her neck stretched. She lost mobility in her neck. She also lost flexibility in her finger joints.

Mom was devastated by the psoriasis and as a teen was concerned she would be 'unloveable'. The psoratic lesions in adulthood covered her trunk, legs, and arms, her scalp, and deformed her nails. Mom took to wearing long pants and long sleeves. She tried every treatment the doctors offered.

The list of all she underwent is pages long. As a teen there was mercury ointments. Tar ointments came later. Long soaking baths with bath oils loosened the scales but left her with bright red patches. She took aspirin for the joint pain until it ruined her stomach. When I was a teenager Mom applied a tar ointment and wrapped herself in plastic wrap, then had UV light treatment until she developed pre-cancerous lesions.

I was grown up and married when one day Mom asked me if I had ever been ashamed of her. I was stunned. Mom was always looked young and pretty. I remembered her long, blond hair when I was a little girl. She loved a party. She taught my girlfriends to jitterbug, still organizing parties but now for my friends.

Having a mom with disabilities and health problems was just normal. I learned to see through people's appearances to who they were inside.

*****

Mom told me that when she was a little girl her mother took her by train from Kane, PA to see her Greenwood grandparents in Troy. There was an African American porter on the train, the first person of color she had ever seen. She asked my grandmother why he was brown. Grandmother quipped, "because he is made of chocolate." Mom went over and bit his hand to see. How Grandmother explained things to the porter, I never learned.

Mom obviously learned that people are people regardless of differences in appearances. During the 1967 race riots in Detroit, when we lived a few miles up the road from Detroit, Mom was angry at neighbors who voiced their prejudices against African Americans. My teacher in Civics taught us that there was only one race, the human race, and Mom's reaction confirmed his teaching.

A few years later, during one of Mom's many hospital stays for a new treatment for psoriasis, her roommate was an African American woman, They bonded and afterwords Mom went to visit her. She came back very distressed. She was embarrassed to live in so much nicer a house and area than her friend. How could she invite the woman to her house when she had so much?

What was this 'so much' that we had in the 1960s? A 1920s house with a tiny kitchen, one bath, and a dirt driveway. K-Mart clothes and Depression era dinners heavy in the casseroles that stretched dollars. One car. No vacations, except visiting our Tonawanda relatives. We also had security, values, decency, warmth, love.