Melba’s Rememered Ranch

The Melba Notebooks, Chapter V

3/20/97 Di: Wasn’t here yesterday. But called & mom said everything was OK. Made meat loaf jello carrot raisin salad carrots, spinach, yams for dinner. Be here tomorrow for Melba’s hair app.

Dot: discussed hair appointment time.  Di will talk to Jen (hair dresser)

About changing days. I’ll put notes around to remind about tomorrow

(12:00).  Took Melba to S’s for shower, coffee, & a good visit. Lots of fun.

Paid Di , Li, Bob for groceries.

This entry deserves some explanation:

Bob and Melba’s children had grown up and Bob and Melba had grown old.  The Minneapolis house they bought for $8000 was paid off quite quickly, for they were careful with their money.  But Bob found life in the city as an executive dull and sedentary, deciding to leave his well paid secure job, and become an independent consultant/contractor. Melba had no income except what Bob carefully measured out and stayed home with very limited resources, while Bob came and went, roaming the world of underground mining alone.

Melba dreamed more and more of her remembered ranch home, always hoping Bob would  consent to abandon mining and work there. It was never even a remote possibility.  And there was never any possibility that she would desert him.

Then Melba’s situation changed suddenly.  She inherited   half of her parent’s California Ranch. Though she would never move back to the ranch, it came to her. Bob seemed to think the event was tainted by farming, and left her to her own devices.  She rejoiced,  and  while remaining a loyal wife, and homemaker, she simultaneously moved on. Immediately she remodeled her kitchen without asking Bob, who wouldn’t have approved anyway; he disapproved but had renounced a role in such decisions, Checkmate ! Later, Melba decided she wanted to move from the old house into one which was more appropriate for a couple with an empty nest. So the big old three story plus full basement high sweat home was sold, and Melba bought a smaller home of her own.  In time she would sell her home there , and buy a big home on a hill overlooking Mount Baker, in Washington State near Sophie and Dot.

During more than 20 years Melba managed her portfolio of stocks, and spent her money, while Bob found he never had to even consider expenses he didn’t approve of. It became convenient that most things Melba wanted were luxuries that she could afford.

Even after they moved to Washington, any extra help required was paid for by her, as well as any nonessential expense for the house.  In this way, over the years Bob patiently accumulated a respectable stock portfolio of his own, almost the equivalent of Melba’s.  That history is the basis for the note near the beginning of this chapter which reads:

‘Paid Bob for groceries’.

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*Melba is the bright only daughter of a farming pioneer family who obtained a land grant in northern, California, in the 1800′s. Her father, John, was one of ten children born on the pebbly rolling clay-red hills to the West of Pentz, Calif.   Minnie, her mother, had taught school at Pentz.  John’s family was earthy and Scotch Irish; Minnie’s was proper and Presbyterian.  Minnie was the only natural born businesswoman among her 5 sisters; John was a shrewd, deceptively easygoing man, who ran a livery stable in Oroville, where Melba was born. Shortly, John gave up the livery stable and thoughts of becoming an undertaker to work Minnie’s small piece of  rich land near Durham and his  ”redhills”,  360 acres of foothill land marginally suitable for livestock.

Minnie and John were the only members of their immediate family generation to hold on to their land through the coming depression.  They tended orchards (prunes, then almonds) sheep and barley, grain, alfalfa, and row crops. Minnie aspired to a knowledge of literature, art, and music.  Her home reflected those interests, and Melba became a very good violinist, and playing the piano into her 9^th decade..

John seemed content to trade his youthful dreams of business and city living for the life of a sheep/ orchard rancher.  When I was young his favorite place at home in the evening was in his armchair gnawing on a worried cigar, listening to Gabriel O. Heater’s version of the evening news.   I waited at his feet, because the Lone Ranger was next. John spent much of his day in his pickup, off to the foothills to check on the sheep, or to review the state of the orchards, or the crops.  Whenever I was there, which was often, he  always took me  on as a  tiny copilot in the right hand seat of the old pickup;  I like to think he enjoyed that,  but perhaps Minnie wanted me out from under her feet. Either way it was a priceless gift.

John loved telling jokes, punctuating his story by intermittently poking the listener with his forearm. He loved his food:  hot milk with  butter laden toast, redhill (bacon-gravied) toast, boiled beans and ham, lamb, mutton stew, bacon with eggs fried and basted in the bacon grease, coffee with lots of fresh cream and sugar, poured into the saucer to cool.  John would lift up the saucer with both hands, blow across the coffee, and  contentedly suck up large slurps of the sweet warm liquid .

Minnie told us we could do that when we were John’s age. She was the fount of endless advice like  ‘Monkey see, monkey do’; and Little pitcher have big ears’. A Presbyterian, a bridge player, and a woman who never left home with the  beds unmade because if there were a fire, someone might see them.

Neither Minnie nor John were verbally or physically affectionate with grandchildren, or anyone else for that matter. They were eminently practical. I recall being sent to ‘wring’  a chicken, and  watching the headless bird flop on the gravel of the chicken coop;  or being told to take my the  .22 to shoot Old Tom,  the yellow cat, because he was dying from old age, disease,  and continual conflict.

John always carried a large red or blue bandanna in his pocket, to be used indefinitely for any purpose, including wiping sheep dip from his hands or the drips from  a grandchild’s nose. *  He always took us with him to water and check on the sheep, take supplies to the sheepherders,  watch shearing of sheep , or marking** of lambs.

This small ranch home has a sleeping room on the upper floor that provides 360  degree view of the surroundings. It sits in a small oak grove. In front is a watering trough for sheep, and John’s tortured pickup that he always started off in second gear. I learned to drive in it at age twelve.

Bob is the only son of Leon, a minister, and Anna, also the child of a preacher. Leon’s education had been interrupted by  some sort of eye problem, and  he  had gone West where he worked as a cowhand for the sake of his vision. And He took root there, returned and finished Seminary, met Anna and looked for a position in California. Offered a church on the condition that he marry, he responded that it was as good as done, and wrote for Anna to come West. Apparently he and Anna had discussed the matter. At the age of 42, Anna had her first child, Robert. For more than 60 years, Leon was an active ordained minister. In his latter years he served as church historian. He and Anna worked as one. When I was young, people often remarked to me that my grandfather was a great man, but that his greatness could be found in Anna. They are adopted members of the Concow tribe  of California American Indians, a branch of the Maidu, so  Bob and his sister  are technically full blooded Concow, technically making his children half Concow..

Striking aspects of Leon’s character were tolerance, an ability to communicate, and to bring out the best in people. He based his judgement on character rather than position or appearance. He was with Martin Luther King in Montgomery, but was also a good friend to Harold Smith, the owner of Harold’s Club in Reno. Though Leon and Anna doted on Robert, their chief devotion was to God and his works in the church.  They lived reasonably well, but had not the means to help Robert’s in his schooling.

Bob worked his way through college, and expected his children to do the same.  (We  all did.) He became a  geologist/ mining engineer and was a first rate ‘letter’ football player and a nationally rated mile runner.  Bob and Melba were married at the very outset of the great Depression.  they stayed with friends during  a brief two week job in Grass Valley, (which coincidentally was where Leon and Anna were married early in the century).  But Bob could find no work elsewhere in the US. With the last of their funds and went to Canada where they had heard of the possibility of work were never in Noranda, Quebec. That began a string of yearly contracts to address underground mining problems: Sudbury, Ontario; Baggio, Manila, and Tayabas, Filipinas;  Holden, Washington (twice);;  Klamath Falls, Oregon; Manhattan, Eureka, and Tonopah Nevada, Holden, Washington again, Eureka, Nevada, Tonopah, Nevada. Santo Domingo, Chihuahua, Mexico. Finally in  Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bob found an executive position with a  diamond drill manufacturer and contractor. Sometimes Bob and Melba lived pretty well, as they did for periods in the Filipinas. But most of the time living was marginal. For Bob, this was the life of a mining engineer, one he loved.

All her life Melba delighted in her  handsome college hero, the ongoing romance,  and  adventure, of mining life, with its escape from her relatively dull Sacramento valley. Yet she had been raised gently with some advantages, and found herself raising children in harsh environments, with little to economic security. Neither Bob nor the children found that life difficult.  Such is the sweet ignorance of childhood that I  fondly recall  every little mining town,  living  in a tent during a  Nevada winter with a frozen deer hanging near the entrance;  in a house built by my father in the Cascade mountains of NE Washington State where it snowed up to 50 feet in winter; and a jungle bamboo house in the Filipinas.

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* Both Melba and I always carried  a doubtfully  reusable handkerchief or napkin  with us at all times.  In fact, my wife accuses me of “laying eggs” because when I get up after sitting in a chair, I often leave behind a crumpled Kleenex or paper napkin.

**Bob’s mother, raised in the far northeast of the country, also waited until all her brothers had finished college before convincing her father to permit her to do so. It was a time when few people graduated from universities, least of all women.

***The word ‘marked’  for a male lamb means castration, as well as bobbing the tail, procedures meant to grow a more healthy and docile lamb. John regularly took us to all his daily rounds with his sheep, including  lambing, shearing, dipping, and marking. My grandmother never forgave him for teaching me  as a 7 year old boy,  to do the most bloody part of the marking  procedure with my teeth. Of course John  simply had to tell the details to everyone who would listen. The telling,  for Minnie, was worse than the fact.

Falls, Fears, and Anger

Chapter VI, The Melba Notebooks

12/7/96 Dot: Saturday. Good morning. Cat here and very happy.  I reminded mom that cat has a sensitive stomach and can’t eat people food or milk.  She urps it up. Messiah tomorrow.  Need to be at the MB Theatre at 2:00 or 2:15.  Dad will drive and meet Ni and Wi there. Both Melba and Bob seemed depressed today.

Dad still drives his old Plymouth. When I visit I have no heart to ask Dad not to drive me to and from the airport. He wants so much to do so. I rationalize: he may not hear well, nor see so well as when he was younger, but he is  a more cautious, a safer driver than long ago when he drove always at the edge of control, at the last minute,  depending on his reflexes, and straining those of his passengers.  Since he had his cataracts operated he sees better than he has for years. He has a restricted driver’s license, thanks to the tolerance of a small town; the police watch for him. He has some scrapes, but always minor, at low speeds. After he makes a decision, he still acts decisively, just as when he runs across the street on the balls of his feet; he moves the car out decisively, briskly.

2 PM Di: We are doing an experiment this evening.  Old hamburger.  Old salad.  If they both get ill, it was the hamburger. If only dad gets ill, it was the salad. (here is a happy face!) …They say it is really good!

12/8/96 Di: 8:30 * Well…no one was sick- so I guess they are tough!  Their stomachs are used to it since they use the oven as a ‘fridge! Dinner still in oven from last night.

Di takes a dim view of men, having experienced abuse in her life.  This particular man, Bob, threatens to  take control of Melba’s kitchen, her bathroom, laundry, and body; he is prone to  give away and throw Mom’s irreplaceable little treasures, but not his own.  His various machinations to save soap and water, his  tendency to serve left-overs rather than newly prepared food, and to cook up great quantities of  produce so as to eat the same dish, from the same dish, for many days; all are personal insults to Di, Melba, and to the entire  female universe.  The fact that Bob left the hot dish she had prepared in the oven, and feeds himself and Melba left-overs, is only one of an endless string of insults she will not tolerate quietly. She reacts sometimes with anger, often with acid derision, or with pained humor.

Di: 10:30 They went to the Messiah. He got that car out. Watch out world!

Bob and Melba throughout life always do what they have to, no matter how extraordinary. Both adjust to reality always.  Bob, focuses fiercely on a goal, expecting Melba to keep up without much from him. She always does.  If there is something of Edith Bunker here, it is only an affectionate tolerance or loyalty, for Melba is tough, stubborn, resourceful and bright.

I can see them now as they leave the Church on that cold evening, after a long performance of The Messiah.  It is that cold winter darkness of wintertime afternoon nightfall in these latitudes.  As they walk along he is pre-occupied about something, and strides out and leaving her behind.  Melba tries to keep up.  As they set out  briskly after the concert no one notices.

But Bob does not recall just where his car is. They walk on. And on. Melba falls. On the next morning, Di is home alone with Bob and the hated cat.

12/9/96 AM Di: Did up laundry.  Cleaned up kitchen.  Vacuumed. Cleaned out litter box and fed cat. Made Jello and meat loaf.  Sorry about Melba’s fractured hip. Again!  Will do whatever I can to help. Bob thinks every other day will be enough (for me to work) until Melba gets back.

Indeed he does.  In fact, when Di takes time off, Bob manages very well alone.  Silence has meaning; the voice of the Notebook is absent until mid January, when Melba is released from the nursing home and comes home. This time she is not willing to struggle so hard to get well; she is much more fearful of falling, and of institutional care. For the first time she is a non physical participant in her own life. She is at her best during her frequent conversations with S, reliving and laughing over old times, something they do over and again through this long year. She grips the walker grimly, creeping forward fearfully. Sometimes, to her great shame, she delays too long the painful journey to the bathroom. Ashamed, embarrassed, she cleans the filth from the  room, and her body, replacing her soiled clothes. In the morning she will sometimes be found wet, and numb with cold. Bob is apparently oblivious to her situation. B

1/17/97 Noon, Dot Thanks Di and Li.  You are both great pals.  The house and dad and cat all sparkle.  You took good care and deserve a medal!  Melba looks good today.  House is warm and restful.  Di, full speed ahead according to Bob- 4 days each wk.

Di: Got here at 2 PM Tea kettle on stove boiled dry, (still on). Fixed new batch jello, cole slaw, tuna noodle cassrole For dinner.  Melba looks good but has a bad cough. Bob rode bike to store (in rain) for few things.  He’s Happy to have Melba home.  See you Monday.

Dot2/4/97 8:00 Di: Mom watching TV. Dad reading (when not asleep)  cleaned up things  Fryed  chicken for casserol Rice  chicken Carrots, broccli, squash cole slaw jello fruit salad cool whip  bisquick buscuits.

Sophie: Wanted to check dryer.  I think Wi has the new timer in upside down or something.  Heat comes on “air” cycle only.  It does not come on “all fabric cycle”.  I’ll have him re-check .

SKIP IT! DAD DOES NOT WANT TO WASTE THE MONEY ON ELECTRICITY.   I TOLD HIM HE MAY JUST HAVE TO ADJUST IF HE EXPECTS TO KEEP HELP AROUND HERE AND THAT I DIDN’T LIKE CLOTHING, UNDERWEAR, ETC HANGING ALL AROUND THE HOUSE TO DRY IN WINTER. (followed by two unhappy faces looking at each other, one  from S  and  the other from Di.)

2/18/ 97 Di: * Someone washed a sm load so I put it in dryer.  Worked fine. Dad had a broken jar on back porch that the granola was in … (knowing dad) he might have pickup what he could and put in another bowl.  He did.  I think.  I found two pieces of glass in the granola they were going to eat.  Sally said she would take care of it, so I swept up what was still on floor and finished dinner. cole slaw jello… for some reason they dumped the jello in the slaw & added fruit.

The ‘some reason’ is Bob. Di is outraged often, not only by the glass contaminated granola, but by the manner food is served to Melba by Bob, directly reflecting his infuriating practicality. While Melba was in charge of her kitchen meals were formal and customary.  But at this extreme of their life together when he is master of the kitchen, at His Table S describes the process of serving food:

Sophie: 8:00 I was amazed at Dad’s preparing supper tonight. Portions from four or five left over dishes were placed in a large bow. It was put in the microwave.  The single bowl, heaped with this mess was placed on the table.  Bob served Melba a huge portion from it, giving her all the meat. I asked why; here’s the lecture:

1)  All the food is mixed together in the stomach, so what is the point of keeping it separate at the table?

2)  Bob eating directly from the big bowl after serving Melba cuts down on washing plates.

3)  Ditto storing left-overs in the same big bowl.

4)  Other left overs can be stored for later. Nothing should be thrown out unless it is demonstrably toxic.

5)  Anything inedible is burned in the airtight stove with other non recyclables, or composted.

6)  Anything that isn’t recyclable or doesn’t burn completely, like bone, is thrown out the side door with the ashes for the benefit of the vegetable garden and the neighborhood mammals.

Both Bob and Melba are still generally healthy and competent mentally. Melba moves with great caution and fearfulness, clinging desperately to her walker, but is beginning to recover her spirit; but Bob is becoming angry, and acting out more often. His behavior will be difficult to deal with, and become a danger to himself more than to others; he will be more and more at risk of being institutionalized.  The voice of the Notebooks will be increasingly strident for a time. But by contrast Melba discovers that her Ranch can help her to be herself again.

3/20/97 Di: Wasn’t here yesterday. But called & mom said everything was OK. Made meat loaf jello carrot raisin salad carrots, spinach, yams for dinner. Be here tomorrow for Melba’s hair app.

Dot: Discussed hair appointment time.  Di will talk to Je (hair dresser) About changing days. I’ll put notes around to remind about tomorrow.

(12:00)Took Melba to S’s for shower, coffee, & a good visit. Lots of fun.  Paid Di, Li, Bob for groceries.

The phrase ‘ paid Bob for groceries’,  requires some history:  The  1929 College photos of Bob and Melba reveal him as handsome, with a full sensuous mouth and a solemn direct look. He works his way through college, plays football and is a highly ranked long distance runner and becomes a geologist. She is a college flapper with the stylish short carefully curled hair of the late 20′s, a farm girl who is an accomplished violinist, plays the piano into her 9^th decade and becomes a teacher. They are married at the very outset of the great Depression of 1929.  After a short job in Grass Valley ends Bob can find no work. They take the last of their funds and go to Canada where Bob finds a job in Quebec. Each year as their family grows, they move to a new mine, often a new country and culture. Noranda and Sudbury, Canada; Baggio, Balatoc, Tayabas, in the  Filipinas.  Holden, Washington (twice).  Klamath Falls, Oregon. Manhattan, Eureka, Tonopah, and Manhattan, Nevada. Santo Domingo, and Hacienda Robinson, Chihuahua Mexico; and last,  Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Bob works  with a  diamond drill manufacturer and contractor and later becomes an independent consultant mining engineer.  Most of the time living is marginal. For Bob, it is the expected life of a hard rock miner, one that fulfills him. Melba loves the man, the romance, adventure, and the escape from the farm life. But in Minneapolis, while Bob roamed the planet she herded four teens. She began to dream of her California ranch home hoping Bob might give up his own dreams and live with her there.  But that was never even a remote possibility.  And there was never a chance she would desert Bob. Or set him free!

When she inherited the remembered California ranch Melba’s life changed; Since then she  manages her portfolio of stocks, and spends her money, while Bob saves and invests his, finding it convenient that everything out of the ordinary Melba wants is a luxury that he can’t afford. For years they lived in the best of worlds. Yet a problem or two remains:

9/20/97 PM. Sophie: Mom was crying when I got here. Dad outside. She said

“I won’t have anything to leave  for you when I die.”  I said Who cares.  “You have plenty of money and no one is poor, no one really needs it.”

“My parents left me something I needed. But I can’t do that.”

“What are you talking about!?”

“Your father.  He inherits my money, and the minute I die he’ll fall for some bimbo that’ll take all we have.  Nothing left.”   I couldn’t convince her we didn’t care.  “Mom”, I say, “You’ll outlive him.”

During the next two years there will be times when Melba is very ill. Yet she will stubbornly recover, and will not deteriorate mentally. Bob, by contrast, will remain well physically, but will become angrier and even more isolated, declining  mentally quite quickly.  Melba will then realize that even if she dies first, Bob will be unable to assume control of anything. She sees too clearly the present and the future to quarrel with Bob. The ranch is gone; but Oh! How she enjoys it now! In a way, these last quiet years are her golden age.

* Five spiral bound Melba Notebooks, dated from 1995 to 2002, contain the hand written entries of numerous caregivers and family who make it possible for this couple, whose lives span the last century, to live in their home until their ashes are scattered in places meaningful to them. The notebook entries are the way caregivers communicate with one another.   The dialogue tells, often in moving or hilarious terms, of getting old and dying; of being a child or a caregiver to the very aged as they approach death. This scene is adapted from one of the hundreds of episodes recorded therein. Names and places are altered, but the voices are genuine.  Italics are the author’s comments.