Childhood with a German Jewish refugee father
and a DAR* American mother:
and a DAR* American mother:
PLEASE NOTE: As I am currently investigating the challenges that intercultural and interracial couples face in their marriages, I have prepared the ground for this work by recalling my parents' marriage in the following reflections.
My Parents’ Relationship and Parenting Style:
In our family, intercultural ‘differences’ were accepted and respected on the surface, although there was perhaps more ambivalence below the surface. However, it did not cause rows or even long discussions in front of my sister and me. My mother would sometimes giggle or laugh at things my father would say – as if to say, “I wouldn’t take him too seriously...” My parents were a gentle peace loving couple. They could also be very enthusiastic about certain topics or special interests. For example, my mother loved plants and taught me how to love them too, collecting and labelling dried specimens. She also loved birds and animals and I was allowed to have a great many of both over the years. My father was an academic and a professional scientist with his special interests being astronomy and the weather. I recall him being invited to my classroom and giving a talk on one or
other of these subjects.
Because my parents had both had overly strict authority figures in their background, my parents were exceptionally kind and wanted us to like them. We even had hugging sessions in bed on a regular basis over the years, but never co-sleeping. My parents had difficulty saying ‘no’ and setting limits. Compromise appeared to be reached fairly effortlessly as my parents with each other were logical, affectionate and complimentary.
My father had his work which he loved and my mother was a traditional housewife. Before a dish washer was installed, my mother used to do the dishes in the evening with my mother washing and my father drying. At such times, they would talk over the day together. As a child, I can recall how gently reassuring it was to hear them do this. In hindsight, my father was quite possessive of my mother. This may have some connection with all the ‘loss’ he experienced when being forced to migrate to the USA in 1933. While he still had his mother, he lost the other important females in his life specifically his nurse, piano teacher, aunts etc. As a ritual, my father took an after lunch nap. His colleagues saw him as a bit idiosyncratic as he would rearrange his university classes so this could take his nap with my mother. My mother never seemed to question this. On later reflection, she realised this
was because her father had always had a nap after lunch, but not with her mother. My father also would not allow her to fly in an airplane without him.
In thinking back to what he had experienced with the rest of his family in being forced to leave Germany in 1933, it is quite amazing that he did not demonstrate stronger signs of depressions or PTSD. The story is told of how my father and his brother had to spend some time in Devon before they had full permission to immigrate to the US. At that time, they did not know English very well. One of the few people they could speak with was the local vicar. However, they spoke Latin rather than English. As this exemplifies, I think that the family did have a certain amount of luck in finding the right people at the right time to help them on their way. Another characteristic of the Panofsky family was to be witty and to always see the amusing side of whatever happened. A good example of this was when my father inadvertently drank a glass of water that happened to have my then boyfriend’s contact lenses in it. When questioned about this, my father looked sheepishly and said, “No wonder I have such good insight.”
Unlike my grandfather, my father refused to cope with tension by smoking or drinking. Playing the piano was definitely a pleasure, a form of relaxation and perhaps therapy too. A favourite memory is seeing him start to play first thing in the morning when he was still in his pyjamas. He also loved to socialise with his family and graduate students through music. Some of his graduate students became family friends and it was through playing duets with my father that this happened. For a wedding present, my mother had bought a small piano with 55 keys. Another upright piano later arrived along with a harmonium which was kept in our basement. For a while, we were a proud musical family with each of us playing our own instrument until my mother gave up playing her cello. My mother did not like competition. While never discussed, I suspect that she gave up playing because she feared criticism and didn’t feel she had it in her to keep up with my father and his musical friends. Rather, she favoured a more supportive role.
While my father was possessive about my mother, he was not possessive about me or my younger sister. He saw me as more courageous than he was. On one occasion at the end of a date when I was returning home, he said to my male companion, “Thank you for taking my daughter out!” On another occasion, he allowed me to go off with a complete stranger at the age of 16 to find and eventually buy a new French horn. This was when visiting Munich and my great Aunt Martha who we had not seen for many years. As it happened, my Aunt was very annoyed with my father for having done this. Thankfully, it all worked out ok.
While my German upper middle class paternal grandmother never cooked, my mother was more or less happy to do all of it. She appeared to like supporting people in her roles as wife and mother. At times there was some vicariousness as if she was living her life through them/us. She would encourage us to do things, sometimes appropriately and sometimes not. She had her hobbies particularly genealogy. She made huge scrapbooks for everyone her family. They showed photos from each individuals’ childhood as well as photos of our common ancestors. My mother was a keen correspondent and a prolific letter writer, first by hand and then by email. As
the eldest of five siblings, she had felt responsible for family cohesion. Especially after my father and she began travelling more, she would write ‘Family letters’ to keep everyone informed of their activities. She also made sure to take family photos and circulated them too. This, of course, was before the days of FaceBook which, in our family, has taken over this cohesive function to some extent.
For a long time, my mother had difficulty forming appropriate friendships outside her extended family as she
and her sisters and brother had grown up in an isolated farm house. I was aware of her frustration in this aspect of life. Eventually, she found the capacity to make good friendships especially through the church and with my father’s students and the wives of my father’s colleagues. In later life, she and my father formed a huge social network from friends made all over the world. On a local level they co-chaired the local UNA (United Nations Association). So in a sense, they had ‘cashed in’ on their interculturalism as a couple.
other of these subjects.
Because my parents had both had overly strict authority figures in their background, my parents were exceptionally kind and wanted us to like them. We even had hugging sessions in bed on a regular basis over the years, but never co-sleeping. My parents had difficulty saying ‘no’ and setting limits. Compromise appeared to be reached fairly effortlessly as my parents with each other were logical, affectionate and complimentary.
My father had his work which he loved and my mother was a traditional housewife. Before a dish washer was installed, my mother used to do the dishes in the evening with my mother washing and my father drying. At such times, they would talk over the day together. As a child, I can recall how gently reassuring it was to hear them do this. In hindsight, my father was quite possessive of my mother. This may have some connection with all the ‘loss’ he experienced when being forced to migrate to the USA in 1933. While he still had his mother, he lost the other important females in his life specifically his nurse, piano teacher, aunts etc. As a ritual, my father took an after lunch nap. His colleagues saw him as a bit idiosyncratic as he would rearrange his university classes so this could take his nap with my mother. My mother never seemed to question this. On later reflection, she realised this
was because her father had always had a nap after lunch, but not with her mother. My father also would not allow her to fly in an airplane without him.
In thinking back to what he had experienced with the rest of his family in being forced to leave Germany in 1933, it is quite amazing that he did not demonstrate stronger signs of depressions or PTSD. The story is told of how my father and his brother had to spend some time in Devon before they had full permission to immigrate to the US. At that time, they did not know English very well. One of the few people they could speak with was the local vicar. However, they spoke Latin rather than English. As this exemplifies, I think that the family did have a certain amount of luck in finding the right people at the right time to help them on their way. Another characteristic of the Panofsky family was to be witty and to always see the amusing side of whatever happened. A good example of this was when my father inadvertently drank a glass of water that happened to have my then boyfriend’s contact lenses in it. When questioned about this, my father looked sheepishly and said, “No wonder I have such good insight.”
Unlike my grandfather, my father refused to cope with tension by smoking or drinking. Playing the piano was definitely a pleasure, a form of relaxation and perhaps therapy too. A favourite memory is seeing him start to play first thing in the morning when he was still in his pyjamas. He also loved to socialise with his family and graduate students through music. Some of his graduate students became family friends and it was through playing duets with my father that this happened. For a wedding present, my mother had bought a small piano with 55 keys. Another upright piano later arrived along with a harmonium which was kept in our basement. For a while, we were a proud musical family with each of us playing our own instrument until my mother gave up playing her cello. My mother did not like competition. While never discussed, I suspect that she gave up playing because she feared criticism and didn’t feel she had it in her to keep up with my father and his musical friends. Rather, she favoured a more supportive role.
While my father was possessive about my mother, he was not possessive about me or my younger sister. He saw me as more courageous than he was. On one occasion at the end of a date when I was returning home, he said to my male companion, “Thank you for taking my daughter out!” On another occasion, he allowed me to go off with a complete stranger at the age of 16 to find and eventually buy a new French horn. This was when visiting Munich and my great Aunt Martha who we had not seen for many years. As it happened, my Aunt was very annoyed with my father for having done this. Thankfully, it all worked out ok.
While my German upper middle class paternal grandmother never cooked, my mother was more or less happy to do all of it. She appeared to like supporting people in her roles as wife and mother. At times there was some vicariousness as if she was living her life through them/us. She would encourage us to do things, sometimes appropriately and sometimes not. She had her hobbies particularly genealogy. She made huge scrapbooks for everyone her family. They showed photos from each individuals’ childhood as well as photos of our common ancestors. My mother was a keen correspondent and a prolific letter writer, first by hand and then by email. As
the eldest of five siblings, she had felt responsible for family cohesion. Especially after my father and she began travelling more, she would write ‘Family letters’ to keep everyone informed of their activities. She also made sure to take family photos and circulated them too. This, of course, was before the days of FaceBook which, in our family, has taken over this cohesive function to some extent.
For a long time, my mother had difficulty forming appropriate friendships outside her extended family as she
and her sisters and brother had grown up in an isolated farm house. I was aware of her frustration in this aspect of life. Eventually, she found the capacity to make good friendships especially through the church and with my father’s students and the wives of my father’s colleagues. In later life, she and my father formed a huge social network from friends made all over the world. On a local level they co-chaired the local UNA (United Nations Association). So in a sense, they had ‘cashed in’ on their interculturalism as a couple.
Religion:
How were specific differences managed? My father was an agnostic from a culturally Jewish home. My mother was a sincere Christian from the Presbyterian denomination. Sunday tended to be a relaxed family day. My sister and I were encouraged to go to Sunday school in the local Presbyterian church, but it wasn’t a big deal if we decided not to go. Usually I went because the teachers made it fun and interesting. Later I taught Sunday school myself (to 12 year olds) and I did volunteer work for the Presbyterian Board of National Missions in Sitka, Alaska.
When my mother taught my Sunday School for a period of time, my Dad came along and played the piano for the hymn singing. I was baptised as a baby and confirmed in the Presbyterian Church. Later, my mother appeared to become more liberal in her outlook. She and my father would attend the University chapel or services at the Unitarian International church.
I did not discover my Dad was not a Christian until I was nine years old. When it emerged in a casual conversation while swinging on a swing, that my father did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but simply a very good man, I was shocked. However, my father calmly made it clear that this difference was ok – manageable and we could still be close which was the case during much of my youth.
Once, as an older teenager after having had an evangelical conversion, I challenged my parents about their religious differences. My parents replied undefensively, explaining jointly that what was important to them was that they had similar values.
For me, it was a sticking point. I was determined that I would share the same faith as my husband even though many other things might be different.
When my parents did have different points of view, rather than argue or row in front of us, they would go in to the bedroom and close the door. As I was curious what was going on in there, I would listen at the door and hear their low murmurs as they discussed whatever was bothering my mother. In certain respects, I felt my mother was always teaching my father about how things were done in American family life. She was the proper one and he, as he became more confident, was the charming, romantic, funny and clever one. As my father did most of the teaching outside the home, he seemed perfectly happy to be ‘the student’ inside the home.
Christmas and Easter were celebrated in both my grandparents’ homes which happened to be at the opposite end of the same town, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. My father fit in with my mother’s Christmas and Easter traditions and my mother fit in with my father’s. This showed tolerance and respect. As children, we relaxed with my maternal grandparents and were intrigued and stimulated by our paternal grandparents. Difference was usually seen as interesting, never a threat. However, this was not the case for my mother’s family. They had warned her against marrying my father. Apparently my grandmother had once told my mother that her children would end up in concentration camps. An Aunt had described my father as ‘ having the map of Israel on his face’ and her father had been very bigoted in his attitude. Fortunately, she had good friends for support and a Presbyterian minister was found to marry them.
When my mother taught my Sunday School for a period of time, my Dad came along and played the piano for the hymn singing. I was baptised as a baby and confirmed in the Presbyterian Church. Later, my mother appeared to become more liberal in her outlook. She and my father would attend the University chapel or services at the Unitarian International church.
I did not discover my Dad was not a Christian until I was nine years old. When it emerged in a casual conversation while swinging on a swing, that my father did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but simply a very good man, I was shocked. However, my father calmly made it clear that this difference was ok – manageable and we could still be close which was the case during much of my youth.
Once, as an older teenager after having had an evangelical conversion, I challenged my parents about their religious differences. My parents replied undefensively, explaining jointly that what was important to them was that they had similar values.
For me, it was a sticking point. I was determined that I would share the same faith as my husband even though many other things might be different.
When my parents did have different points of view, rather than argue or row in front of us, they would go in to the bedroom and close the door. As I was curious what was going on in there, I would listen at the door and hear their low murmurs as they discussed whatever was bothering my mother. In certain respects, I felt my mother was always teaching my father about how things were done in American family life. She was the proper one and he, as he became more confident, was the charming, romantic, funny and clever one. As my father did most of the teaching outside the home, he seemed perfectly happy to be ‘the student’ inside the home.
Christmas and Easter were celebrated in both my grandparents’ homes which happened to be at the opposite end of the same town, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. My father fit in with my mother’s Christmas and Easter traditions and my mother fit in with my father’s. This showed tolerance and respect. As children, we relaxed with my maternal grandparents and were intrigued and stimulated by our paternal grandparents. Difference was usually seen as interesting, never a threat. However, this was not the case for my mother’s family. They had warned her against marrying my father. Apparently my grandmother had once told my mother that her children would end up in concentration camps. An Aunt had described my father as ‘ having the map of Israel on his face’ and her father had been very bigoted in his attitude. Fortunately, she had good friends for support and a Presbyterian minister was found to marry them.
Relationship to Germany: the country and the language.
I knew my father had an accent and had grown up in Germany. I was proud of him in this respect. While he was
also a Jewish refugee, what this actually meant, as a child, hardly impinged upon me at all. My father seemed a cheerful witty man most of time with a great love of puns, and I was too engrossed in my day to day life to have any idea of the rejection that he and his family had experienced. This came much later. He was often the one who chatted with me before I went to asleep. Sometimes he would teach me some German words or even a sentence. For whatever reason, he never set out to teach me German. I remember particular phrases like ‘ Meine Tante ist in Deutchland’ (My aunt is in Germany) which was true as my grandmother’s sister lived in Berlin. Although the Germans had fired my grandfather from his post as Professor of Art History of Art at the University of Hamburg, I was never encouraged to hate Germany or the Germans. Quite the opposite. During high school, I took two years of German, but sadly did not have a linguistic gift. I never became fluent, but I have retained a smattering of vocabulary and could get around with that. I did not go to Germany until my father took the whole family
in 1960 when I was 16. I recall really enjoying that visit especially meeting his old nurse and piano teacher in
Hamburg and buying my own French horn in Munich where I also met my great aunt.
also a Jewish refugee, what this actually meant, as a child, hardly impinged upon me at all. My father seemed a cheerful witty man most of time with a great love of puns, and I was too engrossed in my day to day life to have any idea of the rejection that he and his family had experienced. This came much later. He was often the one who chatted with me before I went to asleep. Sometimes he would teach me some German words or even a sentence. For whatever reason, he never set out to teach me German. I remember particular phrases like ‘ Meine Tante ist in Deutchland’ (My aunt is in Germany) which was true as my grandmother’s sister lived in Berlin. Although the Germans had fired my grandfather from his post as Professor of Art History of Art at the University of Hamburg, I was never encouraged to hate Germany or the Germans. Quite the opposite. During high school, I took two years of German, but sadly did not have a linguistic gift. I never became fluent, but I have retained a smattering of vocabulary and could get around with that. I did not go to Germany until my father took the whole family
in 1960 when I was 16. I recall really enjoying that visit especially meeting his old nurse and piano teacher in
Hamburg and buying my own French horn in Munich where I also met my great aunt.
Education:
My parents together had a love of learning and passed that on to us. When it came to what was to be done with a legacy my mother received from her father at his death, they decided it would be used to send my sister and me to private school for two years each. In my case, this was because they felt I spent too much time on extracurricular activities specifically Girl Scouts (Guides), modern dance and playing my French horn. While I was always a good enough student, they jointly felt I must have a more studious attitude towards my studies. After an interview process, I was accepted at Northfield Mount Herman Schools in E. Northfield, Mass with a small scholarship. It had an excellent reputation with the motto of ‘ head, hand and heart’ and was my first experience with a girls’ school. As I had a slightly enmeshed relationship with my always available parents, and this was the first time I had to do my work completely independently, I became frightfully homesick. Nevertheless, I had lots of enthusiasm as I had certainly acquired a love of learning too. I was creative, a good communicator and I had lots of ideas. Also, even though I was far from being the cleverest in the class, I had lots of energy and could get up very early in the morning to study for exams or work on a term paper. Also, here at NMH besides learning to be more independent, I learned how to do domestic chores in the ‘dummy system’ and how to be more aware of social etiquette in various situations.
Also worthy of mention, my parents were well educated themselves. My father was a professor of atmospheric sciences although he had received his PhD in astronomy. My mother was a graduate of Wilson College, an excellent school for girls in Pennsylvania. Her majors had been biology and botany. This meant that they were continually stimulating me in one way or another. I experienced this stimulation as interesting, not as pressure. I was also encouraged to be creative especially by my mother. If I had an idea like wanting to write a play, she would support me by listening to my ideas and then typing up the play so that I could take it to school and introduce it to the class which I did. If I had an idea of wanting to be a special creature for a Halloween costume, she would figure out a way of embodying this idea so that I could march in the Halloween parade. If I had an idea for a science project, she was there to type it all up neatly at the end so that it could be presented well. I think it was partly this very strong strand of creativity which meant that ‘difference’ never seemed a threat. It was the air I breathed. One could always mix A and B and come out happily with C. This was, in fact, a reflection of my parents’ marriage. They even managed to read the same book at the same time together. I would come home from a school activity or date and there they were reading away together sitting on the sofa.
While my father read much faster than my mother, he was patient and content to wait for her to catch up.
Also worthy of mention, my parents were well educated themselves. My father was a professor of atmospheric sciences although he had received his PhD in astronomy. My mother was a graduate of Wilson College, an excellent school for girls in Pennsylvania. Her majors had been biology and botany. This meant that they were continually stimulating me in one way or another. I experienced this stimulation as interesting, not as pressure. I was also encouraged to be creative especially by my mother. If I had an idea like wanting to write a play, she would support me by listening to my ideas and then typing up the play so that I could take it to school and introduce it to the class which I did. If I had an idea of wanting to be a special creature for a Halloween costume, she would figure out a way of embodying this idea so that I could march in the Halloween parade. If I had an idea for a science project, she was there to type it all up neatly at the end so that it could be presented well. I think it was partly this very strong strand of creativity which meant that ‘difference’ never seemed a threat. It was the air I breathed. One could always mix A and B and come out happily with C. This was, in fact, a reflection of my parents’ marriage. They even managed to read the same book at the same time together. I would come home from a school activity or date and there they were reading away together sitting on the sofa.
While my father read much faster than my mother, he was patient and content to wait for her to catch up.
Music and dance:
To return briefly to music, my parents met in the music room of Wilson college where my mother had been a student and my father a science teacher. They were both listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1st piano concerto in the Music Room when they met. At that time, my mother played the cello and my father the piano. When I was four, I was taken to my first classical music concert and I loved the sound of the trumpet. This was my instrument from nine to romantic. Then I switched to the French horn as I loved the deeper sound. I am still playing the horn today. My father had actually introduced me to the piano at seven. He found a lovely teacher who was warm and encouraging. However, sadly, I had to stop at twelve as my parents felt I was doing too much. I was also involved in modern dance and had three lessons of various sorts a week. As a teenager, I founded my own little school of dance in our basement where there was a bar and suitable flooring. I taught 3 classes for 3 summers and was paid for it. This all ended when I went away to boarding school. At NMH, there was an orchestra so I was able to continue playing my horn. There was also a dance club and I loved dancing in it – group and solo parts. Playing the horn and dancing continued through university and graduate school.
As previously mentioned, I sadly did not have a facility for spoken languages. With effort, Latin fulfilled the university language requirement. However, I have always loved music and saw it as an international language. There was also a religious dimension of music and of dance. It is while listening to music or expressing myself in movement that I have felt closest to God.
To be honest, my mother was much more supportive of the dance than my father. Both parents would show up at orchestra concerts, but it was usually only my mother who came when I danced.
As previously mentioned, I sadly did not have a facility for spoken languages. With effort, Latin fulfilled the university language requirement. However, I have always loved music and saw it as an international language. There was also a religious dimension of music and of dance. It is while listening to music or expressing myself in movement that I have felt closest to God.
To be honest, my mother was much more supportive of the dance than my father. Both parents would show up at orchestra concerts, but it was usually only my mother who came when I danced.
My relationship with my parents:
My parents were kind, interesting and affectionate people and they were loved and respected by a great many family, friends and colleagues. However, they had, at times, great difficulty with me both as a child and as an adult. I did not conform to their expectations in the way that my sister appeared to do. I was an individualist, spirited and had a mind of my own. They claimed, because of these characteristics along with my gregariousness, that I was like
neither of them or anyone else in the family. They thought I looked a bit like my Uncle Wolfgang without his brains. There was a certain ambivalence in our relationship which began when I was born. I was unplanned and they hadn’t been ready to be parents. My father even joked about this. For example, his nickname was HAP, his initials, my mother was Mrs HAP and I was Miss Hap.
From my perspective, I sadly did not appreciate my mother although she did a great deal for me. I saw her as boring and too limited as she never became anyone in her own right. Even my father would complain to me that she allowed everyone ‘to use’ her. While my mother was terribly conscientious in everything she did, the women I most admired were mothers who were or also somebody in their own right. Fortunately for me, they were there in my life in the form of my Girl Scout leader and my Dance Teacher.
Also my parents had rather spoiled me as a child. They realized too late that while they had trained me to be an achiever, they had not trained me to be suitably considerate of them and grateful for what they had given me. For a long time, I took it all for granted and my mother suffered the most because of this - probably because she had low self-esteem which she did manage to overcome to a certain extent. She succeeded in making some excellent close female friends, but she never found the courage to become an archivist, the job in later life she felt that she had been most suited for.
Also, because I was spirited, gregarious and had an international heart, I did not ‘fit in’ to their more introverted
ways of being. However, as they grew older, they both became much more extroverted and confident. This was fine, but it had an embarrassing side which I was particularly aware of when they came to visit in the UK. Sometimes, my distinguished and well-travelled American parents would regale our English friends with intimate details of their health. This made them sound like two lost hypochondriacs. Sadly, this was understandable because both of them had acquired a great many health worries. My father had his first heart attack at 65 and my mother suffered from rheumatoid arthritis requiring countless operations.
Because of the earlier mentioned differences between my parents and me, they both had difficulty understanding me. This led to some scapegoating from time to time that has caused me much pain. I think that this was another aspect of my parents’ intercultural marriage. Rather than look at the deeper aspects of how ‘their differences’ impacted on them, they projected ‘the other’ on to me.
However, this did not get in the way of a mutual love and admiration which I felt for both my parents. At their funerals, I was happy to do eulogies for both of them.
neither of them or anyone else in the family. They thought I looked a bit like my Uncle Wolfgang without his brains. There was a certain ambivalence in our relationship which began when I was born. I was unplanned and they hadn’t been ready to be parents. My father even joked about this. For example, his nickname was HAP, his initials, my mother was Mrs HAP and I was Miss Hap.
From my perspective, I sadly did not appreciate my mother although she did a great deal for me. I saw her as boring and too limited as she never became anyone in her own right. Even my father would complain to me that she allowed everyone ‘to use’ her. While my mother was terribly conscientious in everything she did, the women I most admired were mothers who were or also somebody in their own right. Fortunately for me, they were there in my life in the form of my Girl Scout leader and my Dance Teacher.
Also my parents had rather spoiled me as a child. They realized too late that while they had trained me to be an achiever, they had not trained me to be suitably considerate of them and grateful for what they had given me. For a long time, I took it all for granted and my mother suffered the most because of this - probably because she had low self-esteem which she did manage to overcome to a certain extent. She succeeded in making some excellent close female friends, but she never found the courage to become an archivist, the job in later life she felt that she had been most suited for.
Also, because I was spirited, gregarious and had an international heart, I did not ‘fit in’ to their more introverted
ways of being. However, as they grew older, they both became much more extroverted and confident. This was fine, but it had an embarrassing side which I was particularly aware of when they came to visit in the UK. Sometimes, my distinguished and well-travelled American parents would regale our English friends with intimate details of their health. This made them sound like two lost hypochondriacs. Sadly, this was understandable because both of them had acquired a great many health worries. My father had his first heart attack at 65 and my mother suffered from rheumatoid arthritis requiring countless operations.
Because of the earlier mentioned differences between my parents and me, they both had difficulty understanding me. This led to some scapegoating from time to time that has caused me much pain. I think that this was another aspect of my parents’ intercultural marriage. Rather than look at the deeper aspects of how ‘their differences’ impacted on them, they projected ‘the other’ on to me.
However, this did not get in the way of a mutual love and admiration which I felt for both my parents. At their funerals, I was happy to do eulogies for both of them.
*DAR = An organization called ‘ Daughters of the American Revolution’. A so-called prestigious organization that could prove its ancestor fought in the American Revolution. As it was elitist, my mother refused to belong.
Dr R.A.’Kitty’ Morgan-Jones
