Lunch at Grandma's

Debbie's prompt (following in Emily's thematic footsteps....)

Marina Warner, who calls herself a mythographer, is one of England’s most well-know writers and public intellectuals. She’s also is an excellent dinner host. A few years ago I came across an article called “Marina Warner’s Dinner For Six” where she imagines a dinner party composed of her favorite people from history: Heloise and Henri Matisse; Ovid and Jose Luis Borges; Franz Fanon and Athanasius Kircher (a 17th-century scientist). Marina recommends “pairing” your dinner guests to create the liveliest mixture, and she explains why these guests in these pairs work for her party. Also present, Rossini as head chef and Colette as sous-chef, and, of course, Marina herself.

Who would you invite to your dinner party, and why?

Check out Marina's website: http://www.marinawarner.com/index.html

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Grandma and I are giving a luncheon and have invited six women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Invitations have been delivered to the ladies. For three days we have worked to clean the house. We have polished the windows, mirrors, bathroom, floors, and washed the linens and china. We mowed the lawn and swept the wraparound porch. Yesterday we laid the bone china with 14K gold rims carefully on a walnut dining table covered with white linen, with the cups turned upside down to keep out any vestiges of dust that might dare to enter the house. Beside the china, we complete the place settings with silverware, polished and gleaming in the light of the small chandelier. Serving dishes are on the table and ready to hold mashed potatoes, ham, fruit salad, and fresh peas from Grandma's garden. One bowl will be heaped with Grandma's light-as-air dinner rolls, a recipe only she knows and keeps stored in her head. Bread-and-butter pickles and pickled beets, canned last fall, and butter add color to the array. In the center of the table sets a low vase displaying a tumble of pink peonies cut fresh from the garden this morning. Now light streams through the south-facing bow window, and it is time for our guests to arrive.

Our seating plan pairs the guests as follows:

Mary Thompson Dodge and Clara Wieck Shumann share a love of music. Clara, wife and widow of Robert Shumann, is a noted pianist performing in the best of Europe's concert venues. She also composes, but with the death of Robert, she no longer finds the time or impetus to do so. Clara is a single parent with seven children to support, and she leaves these children to others while she travels in her chosen profession. Mary, on the other hand, follows her engineer husband to Oregon in the early 1900s and carves out a small symphony in the sagebrush desert of Harney County before following him to his next job in Portland. There she founds the Portland Youth Symphony, a cultural legacy of which she must be proud. Mary has one son who plays in her orchestras. I want to hear these women chat about raising children under difficult circumstances, about the choices they make about teaching versus performing, and about the trials of performing and conducting in times when women are more often sequestered in the drawing room.

The second pair of ladies are Helga Estby and Mary Hallock Foote. Both have traveled extensively. Helga immigrated as a young girl from Norway, became pregnant while in her mid-teens and married a man other than the father of her unborn child, and moved with him west to Washington. They settled near the young town of Spokane, where there family grew to include eight living children. When the family farm was in jeopardy of being lost to taxes, Helga accepted an anonymous challenge to walk across America with her oldest daughter, earning money along the way, and if successful, promised $10,000. Helga and her daughter keep notes of their journey, sending them home to Spokane, with the plan to write and publish a book about the journey. Mary Hallock Foote, on the other hand, travels West with her engineer husband, and uses her writing and illustrating talents to sustain the family that eventually includes three children. Mary also journals, and unlike Helga's, her written story is preserved by her family. I wonder what these women will say about the hardships of raising children in the West, of being the primary provider for their family, of the strain on marital relations this causes, and of how the loss of some of their children affects their lives.

These last two should provide lively conversation. Margaret (Molly) Brown from Colorado gold -mining and Titanic fame, along with Victoria Chaflin Woodhull, who declared herself an American presidential candidate in 1872, the very first woman to do so. Each has two children, Molly has two girls, and Victoria a boy and a girl, with the boy having some sort of mental handicap. Both are wealthy. Victoria is a political activist and supports free love, although also advocates monogamy. Molly made her way out of poverty and, because of her wealth, into the drawing rooms of the elite. Neither are particularly respected by established upper class women, but they are tolerated. Molly and Victoria are likely to have heated discussion about the politics and problems of the day add less staid celebrity to the company. Molly and Mary Hallock Foote will also enjoy reminiscing about their experiences in Leadville, where each lived for a time.

Grandma and I will make sure that plates stay full, coffee remains hot, and that the confetti cake Grandma baked for dessert is cut into perfect wedges. Grandma will listen to the women, a contemporary, though younger woman, and relate to their experiences. For example, Helga underwent gynecological surgery, and Grandma had a hysterectomy six months after she married Grandpa. My father and aunt are adopted children. Grandma loves music, especially the piano, and will pay rapt attention to Clara and Mary Dodge. Grandma grew up on a Colorado homestead and can discuss the difficulties of farming. She is also a philanthropist, in her limited means, and loved to contribute to her community.

I want to know everything about all of the women, including Grandma. Maybe I should see if we can extend the visit for several days.

Postscript:

I looked at Marina's website and think that her course description on Memory Maps, also called "psycho-geography," pretty much sums up what I'm hoping to do with my dissertation. Rebecca Solnit's Savage Dreams is on my summer reading list; I'll have to be sure to read it.