Herstory by Kate Emery General

“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When Louisiana became a state in 1812, the seal was changed from an eagle holding a laurel wreath in its beak to a pelican plucking at its breast to draw blood to feed its ten chicks. The change in the seal by then Governor Claiborne was his way of honoring Louisiana’s Catholic heritage. In an 1812 Catholic prayer book, the Pelican is the symbol of self sacrifice.

My grandmother, Ruth Agnes Stephenson was born in 1906 in Pelican, Louisiana to parents of Scottish descent. This area in DeSoto Parish is known for its hunting and fishing, Hickory trees, and as a Confederate battlefield. Ruth’s father died when she was six years old, leaving the family penniless. Ruth was sent to live in a convent and her mother got a job as a secretary. The convent and its treatment of little children was practically out of a Charles Dickens novel.

The nuns taught Ruth to love sewing, and to mistrust the church. Ruth and her mother were reunited when her mother married a man from Casper, Wyoming. Upon graduation of high school, Ruth got a secretarial job working for the City of Casper. A young, tall, handsome geologist from Houston, Texas caught Ruth’s eye and they were married in 1924. My Grandfather, Harris, the youngest of five children, a Rice University graduate, and a Navy Pilot during WW1, worked for Texaco Oil. The family, which included my mom and aunt, moved every two to three years to exotic places such as the Philippines and Holland.

Ruth had a love of antique furniture and spent her days decorating her homes, sewing all of the curtains herself. Ruth loved entertaining, she was an inspired cook, her search for herbs and fresh ingredients elevated her meals to a life-changing experience. To this day, my grandmother’s curry recipe is my favorite. Growing up, my Dad would use Ruth’s recipe for our yearly curry parties at Christmas time. The curry at our restaurant, General Tanuki’s, was Ruthie’s recipe.

We have a movie of the day that Ruthie christened a Texaco Tanker at the shipyards in Ireland. Ruthie recited the usual poem, starting with; “for thousands of years we’ve gone to sea….” and broke the champagne bottle on the first try. At the luncheon after, the movie shows Ruthie giving a speech after accepting a mink stole and a diamond brooch as a gift from the President of Texaco Oil.

Life was wonderful for Ruth and Harris, while traveling the world they collected antique silver and first edition books. They www had witnessed marriages of both daughters and had four grandchildren. They were enjoying life in Bronxville, New York, playing golf and tennis every weekend. Harris was senior Vice President of Texaco when he fell ill. His stomach pain was unbearable, the doctors thought it was a virus picked up on one of his trips to Panama. The “virus” was actually very aggressive cancer, he lived three months. Ruth was devastated, absolutely destroyed. She couldn’t stand being in the house that she and my grandfather had bought so she sold it and traveled to Switzerland then Thailand. She went back to her Southern roots and bought a house in Sea Island, Georgia. I learned to ride a bike one summer we spent visiting her there.

Friday dinners were at the Cloister where there was a kid’s club. Ruthie seemed happier surrounded by her many friends, near the ocean where she swam and fished and sailed. She continued to travel, this time to Paris and Scotland, where she’d send incredible sweaters from Scotland and dolls from Paris. She’d visit us once or twice a year, coming off the plane with two men’s watches on her arm, different time zones on their faces. Our dog always chose Ruthie’s Ferragamo pumps as his favorite chew toy and her Southern drawl would surface when she would call him a “Varmit.” She moved to Boston to be near my aunt. This gorgeous apartment, one of five, in a deconsecrated church with its stained glass windows, lasted a year then she moved back to New York City.

We would visit in the fall and stock up at Saks Fifth Avenue for school clothes and shoes. One day as we were walking on Fifth Avenue, Ruthie instructed my sister and me to walk ahead because her smoking a cigarette on the street might besmirch our reputations. She taught me to never chew gum in public, not lady like. I had my first lox and bagels with her, her apartment was over the best deli. My first trip to New Orleans was with Ruthie, she was an excellent tour guide. One summer we took buses from New Hampshire to Tidewater Virginia. We saw all of the historic sights and met many of Ruthie’s friends from Texaco days. One of her friends convinced Ruthie to buy a condo in St. Petersburg, Florida. We loved our summer there, we swam everyday in the Gulf of Mexico, we ate the best fried chicken, and we traveled to Cape Kennedy for a space launch. After a year, Ruthie moved back to Bronxville.

Ruthie, my Aunt, and my Mom stayed a couple of weeks with me when I lived in Coronado, California. We spent a day getting lost in Tijuana while shopping for perfume, Ruthie in her riotous Pucci blouse and coral colored pants. We ate fish tacos and hamburguesas in Old Town San Diego and went whale watching at Point Loma. Ruthie bought a mouton coat at Buffums that I have to this day. I felt empowered by my aunt, my grandmother, and my mom during that visit, all four of us alone for one reason or other, navigating our lives with power and dignity.

That trip was the last time I saw Ruthie alive, she died six months later. My children and I flew to Houston for Ruthie’s gravesite funeral, no churches for her. Ruthie had been cremated and her urn was sitting on a pedestal. The officiant had never met Ruthie but proceeded to eulogize her nevertheless. Without any warning the urn fell to the ground, luckily the lid remained intact, no spillage of ashes. The minister scurried to replace the urn to its pedestal and introduced the family member who was chosen to give the eulogy. We all sat in shock at Ruthie’s ability to voice her disapproval from the great beyond.

My Grandmother had a difficult start to life but with incredible grace and fortitude she became a woman of the world. She told me once that she knew that she was destined to be more than a poor little girl from Pelican, Louisiana, and she was.

Kate Emery General is a retired chef/restaurant owner that was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Kate loves her grandchildren, knitting and watercolor painting. Kate and her husband , Matt are longtime residents of Cambridge’s West End where they enjoy swimming and bicycling.