A Name That Sounds As Sweet

The one thing I often see at Memory gardens are names—rows upon rows of names. 

Names have always been important to me since I was named due to the events surrounding how I came to be adopted by my family. 

My mother was in the hospital trying to recover from an operation—a hysterectomy, but because of her multiple sclerosis, she wasn’t doing as well as the doctors would have liked.  Being LDS, she believed and asked for a blessing, which my father and their ward bishop performed.  During the prayer, the bishop assured my mother she would be well and be blessed with another child.  This astonished my mother who reminded the religious leader why she was in the hospital in the first place.  He smiled and assured her that he only said things he was inspired by God to say.

A few months later, after a complete recovery, a doctor friend called my mother while she was at home and told her to come to the hospital, “We have your daughter here.”  Flabbergasted, mother told my daddy what the phone call was about.  According to her version, he resisted taking her and it took all her powers of persuasion to get him to do it.  But as “soon as he saw you,” she would say, “he had to have you.”

Since momma didn’t like the long name “Elizabeth” which is a Hebrew name meaning “Covenant/Oath with God” which fit the situation, she shortened the name to “Beth” which in Hebrew means “house,” “temple,” the latter being a place where people take oaths or covenant with God for certain blessings. 

Daddy got to give me my middle name.  I still have the envelope he used to create the name using his deceased mother’s and his beloved step-mother’s names “Elmajean.”  Elma is Dutch or German and means “protection,” while Jean is a variant form of John or the Hebrew name Yochanan, meaning “YAHWEH is gracious.” 

Then there’s my last name Boldman—it Dutch or most likely German from the word “bald” meaning “brave” and mann, meaning “man”. 

Put altogether, my name has a big meaning that I didn’t appreciate until I was out of my teens.

I’ve found and met some very interesting names and the people who go with them in the gardens next door.  One is Bobby Edmund Laskie.  Bobby is a nickname for Robert which is English for “famed,” and “bright.”  Edmund means “protector,” while Laskie could be English, Welsh, or Scottish which means “cave,” but it could also be Slovakian, with a meaning for “love.”

An interesting person living in the cemetery is Peggy Leyba.  Believe it or not the name Peggy is a variant of “Margaret” which shortened is “Meg” which rhymes with “Peg.”  Margaret means “Pearl” in Greek.  Leyba may or may not come from related Romanian, Spanish and Latin versions all of which mean “wolf;” thus “Wolf Pearl.”

Another person I often walk by is Eric Holden Uselman.  Eric is, of course Norse or Viking, meaning “honorable ruler.”  Holden is English and has two meanings; the first means “one from Holden” which is a village in Yorkshire; and the second is “hollow, sunken, deep, a valley.”  Uselman might be Latvian (a teeny weeny country next to Russia) which refers to an oak tree.  Put in a phrase, his name means “an honorable ruler from a valley of oak trees.”

I could go on and on, but I’ll do one more, a name the pups eventually dash by on their way to chase ground squirrels—Jesus Manuel Medrano.  Jesus, as you may or may not know, is Hebrew for “God will help or Jehovah is generous.”  Manuel is the shorten form of Emmanuel, which means “God is with us,” while Medrano means a person who is rich or wealthy.  Clearly, his mother and father wanted their son to be blessed by God and good fortune, and why not?  What type of parents wouldn’t want such things to be around a boy child?

Yes, what your name means, tells a great deal about who you are, but also about what your parents hoped for you, their gratitude, their prayers.  So if you don’t know what your name means, I urge you to find out.  Ask your parents, if possible, why they named you what they did, if you don’t know already.  And remember that one day, it will be carved deeply into a headstone or bronze nameplate, and perhaps a stranger will walk her dogs by it, read your name, and come to know just a tidbit about who lies beneath the sod.  That really isn’t a poor legacy, now is it? 
     My momma in 1945?               My daddy after the war.
 
     Grandma Jean


    My daddy's mother, Grandma Elma. 
 
     Me, age 10 to 12 months old.

 

 

 
     Daddy in one of his credential photos.

 
     My brother Cameron and I in 1971.

 
     Me, age two.
 
     Me, age 11 at the Worlds Fair in Spokane, WA

Finding Art in Memory Gardens Cemetery Part 1

The artwork on the headstones and name plates in the garden often fascinates me.  It's not only decorative, it tells something about the resident the artwork belongs to.  There are so many nifty works of craftsmanship, that I've named this part one, because every time I go to the garden I see something new; and often I've walked by the piece and didn't notice it. I usually see something interesting but I didn't bring my camera, and when I go back, I can't find it again.

So here are ten I found beautiful, touching, or interesting:  (Most are self-explanatory, so I won't label them--but a few need a comment.  I haven't put them into any particular order either.)


  
                                                       This is an engraving of the LDS temple in Arizona.
  

   
                                                                                   (Obviously a Disney lover!)
  (Yes, this is an inverted pentagram.  But from the inscriptions inside the star it indicates this person was part of the medical profession.  A long time ago I was watching an episode of "Paranormal State" where they were investigating a prison.  Their researcher couldn't find any reason why a prison would have an inverted pentagram as a piece of decorative stain glass except for Satanic reasons.  Now I have to wonder, just how good a researcher that show had at the time.)

 (This might look like something from Nazi Germany, but it is an early Boy Scout symbol.  I'm very interested if it does have any links to the nationalism movement in the late 1890's or early 1900's.  If anyone can help me with this, it would be very helpful.)

Broken Wings and Raw Frog Legs

Grief.

It’s a small, almost an insignificant word; yet it means a great deal for a person who suffers from its everlasting effects when one’s own death ends the pain and joy of reunion replaces it.

On this evening’s walk with the pups, I came across two broken angel wings.  They are made from cheap glass and had the remains of cheap silver paint chipping off in indiscriminate places.  I didn’t find the body.

Yesterday, while trying to think of a topic for a blog—which I didn’t come up with—I came across one of those miniature species of toads I suppose are common in deserts, such as the one I live in here in New Mexico or even in Egypt.

Did you know in Egyptian hieroglyphics, the symbol of a frog means “eternal, forever, continual, unending?”  The old, kilt draped scribes put it on things associated with dead bodies, whether they be people or sacrificial animals carefully wrapped in linen.  After drying out the corpses for 70 days in a mixture of sand and natron, a type of salt and soda mixture that occurs naturally in an arid climate, the wrapping process came next.  The old priests of the dead marked the wrappings with spells to protect the bodies or to honor the gods the animals were gifted; but they also added amulets of the “ankh” symbol—meaning “life,” and little tiny frogs made out of semi-precious stones.  People often associate the ankh with mummies, but they don’t know about the frogs or toads.

Buster tried to nose the poor toad to death, and when that failed he tried to eat it, but lost heart and let the poor amphibian go—so in a sense, that toad found eternal life.

You might be thinking, “Weren’t frogs one of the ten plagues of the Jewish Exodus?  That means frogs can’t be that great, right?”  That is a great question/ statement—you’re so smart. 

Yes, toads/frogs were one of the first plagues that afflicted those slave-driving Egyptians.  Can you imagine going into your kitchen, bedroom, garage and walking on thousands of bodies of toads and frogs of all species?  The sound of a frog body being crunched under one’s sandals would want me to free those pesky slaves right at that moment if I had been pharaoh.  I don’t think the Egyptians saw the frogs and thought, “Let’s have frog legs for dinner tonight.”  I think they saw frog guts on the bottom of their sandals and went, “Eeeyeuuuu!”

It might be that image that makes me not want to order frog legs if I ever get to eat at a gourmet French restaurant. 

A long time ago I watched one of the many versions of Law and Order, and the detective said as he hovered over a body that the plagues were mocking the Egyptian gods—basically, the Jewish God of the Bible was saying to the Egyptians, “I am the God of this Earth, not your Nile, not your pharaoh, and certainly not those little frogs you think will raise the dead.  I do that.  And if you don’t let my people go, I’ll show you death.”

Back to grief.

The last plague was the death of all the first born of Egypt; the first born of a cow herder to the first born of the king of the country.  Even the first born of the Jews would have felt the plague if they hadn’t painted lamb’s blood on their homes’ lintels and doorposts.  I don’t think I can imagine the wailing of grief that could be heard from the Nile’s delta to the river’s first cataract—a funny little word which means the river’s rapids, which was not that much farther south than the great southern capital of Thebes, or Uast, as the Egyptians called it.

I can’t imagine having one’s child die in one’s arms.  Thus I picked up those broken angel wings, not in an attempt to locate their owner, but to remember, that all who suffer grief never get over it.

The other day, I met Jack, an eighty year-old foot doctor, who comes to the gardens every day to park his big red truck beside his beloved wife’s grave.  When I talked to him about her, he began tearing up. 

Although I’ve never seen them, I keep walking by little Ethan’s grave, and there are usually new toys on his headstone—tonight there were three new trucks and cars—small and poignant signs that his parents’ grief still grips their hearts after three years without their “little worm.”

My own mother lost a child in 1959, my sister Naomi. She had Downs and died of heart defects.  I asked momma once if she got over the little girl’s death.  She looked at me as if I were an alien—which all teenagers seem to be—then explained there wasn’t a day that didn’t go by without her crying over that little baby she only held in her arms for six short months.

It’s been almost twenty years since momma died.  I don’t cry over her everyday anymore.  I like to tell mom-stories, would tell them every day if someone would listen to me tell one.  While I did, perhaps now and again, I’d tear up like Dr. Jack.  On special occasions, perhaps after watching a touching movie, I’ll sob as if she died a few minutes earlier.  Once I went through half a box of tissues after watching Amy Tan’s “The Joy-Luck Club.”  (It was also one of the last books my mother read and told me I should read—it wasn’t a suggestion—it was one of those commands mothers give their children that sounds like “You better eat all those beans, young lady, or else…!”  Yes, I read it.)

Grief.

It’s a strange physical and psychological disorder.  One day you seem able to cope with the condition; the next day, you have all the symptoms:  damp eyes, runny mucus, discolored face and uncontrollable spasms of the body.

I can’t wait until I no longer suffer from this disease, and it’s replace with the joy of reunion on the other side, where, if I know my mother, she’s wondering why I let Buster molest that poor frog in the first place.

Back on-line and Ghostly Shadows!!!!!

It’s been two weeks without the Internet.  I lost service and therefore no blogging, which sent me into a semi-deep depression—somewhat like semi-sweet chocolate, that isn’t as bland as real chocolate but sweet enough to realize how much I have enjoyed writing my blog.

I have had two weeks of intense experiences with the pups and the cemetery, have met some very interesting people, living and dead, and caught my first ghostly image on camera.

I was trying to pull Beanie away from trying to kill lizards (by the way he hasn’t come close to catching one even as they dash between his paws) in 98 degree heat.  I have begun calling him “Lizard Killer” in homage (read this word with a French accent) to Julie from “Julie and Julia” who had to “man-up and kill the damn” lobster.  Her husband played this song and changed the lyrics to “Lobster Killer” in order to tease her fear of boiling a live crustacean.  It’s one of my favorite parts of the movie.  I wish my blog was as popular and I could ask my thousands of readers for money—I’m so poor I’m about to go panhandling on the streets of Farmington just to pay rent and eat.  I would go panhandling in the gardens—I have a great many friends there who would be more than generous from keeping me homeless and the Internet flowing.  Unfortunately, they don’t carry money on them, so I have to do something else—perhaps I’ll have a garage sale, give blood, or donate a kidney—the bad one which always gives me a kidney infection—ha!

Back to the ghost.

One of my friends said he wanted to see my garden friends—and he wasn’t talking about headstones or bronze plates.  Still, I’ve been taking pictures of some of the really beautiful markers—perhaps I’ll show you my collection then you can see the workmanship I have been admiring. 

That’s when I saw one which reminded me of my deceased daddy.  It had a semi-wreath of pine bows and pine cones with a big ol’ buck between the dates—obviously the resident was a hunter like my daddy—who often fed us when I was a girl with deer, elk, moose, duck, pheasant, and a yearly lamb he bought from the Basques who drove their herds of fat, wooly sheep right down 15^th Street in Pocatello.

Anyway, I had to take a picture. 

I turned off the Glen Miller I had been playing for the World War II generation which make up the majority of the garden’s live-ins to capture the hunting theme.  But every time I clicked the camera, a huge dark shadow kept the image from becoming a clear photographic record.  I tried three times, each one thwarted (I love that word—“thwarted”—one of the few really English words with Anglo-Saxon, Middle English origins, not from Latin or Greek)…each one thwarted by a long, dark, thick shadow. 

Once, Beanie sniffed at the plate, which, when I looked at it without the camera, did not have any shadow on it, near it or beside it.  There wasn’t a single tree or bush near it in order to cast such an end of the day darkness.

Then I figured it out.

“Charlie,” I said very nicely, “I’m sorry if I’m offending you by taking a picture of your name plate; it’s just that it reminds me of my late daddy.  He would like the deer.”

As soon as I said this, the shadow on the name plate through the camera’s lens disappeared, and I thought I took a clear shot at that moment.  But another weird thing happened.  When I got home to look at my snap-shots, the good one was gone and all I had were the shadowed ones. 

I went back a couple of days later (due to downpours of flashfloods) and took a clear picture.  If you look at that last image, you can tell it was cloudy because everything is grey, compared to the sunny ones with the weird shadow.

Charlie may have thwarted me at first, but I got the shot in the end.  Shot—shot—like shooting a deer—a pun my daddy would have chuckled at if he had coined it.

You look at the photos and try to explain it—‘cause I can’t.

    

My first picture of Charlie's grave.

 
My third picture.

My second picture--remember there isn't anything near this grave that would cast this shadow.

 

    

 

 

 Charlie's grave 3 days later--cloudy.

 

 

 

  Daddy the big game hunter.
 
 

   Me with one of daddy's moose trophies.

 When daddy saw this display, he pretended he was holding a rifle and made gun sounds as if he was shooting it.  Momma and I laughed.                        

Our Hero--Ensign Glen H. Rickelton, USNR

The Korean War was a two and a half year war the U.S. participated in as part of a general military engagement with other U.N. countries.  Their mission was to force the North Koreans back across an invisible line that is currently called the “DMZ” or the “Demilitarized Zone.”  Generally, historians and movie makers casually skip over this military engagement so often that this “police action” is called the “Forgotten War.”

I know about this war because I watched “M.A.S.H.” as a youngster and my Uncle Jimmy flew fighter jets during this conflict—and so did Ensign Glen Howard “Rick” Rickleton, USNR.

                                                                    

                                                                                                Ensign Glen H. “Rick” Rickelton,
                                                                                                USNR, age 23 at time of death

Usually, I change the names of the people I write about, but Rick is pretty famous here in Farmington—one of 592 New Mexico residences who died in this small engagement, most Americans do not know happened.  He’s one of my neighbors.  Liz told me about him, since he was honored last Memorial Day; and, of course, I had to find him.

Looking for Rick was easy.  He actually has several listings on Google and his military record is pretty complete on Ancestry.com.  What surprised me was the lack of details about his life and death.  There is a published diary he wrote, but I’m too poor to order it.  Besides, he wouldn’t have written about the details of his death.

 The USS Essex CVS-9 1951

I started doing some general research, and as I learned about his ship, the USS Essex, about his bunkmate, a little known astronaut named Neil Armstrong, and the fighter squadron he flew with—51 aka “The Screaming Eagles,” I started to see what happened in my mind.  Perhaps it was because I’d seen the movie “The Bridges at Toko Ri” starring William Holden, and/or my imagination got carried away.  I could clearly see the jet’s instrument panel—Holden flew a Banshee (I think), and not a Panther, which was what Rick flew.

I saw a tan colored gloved-hand on a stick, a hose of the air mask, and dials moving as if I was flying the jet—as if seeing out of Rick’s eyes.  When this happens—and I’ve experienced such p-o-v visions a handful of times—it really shakes me up, because I actually feel as if I’m going through the person’s experience—the sensations are eerie and long lasting.

The terrain around the blue painted aircraft seemed desolate, white with thick snow, the trees barren of foliage which could be surprisingly dense in the humid heat of summer.  I got a good view of the target—a rail-line that slithered like a constrictor through the bleak contours of low lying hills, pockmarked with muddied boils from previous bombing runs.  At 25,000 feet I heard a male voice order the other members of the mission to drop to a lower altitude, to keep an eye out for MIGs and strafe the hell out of the railroad tracks which were resupplying Chinese infantry harassing U.S. Marines a mile away at a forward operating base.

 

The run went well at first, bombs were dropped, as tracers from Double A from the ground streak white-hot passed the aircraft going over 450 mph.  As Rick seemed to pull up and bank left I heard tiny sounds—thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk as they hit the aircraft, causing it to shimmy.  The projectiles moved from the nose back along the sleek fuselage.  One large chunk of metal ripped a large hole on Rick’s port side and cut a bloody line under his arm, through his chest, exiting at the top of his right shoulder.  He died instantly, and was why he didn’t eject from the plane after his squadron mates saw the left engine burst into flames.  A half a second later, the jet seemed to roll over like a dead sea lion on the surface of the ocean.  The calls of his friends reverberated in the smoke-filled cockpit.

 

The jet crashed into a hillside; fire and smoke of the explosion created a mini-mushroom-shaped cloud which rose as if to greet the other Panthers who flew cover, raking the enemy’s anti-aircraft gun placements with deadly 50 caliber bullets which are as long as a man’s hand and as thick as a finger. 

The Navy pilots mark the downed plane’s location, but that is all they can do—reinforcing gunfire from the ground and the arrival of four MIGs shoo the jets from the burning carcass that was once a F9F-2 Panther fighter jet.

Only after the cessation of hostilities did those pilots who had survived into the summer of ’53 remembered where their fallen shipmate had died.  His skeletal remains, badly charred but still wearing a flight suit, were recovered and sent home to find a place of prominence in Farmington’s Memory Gardens Endowment Cemetery.  There he was honored, cried over by friends and family as the wailing of a single trumpet sounding “Taps” resounded through the newly laid lawn of the gardens which had recently opened for permanent residence in 1954.

In one of the sites, I found this tribute letter from one of his former shipmates who served aboard the USS Essex. 

To Ensign Glen Howard Rickelton, USNR October 24, 2006 Dear Glen, This letter is 54 years late, but it's my way of reminding myself how fortunate I've been since the 6th of January 1952 when your plane was hit by anti- aircraft fire and you crashed and burned over Korea. You were a very likable person to have worked for; you treated your subordinates as friends. You were easy going and it was a pleasure to have you as my boss. You've missed so much by being one of the pilots that didn't return. We were all very young and secure in that nothing could happen to us. But as the air group's losses increased I'm sure that your initial cockiness became wariness. You were our 13th pilot to be lost, with 5 more to follow before the Essex returned to the States. Were you with us now you'd be amazed how life has changed technologically over the 54 years. You'd likely be a husband and Grandfather, retired and living a wonderful life. You'd be showing your grandkids photos of yourself as a skinny Ensign all decked out in your flying gear, standing by your fighter plane. But unfortunately that wasn't to be. In 1952 I was discharged. I returned home and got my first car and a job at Sperry Gyroscope Company, working nights in a very boring job. By 1953 I'd found employment as a Field Engineer for IBM. The job entailed servicing Data Processing machines in customer's offices. There I met my wife and married in 1961, we raised 3 wonderful children. I retired after 39 years of a job I loved. I prospered and now own a home in New Jersey and a summer home at the shore in New York. Our health is good and we're looking forward to many enjoyable years ahead. As a historian I've been able to retrieve all the reports our air group filed with the Navy Department while we were deployed with the carrier Essex off Korea. From the reports, I compiled a list of the 50 planes and the 18 pilots lost. Your whole life was reduced to 3 lines on 6 January 1952. Quote: "Ensign RICKELTON of VF-51 flying a Panther on a rail cut rec-con mission when hit by flak, went into a shallow glide from which he never recovered, and crashed into a hillside." One of your Plane Captains Bill Curtis ( William J. Curtis )

 

Part One--People behind the Memory Gardens--Liz

Improving the look of Memory Gardens has been the summer-long goal of those who labor in the cemetery, especially the landscape crew—I’ve gotten to know two by sight, but there are at least three or four more men and women.  Yet, the driving force behind these efforts to green-up the garden is the event planner, Liz, a woman of average height, a friendly and kind smile, and filled with the abundant energy of youth.

For a while I have wanted to tell you about some of the employees of my next door neighbors, and even though Liz works in the front of the office, I’ve come to see her as the little engine, whose wheels move things along. 

The back offices have two more women managing the finances and the finer details that go into carrying off a funeral with grace and dignity, and I’ll tell you about them in due time—as well as the office’s cleanliness manager who also doubles as a landscaping specialist—and the hardworking, and usually heat-exhausted landscapers—the so called “grunts” of the business.  I want to tell you about each and every one.  I admire their love for the garden and the residents they serve with such affectionate care.  Today, I will focus on Liz.

A few entries ago a mentioned her; since then, I’ve discovered her drive, her dedication, and her devotion to the job she has had for only a year and a half.  She amazes me.

I happened to be in the office chatting with her when a potential client called.  Her conversation enlightened me, not only about the daily operations of the office administration but affirmed my suspicions about her commitment to her position.

The Memory Gardens are under the hospices of The American Cemetery Association which helps fund the burials of any veteran of any military branch and allows these honored dead to be interred for free.  The gardens provide discounts for spouses to sleep beside them.  To my surprising, I discovered people who lived in Farmington, sometimes decades earlier, have had their beloved departed shipped to the gardens from as far away as Pennsylvania and Texas and a bit closer like from Colorado.  They come here perhaps to be with family already in residence, or because they were veterans, or maybe because once you have had “home” imprinted on your soul, you will always return alive or dead.

Liz knowledgeably answers any question, those coming from people on the phone or from a nosey neighbor.  There are parts of any job generally loved and hated by those who work at their occupations, and Liz seems to love many more tasks than those which may be undesirable, such as going to a county fair and suffering the heat for entire week.  I couldn’t blame her for that, this being my first summer in Farmington—but it is as hot here as it is in Utah and Idaho—and for the last two weeks as hot and humid as Omaha, which sits on the blanks of the Missouri River.

She knows stories, and I plan to dig out of her. For now, I will say, Liz is a vital cog in the machinery that has been working on improving the gardens, much like those mentioned in a parable of the Biblical lord who sent his servants into his vineyards.  The garden gathers its own to its vast lawns, sublimely ornamented with bronze and marble, both counterfeit and genuine blossoms of every hue, dark purpled butterfly bushes, clumps of heavenly light lavender, and divine and patriotic statuary.

The dogs and I enjoyed a cool morning stroll, and took a hot and steaming saunter through the park which is home to so much life and bathed in streaming light which slants so strongly in a New Mexican mountain desert.

 

A very short entry--frustration abounds!

I spent all day looking up a veteran of World War I, a sailor in the Unites States Navy Reserves.  I couldn't find any records of his service except for his enlistment.  I had great plans of describing sea battles with German U-boats or protecting troop transports or bar-room brawls.  Nope, I didn't find anything.  I found a mountain of stuff for a Rough Rider and a US Marine Corps pilot who flew in WWII, but for Warren, nada, nothing, nil, zip, bplllllahblat-fackinbleepincusswordsforever!