Seattle this Saturday 

My dad was not a fan of labor unions. Shipyard unions wielded a lot of power in the 50’s and 60’s. When the word came down that there was going to be a strike, he came home and told my mom, “It doesn’t matter what the terms are, Pat. They’re determined to strike, and they will. This is going to be a long one, this one.”
Strike pay was woefully inadequate with ten mouths to feed, my mom’s modest earnings as a secretary, and just a scrap of savings to fall back on. Dad scrambled, along with others, to pick up odd jobs during those strikes and one of them was a favorite, mowing grass at the cemetery. He earned only a fraction of his shipyard pay, but he came home at night whistling and full of stories. 

“I’m all to myself, Pat. Just me riding that mower, making my own breeze. Just me and the quiet ones.”

I don’t think my dad’s life held a lot of quiet between eight children at home each night and the whine of grinding steel at work every day. Maybe that was the appeal of mowing the cemetery. He had also been an altar server as a boy so maybe it was all the funeral masses he had served, but he seemed completely comfortable in the company he was keeping. Dad loved to read the markers, noting just how far back in time many of them went, some as far as the 1700’s. Also noticed were the short life spans and long ones, he would see names repeated and identify family groups. All of these became stories in his mind. When he saw that a family had lost several children in a period of weeks, he recognized the deadly effect of the plagues that used to ravage communities like our own.

“Back in the old days, there were so many diseases: smallpox, yellow fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria and a whole bunch of others. These days, we have vaccines for that. That’s why you kids get your shots now,” he said, looking around the table.

We knew about shots. The most recent medical breakthrough was a vaccination against polio. We had three doses to receive at school and dutifully rolled up our sleeves, closed our eyes, winced at the painful pinch, and were done. Except for Terry who almost always swooned. Then I’d be called, as her big sister, to come to the office and sit with her. How embarrassing! But when I saw her sad, pale face, I forget my unease. I plopped myself next to her on the cot, patted her skinny little hand and intoned, “It’s okay, Terry, just rest awhile; you’ll be okay.”

“So, you kids have to get those shots, eat your vitamins, and don’t give your mom a hard time when she gives you cod liver oil.”

“And eat your peas while you’re at it.” Dad shot a look directly at me. I had no idea how peas were supposed to ward off dreaded disease, but dutifully shoveled a few in my mouths—well, mostly; some I hid under the rim of my plate when he wasn’t looking.

Then he went back to his thoughts and gave the quiet ones a belated, respectful mourn. “Can you imagine, Pat? I saw the markers today of a family who lived in the 1870’s. They lost three children in a matter of weeks and the youngest was just six months old.” He shook his head and looked truly bereft. 

“There’s so much to see in the cemetery,” he continued. I looked across at my brother whose eyes grew large, and jaw dropped as he made a w-o-o-o ghost face at me. I gave him a quick kick under the table. 

“You know another sad thing I noticed?” I kind of thought most of the things about a cemetery were sad but didn’t say so. In fact, the cemetery was sounding way more interesting than I’d expected, especially the part about the quiet ones.

“So many of the women are identified only by ‘Wife of’ whomever they are next to. Her parents could be lying right alongside, and you’d never know. It’s like whoever else she was just got erased.”

Said the father of seven daughters.

I remember that, remember it well. I think all seven of his daughters heard him, even if they were too young to remember the story. He noticed what should be noticed, but what most people did not. Maybe having seven daughters is why he noticed. But his memory became my own memory. Vicarious though it was, I knew it to be true. Women can live a whole life and be remembered only as “wife of…”

"And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah" (Mt.1:6)

Matthew’s words, immutable as a gravestone, are how she is remembered. 

“It’s like she whoever else she was just got erased.” He sounded so sad when he said that.