I spent my afternoon digging through the archives in preparation for a blog post about my great aunt Hilda whose namesake knit design I’m reworking lately, and have found myself happily reacquainting with the five siblings of the Ziegler clan.
c1920 Running clockwise from lower left, the siblings Albert (b1911), Hilda (b1898), Walter (b1906), Arnold (b1900), and my grandmother Mildred (b1901) surround mother Martha (front and center).
From the photographs and letters I’ve found it’s apparent that the family members, shown above in their South Boston neighborhood were close and remained so throughout their lives – especially sisters Hilda and Mildred.
Most of the correspondence I have between Hilda and Marlene had been written by Hilda when she was in her 80s. Her return addresses show her first residing on Park Drive in Boston where she lived for most of her adult life, then later in North Easton, where she moved to be near her brother Walter who looked after her. The texts of the thank you notes and hellos are a brief and unexpected chronicle of family events – events that I’d forgotten or had questions about. I discovered Dad had surgery to repair his hearing in 1981. I remember that happened but wouldn’t have guessed when. I was glad to find this in a note of hers now.
In 1979 we lost my grandparents Mildred and Harold within months of each other. Harold died in late February and Mildred followed in early August. In May of that same year Peter and I were married. I was close to my grandmother and very glad she was able to attend my reception. Her death a few months later was unexpected. I guess I hadn’t fully processed it by the time of her funeral and caused quite a stir by leaving her service in the middle, as this note highlights. Oy.
And then there’s the third paragraph above –
I keep thinking of the things I want to say to your mother [Mildred], and one of the last things I heard that she said was “I have so many things to tell Hilda.”
Oh my heart.
My top-down Hilda redesign to be republished soon.
Update: Hilda, republished 9/6/2019;