Notes:
Data source is the 1990 book, "Moomaw-Mumma-Mumaw-Mumaugh Genealogy" compiled by Robert Austin Moomaw (deceased).
Data source is Barbara Mumaw Leathers, e-mail BK4099@aol.com
"The Backyard"
by Barbara Mumaw Leathers
My Grandfather was one of the few man in my life who loved me unconditionally. He was a soft-spoken man, talented with his hands. A mechanic by trade, he lost his left index finger in an accident with a fan belt. I remember, as a very young child, how I would shrink from the touch of that deformed hand. After twenty years of life without him, I now would like nothing more than to feel that hand stroke my hair, or feel his kisses on my cheek. He had a unique way of kissing his loved ones. A kiss on the right cheek for "I". A kiss on the nose for "Love". A kiss on the left cheek for "You." Kiss, kiss, kiss. I love you.
Almost every Sunday, my family would visit my grandparents at their suburban ranch home. My Grandmother tells a funny story about the purchase of that house. One day she and her best friend, Marie went shopping for shoes. They discovered the new subdivision, and forgetting about the shoes, they instead bought houses, side by side, neighbors for life. Grandma would sit in her rocking chair talking on the phone to her next door neighbor, Grandma Marie, for hours. It seemed easier to me to walk through their adjacent backyard to visit, but I was just a kid.
When the friends built their homes, they didn't bother to separate the backyards with a fence. Together they maintained the shared yard, taking turns planting spring bulbs, rosebushes and mowing the grass. The first year, the yard was a mess. A faint image returns to me of a chubby, happy child running though a field of dandelions, chasing the twirly seeds through the wind. But, in no time, the men produced a lush green turf and the woman planted trees and bushes.
The yard was large enough for a small baseball game and often my brothers and sisters and the neighborhood kids would team up in the backyard and play several innings together. We played boastfully, until Dad decided to have a crack at the ball. My dad wasn't a professional baseball player, but I know many people who thought he could have been. So, as you can imagine, we kids were no match for Dad and his swing. The ball would be pitched, just once, followed by the crack of the bat making contact and we watched the ball fly over houses and trees into a neighbors yard. This ended our baseball game, but began a new game, called 'find our only baseball.' It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized Dad would join the game about ten minutes before supper. It was his way of sending all the kids home before the family meal.
Easter was a special holiday at my grandparents house. My grandfather would go all out for the Easter egg hunt. Gramma and Gramma Marie would boil ten dozen eggs to hide in the backyard. Then all the grandchildren from both families would dash about collecting more eggs then we could carry. The first child to find an egg with their name on it would win a prize. Usually it was a small doll or hot wheel car, but the competition egged us on to find our special egg. Everyone had an egg with their name on it, even the adults. Grandpa's game was to crack his egg on his head. This set us all into giggles, watching him perform his silly trick. Then we children would follow his lead and proceed to crack our eggs on our heads, then each others heads. We would crack eggs just for fun, which would send the women into despair over wasted food and starving children in China.
One year, when I was ten, I was visiting my grandparents during the egg dying. Remembering my grandfather's trick, I suggested to Gramma that we not boil his egg. "Won't it be funny to watch all that egg yuck ooze down his bald head?" I asked her. She readily agreed and snatched a raw egg from the carton. Carefully she wrote with a wax crayon "Grampa Russ". I giggled as she dunked the egg in the blue dye then carefully placed it to the side, away from the other eggs. The next morning she hid the egg in a predetermined location for me to find, so the other children wouldn't accidentally break it. Once all the children were present and the contest began, I immediately ran to that egg then ran back to my grandfather, presenting it to him.
"Are you going to crack it on your head now?" I asked.
"No," he told me. "I'll have my egg after the hunt is over. Go look for your egg, Barbie."
I obeyed and joined the other children in the hunt. Once we found all the eggs, we sat under the big tree, surveying the treasures in our baskets. Grampa held his special egg in his hand, tossing it up and down, absentmindedly. I feared he would drop it prematurely and spoil our surprise. Again, I approached him. "Are you going to crack the egg on your head now?"
He smiled at me. "Do you want me to crack my egg?" I nodded, eagerly. "Okay, I'll crack my egg now."
And faster than you can say "Ouch" he cracked the egg on my head. Egg guts oozed down my long brown hair. Tears sprung into my eyes. Laughter from three generations of two families ricocheted through my ears. Grampa, in total shock, stood over his little granddaughter, wearing the most dumbfounded expression on his face.
My Grandmother, laughing hysterically, ushered me off to the shower. "Now, Barbie, don't be getting in a huff over this. It was your idea and it backfired on you. And now you have egg on your face." She giggled at her words and my condition. "You would be laughing now" she continued to chastise "if Grampa was on the way to the shower, instead of you." Grampa apologized profusely.
He had no idea the egg was uncooked. I forgave him, once I was clean. As a side note, that was the first time I discovered how silky smooth my hair became after washing it with a raw egg. I've repeated the ritual many times since then, intentionally. Only, now I crack the egg in a dish before applying it to my head.
Years went by, and as we grew, we continued to visit my grandparents at their home with the huge backyard. One year, my grandfather made each of us kites. He worked on these kites for weeks. Each one was made to the same height as the child. Being the eldest, I had the biggest kite. One beautiful spring morning, we went into the backyard to hoist our kites into the sky. It took two adults to coax the oversized kites into flight, and then they would hand the string to a grinning child, to fly on their own. At the time, my youngest sister, Beth, was about four years old. Her three foot kite went up easily into the spring breeze. Grampa handed her the string, then turned to my brother, who was having some difficulty. But my mother's scream of terror turned him around. He snatched Beth from four feet in the air and placed her back firmly on solid ground, removing the kite string from her hand. The kite lifted her right up into the air.
"Do it again, Beth!" we all jeered. But Mother would have none of that, and that was the last time we flew those kites at Grampa's house.
My grandfather was a mixture of loving intentions and major mess-ups.
As Christmas' and birthdays and seasons past, we children grew, as was intended, but Grampa became ill. He had a weak heart, and his doctors suggested he move to Florida for his health. Sadly, my grandparents sold their home with the big backyard and retired to the South. Several months after they left, a new interstate opened up, linking my home to their former home in minutes. Deciding to check out the new road, I jumped into my first car, with my first driver's license and drove to my grandparent's former house. I parked in the street, in front of the house, with a numb heart. A strange car was parked in the driveway. There was no movement inside or outside the house that use to be so full of children and friends. Then, a door opened and familiar face filled me with a desire to recapture some of those childhood days. I called out "Gramma Marie!"
"Why, Barbie" we walked to meet each other. "Look at you! Did you drive yourself? Your grandparents would be so proud. Come in and have a glass of tea with me, dear." She placed her arm around me and walked me into her home. Her home was identical to my grandparents. The kitchen was in the same place, the living room in the same place. It was like being in my Grandparents home, but all their stuff was replaced with someone else's stuff. Tears welled in my eyes, and Grandma Marie seemed to understand all the loss and sadness I was feeling. I'm sure she missed her neighbors, too.
Gramma Marie chatted about the latest letter she received from Gramma, as she filled two tall glasses with crushed ice and sweat tea. "Let's have this on the back porch," she suggested. I pulled the curtains to the sliding glass door and we stepped outside into the backyard.
But it wasn't the backyard of my childhood. "There's a fence." I whispered, in surprise, pointing at the obvious intrusion. "Who put up a fence?" I demanded of Gramma Marie.
"Why, the new neighbors did, sweetheart. You didn't expect them to want to share the yard with total strangers, did you?"
I didn't answer her. The fence was an obscenity to me. It was a dagger in the memory of my childhood. The large backyard was gone. My grandmother's rosebushes were hidden from my view by a large wooden privacy fence. I could see the top of the birch tree we planted on my twelfth birthday, growing ever taller, but I couldn't go to it and touch it's paper bark as I had for so many years past. An image of dandelions in the wind flashes through my mind. Tears rolled down my face, and I fell to sobbing on Gramma Marie's picnic table. I missed them. I missed them terribly. Yet, when they left for Florida with smiles on their faces, I was happy for them and looked forward to visiting them next winter in St. Petersburg. Until that moment, I had no idea I would miss them.
Gramma Maria patted my back, then walked into her home and returned with the telephone. She handed it to me. "Hello?" I asked the phone.
"Hi sweetie. Kiss kiss kiss. I love you."
"Kiss kiss kiss, Grampa."