Hand-written notes led to a reunion and a penning of a 'double etheree'

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By Mary Claire Mahaney

Third of a 6-part series



When Mother died, I offered to respond on the family’s behalf to expressions of sympathy. This job may be a burden for some people, but I like to write. I especially like to write letters. I cried as I handwrote many of the thank-you notes, but that was okay. Crying is part of the grieving process.

That even one person would write back to me topped any expectations I had, so it was with delight that I found Mother’s first cousin, Conrad, responding to my response. His note told me his daughter lives in Virginia, not far from me. I remembered my second cousin Mary Ellen from family visits in the 1960s. I decided to get in touch with her.

Before I had a chance to contact Mary Ellen (but plenty of time to surf), a pop-up message appeared on my computer screen with the subject line, “Are we related?” I didn’t recognize the address. Wondering if it was a scam, I mentioned it to my husband. Herb said to go ahead and open it, and since Herb’s the one who has to fix whatever trouble our computer gets into, I took his advice.

The message was from Mary Pat, another second cousin of mine, although one I didn’t know I had. Mary Pat recognized my last name when she scanned the list of recipients on a mass e-mailing Conrad had made. (I had included my e-mail address when I first wrote.) Mary Pat and I are related through our mothers, but our fathers’ last names were almost the same, and Mary Pat had heard of and remembered my branch of the family.

Mary Pat asked if I were my mother. If I were, then she had a photo of me with my parents, she said, and she would be happy to send it to me. I replied that the person she was looking for had died six months earlier, but that I was Mary Therese’s daughter and would love to have the photo. I said I’d like to talk to her about our common ancestors, Konrad and Appolonia Nagengast, who had emigrated from Germany in 1870 and settled in Meadville. Konrad and Appolonia were our great-grandparents; Mary Pat’s and my grandparents were siblings.

My relationship with Mary Pat began with an exchange of information—copying pictures for each other, sharing old, tattered letters from Germany, visiting over the phone, ordinary things newly in-touch cousins do. But then we cranked it up a notch—we decided to visit Meadville together. Soon our numbers grew. Mary Pat would bring with her from Indianapolis another cousin (Marilyn), and Conrad, in his eighties and the only living grandchild of Konrad and Appolonia, would make the trip from his California home to join us. The fifth member of our party would be Conrad’s son-in-law, Charles (Mary Ellen’s husband).

When we first met at our base, the Avalon Inn in Warren, Ohio, my cousins seemed like, well, family. We explored what we had in common, starting with studying the stacks of old photos we’d carted with us. Conrad had memories of ancestors we’d never met and were eager to hear of. We learned about each other’s parents and about each other’s children. The best part for me, though, was simply to meet my cousins. I have only two first cousins (and excellent cousins they are), but I’ve always felt our family tree was a big old oak and that I just needed to climb around a bit and discover who was on the other branches.

Before the trip, Mary Pat had been in touch with our still-in-Meadville relative, cousin-in-law Mary Ann, and Mary Ann was expecting us, so on that May day we set out northeast from Warren, toward Crawford County and the old homestead. Mary Ann was living in the house that the widowed Appolonia’s sons had built for their mother early in the twentieth century. Under Mary Ann’s hospitality and leadership, we toured her house (the first time any of us was inside it, except Conrad, whose memories went back to childhood visits there) and located our relatives’ tombstones in St. Agatha’s Cemetery. We took pictures of the graves and pictures of each other. Charles led us in a graveside prayer, and then we did what people do in such circumstances. We went out to eat.

Years later I wrote a poem known as a double etheree. I chose the content quickly, working with whatever came to mind. Last week I posted the poem in my online poetry class (www.writersonlineworkshops.com).





Long lost



A double etheree



Brief

pop-up

messages

keep showing up

on my computer

from cousins I don’t know

but would like to meet some day

in Virginia or Maryland

in Pennsylvania or Ohio

at a Bavarian inn for dinner



where we girls will get to know each other

as if we could fill in the lost years

behind our middle-aged young selves

imagining the playmates

we’d have been if only

our families had not

lost direction

but stayed in

touch those

times





The etheree as a poetic form is attributed to American poet Etheree Taylor Armstrong. The etheree is based on syllabic count—the first line has one syllable, the second two syllables, and so on up to the tenth line, which has ten syllables. A double etheree is simply an etheree plus the reverse of it—ten syllables in the eleventh line, nine in the twelfth, down to one syllable in the last line. Etherees are usually unrhyming and unmetered.

In my online course, each week I study the comments my classmates make about my poems, as well what my teacher communicates to me privately. The comments sometimes point to places where I’ve not been clear in my writing. Misunderstandings are usually the fault of the writer, not the reader.

For example, from the title “Long lost” a reader inferred that the cousins I’d written about were people I’d actually known but had lost touch with. This wasn’t necessarily the case, and I wanted to clarify the issue. I glanced at some notes I’d made about Mary Pat’s original e-mail. There, in her subject line, I found my new title.

My teacher had expressed concern I might ignore the poem’s content for the sake of form, that is, for the rules of the etheree. I understood what she was getting at, although I really wanted to make the etheree work. That an American woman had “invented” the form made it seem closer to me than, say, the sonnet or the villanelle.

Moreover, I was intuitively attracted to the etheree for the material about my cousins. The etheree grows big the way a belly swells from eating (or from childbearing), or the way a story gets big in the middle, as the facts accumulate. The form could actually give meaning to its content. However, I decided not to call attention to the form, for I didn’t want it to look as though I had to coax content into it. I dropped the subtitle.

One classmate asked if I could shape the poem so the longer lines syllabically were also longer physically. I liked this idea, so for my revision I counted not only syllables but also letters and spaces. The extra challenge was worth the effort. The shape of the new draft is more appealing, and I especially like that the most important line, the eleventh, is the longest.

Another classmate expressed disappointment over the scarcity of details in the poem. She made a good point, so I added some—the new desktop, specific German foods, our husbands and children. I also added a few commas, the first for sense and breath, the second to conclude the statement of the premise, and the third not only for sense but to set off that important eleventh line. The formality of the commas led me to add a period at the end.

The revised double etheree:





Are we related?



Brief

pop-up

messages

sail into sight

on my new desktop,

from cousins I didn’t

know I had but would like to

meet some day over dinner of

Wurst and Kartoffeln at a German

restaurant in a middle Atlantic state,



where we girls will get to know each other,

recounting life’s stories of husbands

and children, of hopes and dreams,

imagining the playmates

we’d have been if only

our families had not

wandered apart

but sustained

ties through

time.





Occasionally I hear from “new” family as a result of my Herald columns. I’ve been able to get together with some of my cousins, and others I’ve spoken to on the phone and hope to meet soon. What never ceases to delight me is this: when I hear their voices for the first time, they sound like family. Somehow the years fall away, and it’s as though I’ve known them all my life.



Mary Claire Mahaney is completing her first novel, “Osaka Heat.” She lives in McLean, Virginia, and can be reached at marycmahaney@msn.com You can visit her website at www.maryclairemahaney.com

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