Hearth and Home
As the season has grown colder, I’ve been spending most nights ensconced on the couch in front of the open fire. As I gaze into the flames, various songs come to mind that speak of keeping the home fires burning.
One such song is “We’ll Gather Lilacs” by Ivor Novello. If we ignore the messy plot of the show from which it originates (“Perchance to Dream”), the song becomes a wartime ballad, sung by those at home waiting for their beloved soldiers to return.
The irony of my thinking is not lost on me. On the mantlepiece of my fireplace is a framed photograph. It’s a side view of my maternal Great Grandma, sitting at a dining table, quietly reading. The table is in front of a fireplace and on its mantlepiece are two framed photographs, possibly of my Great Uncles in their military uniforms.
My photo is approximately 87 years old and was most likely taken when my maternal Grandad was away fighting during World War ll. At the time his mother in law (my Great Grandma) was living with his young family.
The main reason I display the photo is that Great Grandma is seated in what’s become known in our family as “Grandma’s chair”, and beside her is the family’s music cabinet. Both of these items now grace my own living room, and a favourite photo of my Grandad in his army uniform sits atop the antique cabinet. Many of the same music albums are still stored behind its dappled glass door.
I’m not sure why I am so drawn to the photo.
Perhaps it’s the simplicity of life displayed – a lone elderly lady, reading in the quiet between meals, seated at a clean, sweetly decorated table, in front of a tidy, minimally adorned fireplace.
Perhaps it’s the knowledge that during those years, women were encouraged to “keep the home fires burning” – keep a warm, cheerful, calm and functional home to sustain the morale of the soldiers overseas. From the photo, it seems my Grandma managed to do just that, and I can imagine her sitting in front of that fireplace quietly knitting socks to send to Grandad on the support lines.
As I sit, pondering these things before my own fire, I wonder at the difficulties my Grandparents and others of their generation had, in rebuilding their lives after the war. When life is stripped to its essentials a greater appreciation for their simplicity grows.
Another song comes to my mind – one from a very different show, but the final lines of which, I think, acknowledge the fundamental need for such simplicity.
From Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide”…
“We’re neither pure nor wise nor good. We’ll do the best we know. We’ll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.”
Thank-you, Grandma and Grandad, for doing just that.
Nikki
(Click the following link to hear Ivor Novello singing his own “We’ll Gather Lilacs”.)
