Talk about an interesting combination. My father was one who dreamed of things, of doing more than perhaps he did, while Mother was the practicle one in the family. She ran the budget, and yet never seemed to daunt Dad’s dreaming. She supported him, in a way I am jealous of. I wish David would support me that way, and me him.
They had a perfect partnership.
Mom is about reality, yet she too had her dreams. At an early age, she wanted to be a writer, which is maybe where I get my passion for fiction from. Idon’t know why she never got to write, but I remember her talking once about it, about how the family just didn’t have the resources for that. And yet my Grandfather wasn’t a poor man either. He ran a small wholesale, and seemed to have done okay.
It isn’t clear if he owned it, or just worked there, but it gave Mom a good background in business, which she used when she married Dad. Sidney Finklemen Kovnats, was his name, and it’s odd, but I really don’t know all that much about his side of the family. Oh, I knew my grandmother well, and yeah some of the stories, but I never really knew the details, as I do about Mom’s side.
Dad’s father, or step father I believe, was a fur trader up north, in the High Prairie area. They owned a restaurant and trading post there, and lived above the store. Now this is back in the late 1930′s and Dad married Mom in 1942.
According to them both, the town had about 300 White people, and was home to many Native Indians. Several thousand actually, and the big deal was once a week, when the train from the big city would roll through. There weren’t super highways, or even more than a dirt trail back then, so Dad says, and Mom collaporates.
Odd, how Mom went up there, to live, when really she had never been a country girl. I know my Bubba Polsky (Dad’s mother) wasn’t thrilled about the match, and yet as time wore on, I think she came to appreciate Mom more than her own daughter. After all, it was Mom who put up with everything, while her daughter was off in Winnipeg.
Makes you wonder if there wasn’t a bit of a dreamer inside of Mom too, and that through Dad, she managed to get her fill of dreams, of adventure?
I mean who else would move to a place, where running water was the local river, and plumbing meant a trip to the outhouse? Yet she did, and you know, when she talks about those days, her face lights up. Kind of nice to see, and maybe why I would rather live in the country, than in a city, despite it’s conveniences.