| OCR Text |
Show in my father's house/ 32 or Indian-style at his feet he called us to be silent. Even the toddlers hushed as he asked one of the older children to "open with prayer." My family began all gatherings -- whether a dance or a party, a meal or an afternoon quilting session - with prayer. Then my father asked who had a part on the program. Aunt Gerda unbuckled a black case and hefted her red-and-white accordion over a broad shoulder. Besides being the oldest and first-married of the mothers, Aunt Gerda was most imposing, almost as big as my father, with a largesse of personality to match her girth. She towered like a mountain with rolling foothills of flesh over us children, her grey-shot brown hair bristling around a plumpish face with a jutting jaw, enhancing an impression of irrepressible vigor. Aunt Gerda would barge around her large, white kitchen, beating out homemade noodles, scrubbing two loads of laundry and stretching a quilt before going to her secretarial job in town. "A bundle of energy," my mother called her, pointing out that much of Aunt Gerda*s drive came from an impulse to do good as well as an overactive thyroid. Despite its methodical quality, Aunt Gerda's accordion music always infused us with some of her energy, and we tapped our toes and snapped our fingers as she played. Then Aunt Helga rose to give the lesson. She stood with arms folded and lips pressed together, her nostrils flaring |
