Before They Were Your Parents

Clarence and Carol Stolt wedding picture



 

They were young once, just like you. Like you they had hopes, dreams and passionate desires – things far removed from their later world of retirement, Medicare and remembering to take their daily medication. They were your parents, and hard as it may be to imagine, there was a time when they were living, breathing, young people.

I bring this up because of a small black and white photograph that a cousin sent me a while back. She found it going through a pile of old photographs, and she mailed it to me after writing a simple note on the back: “Your parents.”

And sure enough, there’s my father as a young man, fresh-faced and confident, dressed in a double-breasted suit no doubt quite the style in the 1930s. He’s standing beside a woman wearing an equally fashionable dress of the period. One small problem. The woman in the picture is not my mother. 

It's wisely been said that every good photograph holds a secret, a story behind the image that is mysterious and tantalizingly untold. Then again, it's also been said that photographs can lie and deceive like no other.

So what to make of this?

Before I go any further, let me state for the record that my parents met in 1945 when Dad was 29 years old. They married two years later and stayed together faithfully until he passed away in 1976. That much I know without a doubt. However, as there’s no one left who can provide any answers, the woman in the photograph will have to remain a mystery.

Not that any of that matters now. Sometime before he got married Dad had a girlfriend. So what. Well, in my mind this triggered an intriguing, if playful, thought: What if the relationship between Dad and this woman had gone differently? What if it had led to them getting married and raising a family?

I certainly wouldn’t be who I am now. I guess I wouldn’t even be here writing this. So needless to say, I’m glad things worked out the way they did. And I can’t overstate the fact that I could never have wished for better parents. This is not about regret.

But my point still stands. Nothing calls to wonder the convergence of fate and family more than thinking about how one’s parents got together.

Following that train of thought, and with the aid of some surviving family archives, I decided to do a little digging into my past.

In 1945 my father Clarence Stolt was working for the Veterans Administration in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More specifically, he was working in that agency’s Vocational Rehabilitation Department. World War Two was nearing its end and it was his job to help returning veterans find work or vocational training so they could begin to get on with their civilian lives. In light of the numbers of men coming home from overseas and the newly signed GI Bill, this was no small bureaucratic task.

He started working for the VA in August of 1944 at an annual salary of $2,600. This was after he had volunteered to join the Navy right after Pearl Harbor, but a serious case of rheumatic fever waylaid those plans and he had to take a medical discharge. The next best way for him to serve his country was to work for the VA.

One morning in the Spring of ‘45 his newly assigned secretary (that’s what they were called back then) walked into his office and introduced herself. A shy girl with a pretty smile, Carol Thompson came from a small town in Wisconsin schooled in dictation, typing and stenography. Along with her sister she moved to Milwaukee looking for office work and the chance to see what life was like beyond the farm.

It was a far simpler time in the workplace in those days, and Clarence and Carol worked together for a few months, gradually getting to know more about each other, until one day shortly after V-J (Victory over Japan) Day he slipped a note into the ‘Incoming’ basket on Carol’s desk. Would she like to go out for dinner with him?

She said yes, and their first date was at a downtown American Legion club overlooking Lake Michigan. Right away the sights and sounds of the place impressed her: the tables draped in crisp white linens, the clinking of glasses and buzz of conversation coming from the bar, waiters dashing back and forth from the kitchen.

Together they spent the evening talking, eating, probably dancing to the orchestra band playing there that night. And after that first date, well, things went well from there. By the end of 1945 they were dating steady. Two years later they were married in a country church outside Carol's hometown, and the eventual means of my coming to be were set in motion.

I think about that when I feel stuck in my own day to day life. I think about that picture of my father and a girlfriend, and then I think about my parent’s wedding portrait, and I feel a sense of purpose again.

Because you can pretty much count me in the camp of Sigmund Freud and others who say there are no accidents in life. Certainly not when it comes to who your parents are and how they met. But wherever you happen to fall on that subject, remember this: 

·         We are each quite literally one of a kind. A lot of people from generations past helped make you who you are today.

·         Find inspiration from your past. See above.

 

 

 

Nothing Ever Stays the Same

The following was written in 1985 by my sister Wendy Stolt, a Professor of Social Work at Concordia University, who passed away suddenly last month at the tender young age of 66.

“During the past twelve years I have had the opportunity to view what life can be like for those over 80 years of age. I do not speak from the experience of growing old itself — I have yet to be 80 years old. I have yet to experience a serious health problem. I have yet to experience what it is like to be at the end of one’s lifetime. Rather, I speak from my experience in working with the elderly. They have been my teachers. And from them I have learned a great deal. I have had the privilege of hearing about good times and the not-so-good times. I have also learned that life is not always fair. I have been wisely advised that ‘the first 100 years are the hardest — after that life gets easier.’

During the past twelve years I have come to know many people and become familiar with some of the issues which confront older people today. Now I’d like to share some of my learning with you. 

·   I know an 85 year-old gentleman who strongly believes that God saves the his hardest part until last. He views his life as a journey. The hardest part of his journey is right now — coping with his limited vision and his arthritis. Hanging on the wall in his room is a sign which reads “Old Age is Not for Sissies.”

·   I know a 92 year-old woman who continues to purchase Este Lauder’s Age-Controlling Creme at $40.00 a half-ounce. She continues to purchase dresses which she describes as ‘stylish’ and cost an average of $100 apiece. She also prefers the company of men as she finds it easier to trust them.

·   I know a 93 year-old woman who likes to recall her active social life of years ago. Going out to dinner or entertaining at home was always special for her. Even though entertaining no longer plays an important part in her life, those good memories are still with her. And whenever she talks of the past there is a noticeable sparkle in her eye.

·   I know a 95 year-old woman who experienced the death of her only daughter this year. The grief is still felt — she hasn’t figured out why God did not take her instead. This has become a real struggle for her.

A little over a year ago I delivered a birthday card to a nursing home resident who was turning 96 years old. It was right before Christmas. I told her it was hard to believe her age. During our visit she began to tell of family holiday gatherings. She spoke warmly of the people in her past — her mother, her father and her sister. This particular Christmas she would be alone. And then, acknowledging the beginning of her 96th year, she remarked “…nothing ever stays the same.”

Nothing ever stays the same. How true that is for all of us. Just think of how many changes we make in our lifetime. Think of the many hellos and goodbyes we say. As a young child we say goodbye to mom and say hello to the kindergarten teacher and fellow classmates. As a family we may leave one neighborhood, saying goodbye to friends we have made there, and move to a new neighborhood or city where we say hello to new ones. As a young adult we say goodbye to mom and dad to live away from home for the first time. 

When you think about it, so much of life involves changing, letting go, moving on. Making changes often involves at least some sense of loss. Loss is part of life, part of being alive. Loss plays a far more encompassing theme in our lives than we realize. 

When we think of loss we usually think of obvious instances, such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, a separation or breakup of a romance. Other not so obvious losses may include the loss of youth, health, money, job, childhood dreams, hair, even our teeth. Then there are the innumerable ‘mini-losses’ that add up during the course of a day, a week or a lifetime: an unexpected dent in the car, an argument with a friend, losing the car keys.

Knowing we all experience loss, beginning at birth, it becomes a fact of life itself that the longer we live, the more loss we will experience. Age will burden us profoundly before we are done. 

Thus, learning to live with loss becomes a predominant theme of old age. Society in general does not value its old people, and as a result older people too often do not value themselves. A low self-esteem, combined with recurring losses, will leave anyone vulnerable to depression and grief.

The purpose of grief is to let go of what has been and is no more. Grief is hard work. It is important to the healing process that we be with the pain and feel the hurt. Feelings need to be expressed. The sooner we allow ourselves to be with the pain, the sooner it will pass. Still, the process of healing is neither orderly, predictable, nor smooth. 

But given time, healing does occur — the pain does lessen. One does survive. When the pain decreases, the understanding grows. The higher understanding that tells us change and separation are a natural, inevitable and necessary part of life.

Because indeed nothing ever stays the same.

So true. Rest in peace, Wendy.

What's in a Name?

By Kent “Max” Stolt

If not fate itself, then it was timing and simple geography that brought us together in high school. More specifically, Wauwatosa West High School. The Trojans of ‘Tosa West. Class of ’79. From that class of over four-hundred, we came to form our own circle of friends, partying and laughing our way vigorously into young adulthood, with a little help from Ted Nugent, Lynyrd Skynyrd and plenty of Old Style beer. Thankfully we survived those comically heady days, and in so doing established for ourselves some of the best memories and lasting bonds of our lives.

And what a memorable cast of characters. There was Skoj and Colonel Don, Tief and Willi, Hash and Baby Jeff, Jake and Fingers. There was Rob, Craig and Jim. And Joel and Avery—for whatever reason not everyone got nicknames. On the girls’ side there was Chris, Meg and Joan, Rachel and Kristin (nicknamed Schmugli, though I can’t remember how she got that one).

As for those nicknames, that was no bullshit secret club thing. None of us ever set out to create or assign nicknames for ourselves. Hell, I don’t even remember the stories behind a lot of those monikers anymore. They just happened. And somehow over the years they stuck. Sort of like our friendships.

I got my nickname the first day of sophomore year, and I have a German teacher to thank for it. His name was Gediminas Marchertas (That didn’t sound too German to us.) and as long as we were in his class he wanted us to call each other only by our corresponding German names. Logical enough. Only problem was, there is no German name for Kent. So, what was I supposed to do?

I found out soon enough. Gediminas walked over to his desk, pulled a sheet of paper from his briefcase, and presented me with a mimeographed list of first names—in alphabetical order—and told me I had to pick one. (Now that sounded very German.)

All eyes were on me now, or so it seemed, as I scanned the column of names. Ernst…Hans…Markus…Max. Hmm. That one sounded kind of…I don’t know, fun. Might be worth a laugh at least.

“Max,” I said, throwing caution to the wind.

Gediminas stared me down like a grim magistrate for a few seconds. Finally, he nodded. “Very well, then. Max.”

He took back his list. I let out a slow breath. And we all went back to doing whatever it was we used to do in those classes.

Well…little did I know.

From that moment on, my friends, many of whom were in German class that day, decided to go exclusively with my chosen name. No matter when or where. They greeted me as Max. They introduced me as Max. They asked for Max when they called my parents’ house. Within a matter of days, my new identity was firmly and irrevocably established.

Not that I had a problem with it. On the contrary, from the beginning I thought it was cool having my friends call me Max. Why? For starters, it’s a distinctive name: short and simple, strong and direct. It grabs one’s attention, but does so without being overbearing or pretentious. I’m guessing that’s why a lot of dogs are named Max.

There’s a reason why people who get nicknames tend to get them early in life – there’s a hint of playful innocence to them. Unless, of course, your nickname is “Psycho” or “Mad Dog.” Then all bets are off. But more to the point with me, Max was the perfect sobriquet because it fit in so well with the humor and camaraderie we all felt; part of the high school code of not taking life too seriously. The real-world shit would come later.

The nickname wasn’t some silly alter-ego thing, either. I didn’t act or think of myself any differently now that I had a new calling. I never went into “Max” mode. It’s what everybody called me, and soon enough it seemed perfectly natural, almost logical. So much so that after a while I didn’t even notice it anymore.

Then off to college we went. Here was higher education in every sense, where opportunities flourished and we could start getting more serious about life – well, a little more maybe. Friends became roommates and constraints were tested a little more. Through it all, those friends and those nicknames remained reliable companions. Even more so in the years after college, it was good to know a few precious things could, more or less, stay the same. That’s the real story here.

Our high school days are long gone now, but it’s still fun whenever we get together and get around to retelling a few of our stories. And we still have our nicknames. Couldn’t shake them if we tried. I daresay any of us today would damn near choke if we had to call one another by our ‘real’ names. Bill? Scott? Kent? No way. For us, at least, we’ll always be Willi, Skoj and Tief. And Max.

We wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

A Meaningful Part - The Life Story of Clarence Stolt - Foreword (revised)

 

“Let it be said,

When I am dead,

He was a meaningful part of the whole.”

                                        A quote (source unknown) found in Clarence’s journal – 1966

 

 

 

FOREWORD

 

 

My father was fifty-nine-years-old when he died from hypernephroma, or renal cell carcinoma, widely regarded as the most common type of kidney cancer. I remember how that age seemed so ‘old’ to me back in 1976 when he quietly passed away. I was just a teenager then, still emerging from protected childhood but hardly a fully appreciative adult either. Now I’ve seen plenty of my own years go by and I have crossed over the fifty-year mark (and then some) myself, and somewhere in all that my attitude towards fifty-nine went from old to mature to prime of life. Now it hardly seems fair that his life was cut short the way it was. Of course, this is one of the more slippery tricks time plays on us all. And just as easily as time slips by, so too does the stories and details of a person’s life. They fade and fade until finally they disappear altogether.

Perhaps the biggest regret I have about my father’s life, and death, is that I never had the chance to sit down and talk with him man to man about his experiences: the anecdotes, the lessons learned, the hopes, fears and disappointments he must have carried to the very end as he faced up to his own mortality.  What more might I have learned about him from such a conversation? Maybe more selfishly, what might I have learned about my own life? It is in those fleeting, daydream sort of moments that I find myself wanting to be re-introduced to the man who once loomed so large over a young boy’s world.

I remember him fondly, if vaguely, and can rely on memory enough to say with confidence that he was a good man and upstanding father. No dark mysteries there. But still, what of the many facts and circumstances that once made up so much of that life? Naturally, if not sadly, many of those bits and pieces are now gone forever; lost to history, as they say. (Not that he didn’t leave any written record behind. Surviving journals and family narratives were an invaluable source for much of what follows.)

It was for these reasons I decided to dig a little deeper into the past – his and mine – to record and preserve what I could. This before any more details of the man fade away. I owe him that.

I’ll start with one distinct memory I do have: I can still hear him in the basement of our home at night, clattering away on his trusty old Remington typewriter, the keys firing off in spurts so rapidly it sounded like a tiny motor going through its paces down there. I didn’t know then what he was writing or who he was writing to, but when he was on a roll it was almost comforting to listen to it. And so it is with that enduring sound in mind that I now start tapping on my computer keyboard what I have come to know to be the life story of my father, Clarence Stolt.

 

 

 

 

Kent Francis Stolt

April, 2012

 

 

Where Do You Go to Get Away?

In the mind of a writer places can tell a lot about people. In the mind of someone needing fresh direction or a little escape from it all, the place one chooses to go can say a lot as well. The place I go when I need to get away is a town in Wisconsin named Black River Falls. I go there when I can, which is to say not that often, maybe two times a year if I’m lucky.  Yet the older I get, the more meaningful it is every time I do get in my car and “head on up to Black River.” When I go to visit family living in town, I always come back feeling a little more sure of myself and very sure of my heritage and good fortune. Might that make it a sort of sacred place for me?

We’ll get back to that.

       For the record, Black River Falls is located in the west central part of Wisconsin. It serves as the county seat of Jackson County and tallied an official population of 3,622 according to the 2010 census. While there are two other rivers named Black flowing elsewhere in the United States, there isn’t another town called Black River Falls anywhere else in the country, or the world, for that matter. So I guess that qualifies it as a unique place right there, right?

Originally named “La Riviere Noire” or “The Black River” by French explorers in 1659, the river’s dark waters gave name to a trading outpost that was eventually incorporated into a village in 1866. By 1883 Black River Falls had grown to become a town of sawmills sending fresh-cut timber downstream for processing and the construction needs of a rapidly growing nation. (But with prosperity came peril, and in October of 1911, following days of uncommonly torrential rains, that same river rose up and went on a flooding rampage that nearly wiped out the town. Black Friday they called it.)

On a lighter note, according to the official town website the list of notable people born in Black River Falls include major league baseball players Ernie Rudolph and Phil Haugstad Rudolph pitched in seven games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945 and Haugstad pitched sparingly for the Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds from 1947 to 1952. There were legitimate heroes, too, like United States Marine and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., who died in action in Korea in 1950.

       Not that any of that brief history lesson has a damn thing to do with my story, except for the fact that my mother, Carol Stolt (Nee Thompson), was born on a small farm on the outskirts of Black River Falls in June of 1922. As for me, I was born and raised in Milwaukee some years later, so I never once called Black River Falls home. Yet for as long as I can remember, the times spent up there with aunts, uncles and cousins, the many days and nights spent swimming, fishing, playing cards, anything that lent itself to sharing a good laugh. Some of the best times and best memories I will ever have.

       So really this is more about family than it is about the town itself, though in my mind the two always seemed to fit so well together. The heritage of my mother’s family, and the majority of the townsfolk, is Norwegian - hardy people who are steady-working, slow to anger and quick to laugh at themselves.

I like that.                                                                                          

       When I’m in Black River Falls I flash back now and then to some of the times we, as an extended family, have shared over the years. Too many to count.  There were weddings, vacations, sleepovers and holidays. I think of my dad’s old home movies showing Christmas Eves long ago when we all gathered in the cramped but cozy quarters of my grandmother’s house on Fillmore Street. For a few years in the mid-sixties us cousins put on our own little Nativity play for the grown-ups, complete with homemade costumes, painfully bright lights for the home movies, and a bale of straw fresh from the Johnson’s farm for the manger. Nobody would ever think of doing that these days. Probably just as well.

       But time moves on, and nowadays any trip to Black River Falls requires my stopping out at the grounds of Little Norway Lutheran Church where my mother was laid to rest in 2011. Little Norway lies at a quiet crossroads in the midst of farmland and a stretch of woods a few miles west of town. The whitewashed building with its grand steeple was built in 1873, and in the church yard are cracked and weathered tombstones etched in Norwegian to prove it. I enjoy going out there by myself and walking in the yard, then down the patchwork-paved country road next to it. I think it’s the stillness and the quiet out there that impresses me. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, out there “my thoughts are my company.” It’s the perfect spot for me to take stock of things, do a little self-inventory of past and present. I’d like to think Thoreau would have found this an agreeable place too.

This town means a lot of things to me. It becomes a source of pride and wonderful memories whenever I drive across the bridge over the Black River and see Main Street. I trust it will be like that again the next time I return.

The dictionary definition of the word “sacred” includes the phrases “highly valued and important” and “entitled to reverence and respect.” Well, when it comes to the town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin, I guess that covers it just fine for me. 

So if you get a chance, take a minute from your busy day to think about wherever it is you go when you really need to get away and unwind, to rethink things or recharge your batteries. It could be a backyard, a park, a town or city where you grew up. It could be a church or even a favorite watering hole, for that matter. It could be from the past or in the present. Whatever does it for you is good enough; no explanations necessary. Just appreciate the feeling you get when you think about it and don't ever let that go.

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