Person:Pearl Niven (2)

Quote: (Betty Ruth ERWIN)...4 Mar 1983: She (Pearl) brought on all the family catastrophes by belonging to her spiritualist cult...the Bible says not to invoke the spirits and spiritualism is connected with the Devil. Pearl probably drove Si crazy. Most of the family are devout Christians and haven't had the bad luck Pearl brought upon herself by dealing with the Devil. Pearl always refused to talk about religion.

What I, Corey Janene MARENTETTE, remember about Great Grandma "Patsy" (Pearl Janet NIVEN) herself & visiting her house: (written circa 1987 & slightly modified Feb 2004))

She was stubborn and never drove a car or owned an electric sewing machine. She did all her travelling by city bus...all her sewing on a treadle machine. She tried to teach me to treadle but I never could master the rythm required until much later (circa 1979) when I purchased, at a bargain price of only $10, an old plain/basic Singer treadle machine in very good condition at a garage sale in Kingsley, MI.

She encouraged me to draw. She had numerous drawings (in poor condition) & a few framed paintings she claimed to be the artist. I think she did most of them. Mostly they were florals and womens' faces in colored pencil.

My mother told me that when she & my father were young, first starting out...just after marrying...Gramma went to California to visit her daughter Coral (who my mother always referred to as Aunt "Betty"). While she was gone, my parents lived in Pearl's house. All the years Gramma had lived there, there had never been any hotwater...and the only "bathroom" was a tiny sliver of claustrophic space containing a toilet (under the window) and an extremely small sink with running cold water. No door either. Although you couldn't see in there from the kitchen or anywhere else...you had to turn the corner to get to the sink. Had to take sponge baths with water heated on the gas cookstove in the kitchen all the times I was there. Apparently it was the same for everybody who grew up there, including Aunt Mavis & my mother and cousin "Joey". While my parents stayed there...my father installed a hot water heater. I am told he also burned a lot of Gramma's stuff. He had a tendency to burn our stuff at home when he felt like it too. She was really angry about this when she returned. I can see why she'd be really riled up about him destroying her possessions (whatever they were)...but she also tore out the hot water heater. I can't understand why she did that. It would have eased not only other people's lives but her own as well. I have asked my mother and Aunt Mavis why she tore out such a wonderful thing and they don't have a clue either.

My father built a very small back porch onto the east side of Gramma's house. He didn't do it right. He took such pride in doing a fine job of carpentering when I was growing up. Nobody seems to know why he built it so that the south wall of it was right in the vertical center of one of the few kitchen windows. She left the porch on. Don't know if she ever went out there herself. I don't know for sure what was out there because either I wasn't allowed out there or the door wouldn't open. But the kitchen was dark anyway...and darker still because of the porch...and the shade on that side of the house. The whole house was dark. That didn't seem to bother me when I was young...but if I could go there today...it would probably depress me...that really severe lack of light. She used to complain about the porch.

I always looked forward to sleeping over night at Gramma's. She told me stories about the "Old Days" and watched hours of television with me. She was addicted to a horrible soap opera called "Dark Shadows" which featured a vampire named Barnabas Collins. She was interested in the occult. She used to read to me but I can't recall just what. I sincerely wish I could remember the stories she told me. She used to sit in a dirty upholstered rocker near the space heater in the livingroom, beside the french doors which led to what was always referred to as the diningroom. I never saw a table in there or ate in there. Like all of her house, it was crammed with boxes, bags and piles of stuff..a veritable storehouse of misplaced half forgotten treasures.. .in varying stages of decay and disarray...she was the ultimate packrat. Seldom threw anything away. Everything had an explanation as to where it came from but I didn't get to hear that many.

We cooked supper together. I visited her frequently when I was in grades 7 through 11. Mostly we had fried hamburger patties & instant mashed potatoes, canned peas, gravy made from an envelope. Sometimes we had frozen meat pot pies and red Jello (artificially fruit flavored gelatin) with Cool Whip (non-dairy whipped dessert topping). It was a treat to me because the only place I got much to eat was there and at Aunt Mavis' house. At home, my parents seemed to think only they deserved to eat well.

Sometimes she gave me money and had me "run" to the Dairy Queen about 4 blocks away, on Rochester Rd, and bring us both back a "frozen custard" (soft-serve ice cream). Was told to be sure to get it in waxed paper cups instead of edible cones so it wouldn't drip/melt away before I got it back.

At night we would sit out on her sagging front porch and look out at the stars and watch the fireflies and talk and I would get miserably bitten by the hordes of mosquitos. She would always say, "What are you slapping at? There aren't any insects out here." They never bit her. Some nights we would sleep out there on the porch because it was cooler. There wasn't any crossbreeze in the house because she had every window nailed shut. She was certain everybody, but the next door neighbors, especially, were all avid to get into her house and steal every thing she owned. She had two "daybeds" out on the porch. A huge tree for shade out there too...but it died when her street was paved & a main taproot was damaged. Really missed the wonderful shade of that tree when it was cut down.

In winter we slept together (sometimes when I was small enough) on the "davenport" at the north end of the livingroom. She would heat newspapers on the space heater & stick them under the cushions...to warm them. It was not really sleep conducive to be either pinned between her and the wall or pushed out onto the floor on the outer edge of this backless sofa. Gramma Patsy was a hefty body when I knew her. She took up most of the sleeping surface.

She had long thinning gray hair. She would gather it up into a tail & then cover it with a hairpiece add-on...a large gray bun surrounded by a single thick ring of braided gray hair...which she pinned atop the back of her head. I thought it looked nice. She wore outdated dresses...seldom saw her in pants. Aunt Ollie, her sister, used to wear trousers...but not Gramma Patsy. While she brushed her white/gray hair at night...she said, sadly, her hair used to be thick, beautiful auburn, long..when she was young. The photos I have of her prove this was so.

Can't think or write of her without including her house. My memories of Gramma Patsy are fused permanently with the memories of her house. They were one. Inseparable. She rarely left it...and in her last year or two, when both it's deteriorating condition and hers, made their separation mandator...it was devastating to her.

Her house intrigued me when I was there. On the outside it was covered with vines and surrounded by ferns and bushes. The small backyard was a multicolored flower garden. There was a strip of posies, mostly Sweet Williams, along the driveway, flanking the fence. I was a kid...not yet interested in gardening...so I don't know all the kinds she had. But I remember the wonderful smell of those dianthus barbatus. I know she loved orange poppies too.

Aunt Mavis says that one of the shrubs out front was a Mock Orange that smelled heavenly when it was in bloom. Gramma had lived in that house over 40 years. She said that she and Grampa Si built it when they got married. I think it must have been a bit later...because I found them in the census...living in Detroit in 1920...but it was probably not long after that. The house was at 421 DeVillen in Royal Oak. It was the 2nd house (going east) from the corner of Rochester Road....on the north side of the street. A quiet, shady street while I knew it. Over the years the house leaned and yawned and stretched and sagged and drooped and settled very unevenly as the tree stumps they built it upon (what possessed them?) gradually rotted and decayed and compressed. A few years ago as I began to think about growing vines at home...like wisteria...and began reading about the dangers of planting them on/near your house or other buildings...I asked Aunt Mavis if she thought that huge vine had anything to do with Gramma's house going to ruin...she replied that she was sure it was one of the major causes. I don't remember ever seeing that wisteria bloom...I didn't even know it was one. But the vines were thick (probably 3 and 4 inches in diameter) and profuse.

My father would repair things for Gramma when she needed help. He also used to visit her once in awhile and take her a gallon of Mogan David wine. After he died, my brother Mark would try to help. My other brother, Burt, the most selfish one, always refused my requests that he help Gramma. The floors had shifted and slanted so that the front door couldn't be opened inward far enough to make entry easy. He said that since she wouldn't pay him for it, he wouldn't do it. He had plenty of carpenter skills and our mother have given him all of our father's tools...but Burt was never one to think of anybody's else's welfare. Towards the end, her house was unlivable. The plaster was falling off the lathe. There were large cracks in the walls at the room corners. The City of Royal Oak eventually condemned it and had it torn down. I've been told there is a modern little house where it used to be. I don't miss the house I grew up in...but I never went back to DeVillen street because seeing that upstart replacing it would make me cry.

Mavis tried to move Gramma out once while she was still capable to leading a somewhat autonomous life...with me help...but we failed. Mavis found a nice groundfloor flat in an older house in downtown Royal Oak that was close enough to grocery store and doctor's office that Gramma could have walked there easily. We moved her most important possessions and basic furniture there. Mavis purchased all the food for me to cook a nice Thanksgiving dinner there . Carl (my then husband) and I were to lure her down there. She did come, sup with us, and then demanded to be taken back "home" afterwards.

She never left home under her own steam...she refused. It was the only time I ever yelled at her. I became exasperated trying to convince her to stay in that nice flat Mavis arranged. She would have none of it. She became angry with me. That occasion was the only time I had harsh words with her. I still feel bad about it.

She finally had to be removed to a Nursing Home because she was weak and ill. Mavis had to take care of everything all by herself. I was in no position to help Gramma Patsy at that time as I was wrestling with marital difficulties and pending homeless myself. It was a distressing time. I wanted very much to visit her. Aunt Mavis took me once...took Gramma Patsy out to eat. I had no vehicle (thanks to aforementioned husband) then so begged my brother Burt to take me and all he could answer was "She doesn't know who you are, so why would you want to go?" He would not take me. Carl wouldn't take me. Lane finally agreed and took me once. We got there and were walking down the hall when Lane, who was behind me, asked, "Where are you going?" I said I was going to look for Gramma Patsy. He replied, "Hey, that's Gramma...we just passed her." I was shocked. I hadn't recognized her. She was so sad, dejected and emaciated. She perked up somewhat while we talked to her, just happy to have attention and company. . She was dazed and restless and confused.. I felt so sorry for her. She looked so wasted away and pitiful. But I am so grateful to Aunt Mavis for seeing to her needs for so many years. While Lane was there with me, Gramma insisted on putting an arm around Lane and giving him a peck on the cheek and declaring that soon the two of them would be getting married. I had taken my son Nathan with me...hoping she might take an interest in a youngster but she didn't. I wish that my son had had the priviledge of knowing Gramma Patsy. I feel lucky that I did.

Not everybody feels that way, I'm sure. I know that she grated on a lot of people. And as I've heard it said, she made a lot of enemies. Guess I'm lucky she took a shine to me.

She was such a vociferous believer in spirits, healing and fortune telling. She had the ability to read the past out of other people's minds when she wanted to. A crystal ball and spirit trumpet in a black velvet bag and Ouija board all belonged to her. When I was too young to really understand it all, she took me along with her to a spiritualist church meeting where they gave readings.

When I went to Central Lake/Bellaire to get acquainted with Betty Ruth ERWIN at her home, Betty said that she was sure it was Pearl's dealing with the Devil and leaving the family religion ("they were all Free Methodists") that caused all the strife and misfortune in our family. I don't think my Great Gramma "Patsy" was dealing with the Devil. She could be cantankerous but I don't think she was evil. Besides, I don't believe in God or the Devil, either. Let alone Heaven or Hell. I figure if life after death is a reality...Gramma would have come back and gave me a message or sign. I haven't felt or seen a damn thing. When I initiated the subject with cousin Joey (CUNNINGHAM) once, he pretty much stated his similar feeling before I even voiced mine.

Gramma Patsy told me many times that the Apochryphal Books of the Bible contained magic incantations. She had numerous books about Astral Projection. She also claimed she talked to a woman friend who called her from the planet Mars on the telephone.

Talking on the telephone with Gramma Patsy could be trying because she was lonely and could talk for hours...not letting me off even when I had to use the bathroom. When she would call, my mother would just hand the phone to me.

There were a lot of crumpled rayon dresses dating from the 1940s crammed into dirty boxes with odds and ends packed and stacked in the "back bedrooms" (i.e. the unheated addition added to the rear of the house sometime after they completed the front part) I used to severely shorten some of those dresses and wear them to school trying to shock the other students in my classes. My greatest delight were the ones that had shirred & padded shoulders that she & my great aunts used to wear. When I was little, Gramma "Patsy" made me several garments. I remember 2 of them. One was red with rows of white line heart designs with white pinstripes. The other I can't really picture in my mind...but I know that it had multicolored elephants printed on the fabric. I now feel an affinity for elephants...but I am unsure whether I was so attached to that dress because I already adored the huge creatures or the other way 'round. No matter. She put a lot of love into making clothes for me. Great Aunt Mavis sewed for me sometimes too. When Gramma tried, briefly, to teach me to sew I would hesitate while treadling and lose the rythm and end up reversing and the thread would break. She lost patience with me before very long & we put that pursuit aside.

She used to sit in her cushy but grimey padded rocker in the evenings and, one at a time, lift her lower legs and rotate her ankles slowly first one way and then the other. You could tell she was aching. She would brag to me about how shapely her legs had been in younger years. She claimed that a man had once offered her a job modeling stockings but that she had to decline, of course, because no decent young lady would forego the socially required modesty & show her legs. I wonder now...if she never showed her legs...how would he have known she had shapely ones? I'll never know...but we can guess. She said that treadle sewing was was kept her legs and ankles trim and slim. Did she still see her legs the way they used to be...and not as the swollen limbs they had really become in old age?

Every Easter she purchased molded chocolate bunnies & goodies to fill the same multi-colored straw baskets she saved and decorated for my brothers and I every year. She fastened little chicks and bunnies made of fat pipe cleaners with google eyes onto the handles. I looked forward with relish to these treats each Spring. My parents gave us so little ...a handful of jelly beans and some hardboiled eggs my mother allowed us to color with her by dipping them in several cups of dye from store bought kits. I can still smell the vinegar that had to be added to the hot water so the dye would permeate the egg shells.

She saved cute little Christmas poem/stories by Ogden Nash that she removed from Family Circle or Womans' Day magazines. She would bind the pages of each together & make covers with colored construction paper...bind them together with ribbons & embellish the front paper cover with rickrac and glitter. She would make me a present of one each year while they lasted. This loving gesture meant much to me....I felt loved and thought about. I kept them for a long time...but regret to say that after all the moving and thieving husbands...I don't know what happened to them.

For 8th Grade Social Studies project our class was told to make family histories. Gramma Patsy was the only one who came through for me. She gave me only a few names and only about half of them were correct...and there wasn't much in the way of dates and places to go with them....but at least it was something. I didn't have to go to school empty handed. At the time, I had no idea how to go about interviewing anybody and much less how to check on the accuracy of oral contributions. That would've been about 1968. It wasn't until 1982 that I was to get a chance & a little push to compel me to start searching for ancestors in earnest. Wish I had been able to delve below the surface while Gramma Patsy was still in her right mind and reasonably healthy. Although how we would have gone anywhere to conduct any investigation is a good question. My mother, well known for sticking her head in the sand, would only have tried to discourage me for fear of what I might uncover and how it might upset her.

Gramma's house contained a plethora of towering heaps of damp cardboard boxes and bags of everything, material scraps, whole cuts of fabric, large crushed ribbon bows wired to short green stained wooden picks from flower arrangements (probably mostly from Mother's day and funeral bouquets)...musty books ...dusty magazines. I loved to go through her outdated magazines and rip out the pictures I liked and recipes. She never seemed to mind what I did as long as I sat quietly so she could nap...or keep myself occupied when she spent time out in the flower beds. I wasn't allowed to just riffle through her mountains of neglected possessions...but sometimes she would assign me a task of trying to find something she wanted. The livingroom and part of the kitchen were really the only two rooms you could actually use...because they were the only ones you could walk through. The 3 bedrooms and the "dining room" were packed with the remains of all of Gramma's yesterdays. Nothing was so worthless as to deserve to be tossed into the garbage. There were so many things in life that were important to her...old 78 records...scratched and, for the most part, unusable ...sewing patterns, buttons, oodles of zippers (many removed from garments long gone), dishes, rusty tools, pencils, crayons, spools of every color thread you could imagine, dolls, lampshade, hundreds of empty prescription pill bottles, dishes, knick nacks, papers, a few dress forms, more stuff I can't remember and a lot that I never got to see and that probably hadn't seen the light of day in at least a decade or more. She was a frugal woman. Her house was a ramshackle mess. Cat hair (and other cat evidence) all over the place...but that's another story...I may tell later. She seldom discarded anything. Which didn't bother me...I found it practical. When I had a school project due, she nearly always had something someplace that I could use in making it. Sometimes we would commence a mission...she standing in the space left in the hallway issuing instructions to me, climbing carefully atop the mounds of earthly goods, sneezing from the dust...looking for the specific green hatbox or painted Christmas tin that she was sure contained that item we were trying to procure. Sometimes we found it...sometimes we didn't. Often times we forgot what we came for because during the search we happened across something intriguing and we were sidetracked...off on a tangent. I'm that way myself. Which explains the rambling nature of my verbose writing style. I talk that way too. Just means you have multiple interests.

I enjoyed being with Gramma Patsy. We were both booksy and sedentary. Perhaps she was more active in the "Old Days" but I got to share her later life and I was lucky that way. She made few demands upon me. I escaped the chaos at home and if I behaved myself I was free to spend my time quietly and peacefully. She was the most stable presence in my life. I don't remember her or anyone, including my parents, ever giving me any lessons or helpful advice. I learned though... not to emulate my parents' alcoholic storminess roller coastering ....and from Gramma Patsy...a sort of I'll do it my way while being remaining on a steady course...quiet determination is what I observed and soaked in.

There is a lot more to say about Gramma Patsy. Her cats. The ordeal of taking her grocery shopping. Uleta, the next door neighbor. The spiders. The rifts with the neighbors which I just sort of got an indication of. I really miss her. She was a fine influence on me in spite of her faults. She raised her 4 children by herself during the Depression. I don't think the husband she divorced, Grampa Si, was much help, financially, or otherwise. She also partially raised 3 of her grandchildren...Joey, Heather and my mother, Claire. I have asked all of them to contribute their thoughts, feelings and opinions of Gramma. I understand she wasn't perfect...don't I know...but that I would like to present a well-rounded perspective of her. The dark side along with the bright. But nobody's saying much. My brother, Mark, also stayed with her for a short time. I'm sure they all would have more negative things to say about her but that is because I had the good sense to be born later and get her more mellow years. I wish I knew more...but at least this is something. I want her to be remembered. So many times of late, I've longed to hear her voice. Would have really helped to have a recording of her telling a tall tale or two...when I was roughing out a tough time with one of the worthless so-and-sos I foolishly married. Maybe just knowing she survived some lean times shouldering some heavy responsibilities alone...has helped me cope with my own tribulations. Thanks to you, Gramma Patsy...I take my hat off to you. !! Although I can't remember you hugging me while I was growing up...I felt like you loved me.

Another chapter later....cat, grocery shopping and Sue Wilkevicz and Aunt Ollie/Uncle Bert/letters/pills/their mother....babysitting/Shock Theatre.

Quote: She always read the newspaper out loud. It probably was the Royal Oak Tribune. We always had that around. She also gritted her teeth...Very annoying. I do recall being somewhat afraid of her when I lived there, but I was very quiet and shy...probably afraid of my own shadow. I do remember a day when Uncle Joe came home to visit and was in his Military Uniform. Joey and I were instructed to stay outside and play...I think we were in front yard digging in the dirt. Must of been 3 or 4 at the time. Also a time when we heard a car crash on Rochester Rd. and she grabbed Joey by a hand and me by the other and we marched up there to see it. I don't even remember the wreck just the horrible sound that it made. She also screamed at me once to put the damned cat down...it was long haired. I think that was when my Mother and Fate went to Dayton, Ohio to be married and were gone several days. I was very attached to my Mother and used to lay in bed at night waiting for her to come home. We slept together in a back bedroom. I do think that I loved her (Grandma) very much after moving out of there and as I grew older. When I was in Junior High at Mary Lyon's, I can remember walking to her house every evening after dinner to visit her...I guess I did that a lot while in High School also. I do recall taking my dog Toby with me and always walking on Rochester Rd to see her.

I

1.   Corey Janene MARENTETTE.
2.   Heather Jan HARRISON
   letter-2004 Mar 6.