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Daddy, My Lodestar

Posted on July 31, 2023 by aamontgomery

Lodestar: a star that is used to guide the course of a ship, especially the Pole Star; a person or thing that serves as an inspiration or guide.
Oxford English Dictionary

When my sister Lisa and I were growing up, Daddy would pass long-haul truckers on the interstate, pump his fist in the air, and pull it straight down in what he said was the universal signal for truckers to blow their horns. As he shared this inside information, his mile-wide grin was contagious. Lisa and I smiled and waved excitedly after the truck drivers blew their horns just for us. Daddy said he knew truckers’ signals because he went on long-haul runs with his uncles when he was young. In Daddy’s telling, truckers were benevolent kings of the road, and we felt kin to them as Daddy talked about the fellowship of truck drivers with great respect and pride.

Daddy’s father and uncles worked at East Tennessee Packing Company, producers of Selecto meat products, located just down the road from their rented rooms in South Knoxville. The stink of butchered hogs and cows permeated their neighborhood, but the Allen clan, originally from Sevier County–which would eventually become famous for producing Dolly Parton and as the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park–was thankful for the work.

A couple of Daddy’s uncles were tough, hard-drinking truck drivers who could take life on the road and spit any trouble right back into the mouth of the lion. Not so my father, called Rotha (pronounced Rothie by his family) as a tribute to a Mormon elder revered by his parents, Hodge Allen and Darcus Montgomery Allen. Daddy’s maternal grandparents and paternal grandmother Lucinda (pronounced Lu-Cindy) were Mormon converts in an island of Baptists and Methodists, Lucinda became something of an outcast from her community, her husband, and her older sons when she converted. It was only her younger boys Hodge and Clark who joined her in the faith that had few adherents in East Tennessee. The Montgomery family fared no better on their farm in Carroll County, Virginia, and eventually moved to Kingsport, Tennessee.

Daddy was sensitive in the mold of his father who paradoxically was a butcher on the killing floor of the meat-packing company. His mother Darcus died when Daddy was 4 months old, and he was raised by his grandmother Lucinda until she died when he was 5. For my father, childhood was something to survive as he grew up with his ineffectual father and alcoholic great uncle who was an angry drunk.

Daddy, age 17, in August 1952, in Mama’s parents front yard.

Fiercely proud, opinionated, and eccentric, my father could be easily aroused to anger if anyone disagreed with him, which did not bode well for holding a job. But he was friendly, open, and could tell stories. He had an aphorism for every situation, what my husband Kurt and I call Daddy’s Ro-pherisms.

“You’ve got to take the sour with the sweet.“

When my parents were married, Mama worked at the Great Atlantic Shoe Company and Daddy worked at the packing company with his father and uncles. By the time I was born a year and a half later, Daddy was unemployed, so Mama gave birth and after a few weeks went back to working at the shoe company while Daddy kept me. I can only imagine the chaos that ensued with my father, who detested loud noises, caring for a crying newborn. I can also imagine how incensed Mama’s father would have been for his daughter to work while her husband cared for the baby. Waaaaaa, indeed.

Despite dropping out of high school two years before graduation, Daddy landed a few white-collar jobs at Knoxville’s most iconic and successful businesses. First he worked as a bookkeeper at House-Hasson Hardware Company, a company that still thrives, just not in Knoxville. After he lost that job, he proudly gave us a tour of the milling operation at his next bookkeeping job for J. Allen Smith and Company, millers of the South’s finest flour, White Lily Flour. Daddy worked there for a few years before the innovative and thriving company told him they were replacing him with a computer.

Daddy behind me, and Mama behind my sister Lisa, Easter 1961, at Mama’s parent’s home.

“You win some, you lose some.“

After losing his two office jobs, Daddy had high hopes for his next employer, Kern’s Bakery, which produced some of the best bread products in Knoxville. He sweated (quite literally) for two years in the baking area of the company and worked his way up to delivering Kern’s bread to Grainger County, northeast of our South Knoxville home.

Kern’s Bakery was family-oriented and sponsored an annual picnic in the summer for all its employees at nearby Chilhowee Park with plenty of food and free tickets for the employees’ children to ride all the rides. The company also had a small, kids-sized, mobile merry-go-round that could be pulled behind a truck to birthday parties, holiday gatherings, parades, and other special events. The kind and friendly man who was responsible for the Kern’s Bakery merry-go-round handed out tiny loaves of breads to us kids after we rode the brightly colored horses.

We loved Kern’s Bakery, but Daddy’s meticulous and methodical nature was not compatible with quickly delivering bread, and soon he was out of a job again.

“Money isn’t everything.“

For a time he delivered magazines for Anderson News, but that job ended the same as the others. Daddy was a dreamer with strong opinions and great passions. He could not abide being told he was wrong, and he obsessively loved what interested him, such as the high school sports teams at South (Knoxville) High School where he went to school before he dropped out in the 10th grade. He followed the University of Tennessee football team and Lady Vols basketball team, and gloried in the wins of the Lady Vols’ legendary coach, Pat Head Summitt. The team’s and players’ triumphs were his person achievements; he was truly obsessed with the things he loved.

In the mid to late 1980s, Daddy must have bumped into his Allen cousins at a Lady Vols game and decided he was going to take a rather expensive course to learn how to become a long-haul trucker and drive loads across the country with his cousin Blaine.

Daddy in his Tennessee Vols jacket, a few years after he learned to drive a semi.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.“

Perhaps it was the lure of the open road and his love of travel that led Daddy to pursue the life of a long-haul trucker. Or maybe it was his adventurous spirit that encouraged him to change his line of work in middle age. His work life had been checkered, but apparently Daddy wanted to jump behind the wheel and take charge of his future.

Daddy missed Mama too much, so after three weeks of driving a semi, Daddy packed it in and never drove another semi.

Daddy was successful at completing the course to learn how to drive an 18-wheeler with their 9 to 18 gears, and Daddy had to back up the truck as well as go forward. Since Daddy was not in the least bit mechanical, learning to drive a semi was a huge achievement for a man with his abilities, sensibilities, and age.

I would love to write that Daddy was successful at following in the footsteps of his long-haul truck driving Allen family, but as was the case with many of his jobs: this one ended after only three weeks. Daddy missed Mama and found the road was not for him.

Blaine and Daddy did, however, make one long-haul journey to the Pacific Northwest. First Blaine drove, then Daddy relieved him, and so on, as they made steady progress toward their destination: Oregon. Or as Daddy pronounced it: Or-e-gone. Something about the trip, his only visit to this state sparked a lifelong fascination with Oregon and the mountain he saw there.

“Little things mean alot.”

For the rest of his life, Daddy would ask nearly everyone he met, “Have you ever been to Or-e-gone?” The questions was swiftly followed by: “Have you ever seen Mt. Hood?”

Our family, Thanksgiving 2016, with Daddy at its center.

Daddy knew that my husband and I had traveled a great deal since Kurt had worked in over 40 countries during his consulting career. No matter how many times I visited Daddy at his senior living facility late in his life, he would ask me, “Anna, have you ever been to Or-e-gone?” My answer was always be the same, “No, Daddy, I have never been to Oregon.” And I had never seen Mt. Hood.

“Better late than never.“

A week after we had a laughter-filled family Thanksgiving celebration (photo above) together, my father died from a heart attack on Friday, December 2, 2016. At that time, no one in our family had completed the journey that inspired so much joy for Daddy. We had never been to Oregon.

Pittock Mansion, Portland, OR, 2019.
Photo: Kurt Weiss

However, a few years after Daddy died, his grandson Zach–my sister’s son–and the love of his life, Paige, moved to Portland, Oregon. From the city of Portland, on a clear day, you can see Mt. Hood, Daddy’s lodestar.

In September 2019, Kurt and I visited Zach and Paige in Portland. On our final day there, Kurt and I toured Pittock Mansion and its grounds which are located on the highest hill of Portland. The mansion overlooks one of the finest views of Mt. Hood from Portland’s west hills. The mansion was built to the specifications of a visionary man, Henry Pittock, born in London in either 1834 or 1836.

A penniless, but industrious adventurer, Pittock traveled across the U.S. at the age of 17 (according to the Oregon Encyclopedia), in 1853 following the Oregon Trail–six years before the territory entered the union. He worked as a typesetter at the Weekly Oregonian newspaper that was started in 1850, and ten years later he was given the newspaper as repayment for back wages. Henry built The Oregonian into the newspaper with the highest circulation in the state.

Although we had seen Mt. Hood from a distance, as in the photo Kurt taken at the right above, we had never been close to the mountain as Daddy had. On July 23, 2023–during our most recent visit with Zach and Paige–we remedied that as they suggested we travel together to the Hood River Lavender Farms and fruit orchards found at the base of Mt. Hood.

After we cut aromatic lavender stems in the floriferous fields and bought Benton cherries at Kiyokawa Orchards, we saw this stunning view of Mt. Hood in all its glory.

Mt. Hood, Oregon, July 23, 2023, Photo: Kurt Weiss.

Finally I can answer Daddy’s question, “Have you ever been to Or-e-gone? Have you ever seen Mt. Hood?” Yes, Daddy, I have been to Oregon, and I have seen Mt. Hood. It is every bit as beautiful and inspiring as you described.

Thank you, Daddy, for being my lodestar in so many ways!

As I said in my November 2017, blogpost, a year after his death:

Mama gave me my energy, drive, and hardworking, never-say-die work ethic. But Daddy gave me the sweet love that sustained my soul during the times in my life when I was in serious harm’s way. He LOVED me. And because he loved me, I knew in my bones how to love others. Loving myself and accepting myself with all my imperfections has been hard; I am my own worst critic. But Daddy saw only my shiny-faced good points, and he made me glad to be alive.

He still does. And as long as I live, he will always be with me. He is still my sweet, sweet, adorable, dearest Daddy.
Anna Montgomery, November 30, 2017

~ Anna – 7-31-2023

Posted in Autobiographical, Beauty, Courage, Dolly Parton, Family, Ideas, Knoxville, Travel, Wonder | Tagged Dolly Parton, East Tennessee Packing Company, Great Atlantic Shoe Company, Henry Pittock, Hood River Lavender Farms, House Hasson Hardware, J. Allen Smith Company, Kern's Bakery, Kiyokawa Orchards, Lady Vols basketball team, Mt. Hood, Oregon, Pat Head Summitt, Pittock Mansion, Portland, Selecto, Weekly Oregonian | Leave a comment

Sow a Memory

Posted on June 19, 2023 by aamontgomery

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny.
~ A common saying in the 19th Century that may or may not have began as a Chinese proverb. It has been attributed to American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), British author William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), Scottish author Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), American theologian George Dana Boardman the Younger (1828-1903), American educator Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (1839-1898), British philosophical author James Allen (1864-1912), and American author and businessman Stephen R. Covey (1932-2012).

Outside our house today it has been raining cats and dogs. That’s what my Daddy, the king of pithy expressions, would say. Kitty and I are inside for the duration, but I do not mind at all. It almost never rains for hours in Knoxville, so a miracle is happening when it really rains. And no, I am not talking about a barely spitting shower that will never reach the roots of trees and plants, but a drenching rain that will bring the blooms!

Ahhhhh . . .

Rain is magic. After it rains, weeds are easier to pull, my roses couldn’t be happier, and there is not a more comforting sound to hear when I am going to sleep than the steady beat of raindrops hitting the roof. I am never lonely or bored when it rains because something exciting is happening,

Even better than rain, is the drama of wind and rain, but today is only rain and that is enough.

Sometimes rain can make you rethink your plans. I was about 5 years old and my sister Lisa was 4, and Mama was doing what she did so many weekdays when we little: ironing and watching her “program”, the soap opera, As the World Turns. Mamaw, Mama’s mother, must have given us strollers for our dolls that Christmas. After I piled the stroller with my doll and everything else that was important to me, Lisa followed suit. We pushed our strollers toward the door, and I told Mama we were running away from home.

“You are,” she said cooly. “It is raining, you know.”

I looked out the front door, and it was indeed raining. We decided we would put off running away till a sunnier day.

When we were young, Lisa and I were not fond of rain because it kept us from playing outside. Our parents did not have money to buy us toys so we used what was at hand. We put coal from the coal pile and leaves from our shrubs in a battered kettle to pretend we were cooking beef stew and green beans. I have hated green beans, but Lisa loved them.

A carpenter friend of my parents gave us some of his cast-off pieces of wood, and we built houses for our marbles. The blue and green marbles were men and boys and the red and yellow marbles were women and girls.

*Me & Lisa at Ye Olde Steak House for our cousin’s wedding.*

As teenagers, our summer wardrobe consisted of swimsuits because we spent every non-raining weekday at the only pool in South Knoxville: Buck’s. On Friday and Saturday nights, we were hostesses at our great-aunt Helen and uncle Bunt’s restaurant, Ye Olde Steak House. We were around 12 and 13 when we started working. We set up the tables, seated guests, and cleared tables. Aunt Helen gave us each $10 or $15 for the two nights of work from 3:00 p.m. until midnight or so. With our money, Lisa and I bought fingernail polish and makeup. And I bought records and books.

In our 20s, we waterskied behind the boat that Lisa and her husband Rocky owned. Rainy days did not stop us on Norris Lake where we slalom skied–that is, on one ski, not two. Lisa was known for her ability to stay on her ski behind the boat like a long-distance runner. We also did some tubing which is like skiing except with an inner tube instead of skis. Rocky used to love to drive in circles till he flipped me off the inner tube. Painful.

In the fall when the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was not so crowded with summer tourists, my sister and I would walk or bike through Cades Cove, a fertile valley surrounded by hills where people lived and cows grazed until the Smokies became a national park in 1934. Lisa and I talked about everything and never grew tired of each other’s company.

Lisa and her son Zach; and me with my son Justin, Christmas 1990 or 1991.

Lisa came into her own when she started working for Stanley’s Greenhouse, the business started by Rocky’s parents Mary Kathryn and Charles Stanley in 1955. Mama had been working there since 1972, Daddy worked there as well, so it was truly a family affair all around. Rocky was the head grower, and Lisa was the customer service queen who loved her customers dearly. Lisa taught their daughter Abby to work the cash register at the age of 8 when she had to stand on a step stool to reach the keys. After he graduated from college, their son Zach was responsible for the trees and shrubs area of the greenhouse which included growing roses.

Decades flew by and Lisa was a beehive of activity and enthusiasm–always smiling and encouraging her customers. The seasons at Stanley’s were full: a hectic spring of selling summer-season annuals as well as perennials. During the hot humid summer, Stanley’s sold houseplants and containers. In the fall, the greenhouse sold pansies, perennials, trees, and shrubs. For the holiday season, Stanley’s grew 30 or so different varieties of poinsettias, and winter allowed the crew to catch their breath as the greenhouse geared up for another spring.

Lisa sowed generosity and goodwill. She reaped love, affection, and devotion from her family, friends, and the countless lives she touched at the greenhouse. She loved making a difference in people’s lives. And she did.

Lincoln holding my grandson Lincoln as she watered sunflowers the growing fields at Stanley’s Greenhouse.

The first time Lisa was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, she had surgery, recovered, and was back at work as quickly as she could manage. The second time she was diagnosed with cancer was nine years later in the fall of 2019. The diagnosis was grim from the start: Stage 4 bone cancer. As before, Lisa followed the treatment options suggested to her, but they made it impossible for her to work at the greenhouse which was her calling and bliss. Nonetheless, she marched on through 2020 and 2021, coming into Stanley’s occasionally to design containers for a few customers or to offer impromptu gardening advice. By 2022 Lisa’s spirit was strong but her body was tired.

On Friday, June 17, 2022, Rocky called me to say that my husband Kurt and I should come straight away to see Lisa who was very ill. She had an infection and was adamant that she did not want to be hospitalized. She wanted to go home. When we arrived, Lisa was lying on the couch. She was not worried about herself but was concerned about Mama who had fallen earlier in the week and broken her wrist. I assured her that we had taken Mama to a specialist and everything was fine–she should not worry.

Suddenly the skies seem to break open with a furious storm with loud cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning. And rain. Angry rain. Lisa decided she wanted to go out on the front porch and watch the storm. The rain was pelting down in torrents as we watched– it was hard to imagine that such a storm could appear out of nowhere. It was if the natural world rose up affronted by the looming loss of such a well-rooted tree as my sister. As the storm raged, Lisa stood for awhile, then sat– with family members close around her–and talked about hydrangeas and cultivars. Her speech became unintelligible, and we decided she needed to lie down. There, lying in the living room, she slipped into what appeared to be a coma. With family and friends around her.

A year ago, on Father’s Day Sunday, June 19, 2022, my beloved sister Lisa Diane Allen Stanley died. As I write this post I hear thunder in the distance on this the one year anniversary of her death. I still cannot take the measure of the loss of such a strong spirit as my sister. I can only chart her course in memory and carry her with me as I rush headlong forward, as we always have, into life.

Adventures and misadventures. The Allen sisters–15 months apart. Some people thought we were twins. Lisa gave birth to two gorgeous children, and she gave birth to hope and inspired people to grow their gardens. Perhaps it is not surprising that the natural world should respond with vigor to the passing of my little sister. I protected her when we were young, and we were best friends in high school. We walked alongside each other as adults. We were not the same, but we lived through the fires of our childhood together–not unscathed, but unbroken. Spirits are a mystery. They come and they go where they will. Time goes on, and it seems to stop.

My sister sowed love and affection and reaped love and affection. She loved and she was beloved.

Goodbye, little sister. You are not here, yet you are with me still.

~ Anna – 6/19/2022

Posted in Autobiographical, Blooming, Childhood, Courage, Family, Joie de Girls, Knoxville, Love, Tribute, Uncategorized | Tagged Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Lisa Allen Stanley, Lisa Stanley, rain, Stanley's Greenhouse, Ye Olde Steak House | Leave a comment

Our Own Voice

Posted on April 30, 2023 by aamontgomery

Photo taken in St. Martin in the Caribbean, Kurt Weiss & Anna Montgomery, 2006.

Your own voice is the voice that carries you through life the best.
Nanci Griffith (1953-2021), American troubadour on Austin City Limits

The purpose of art is not to show life as it is but life as it should be.
Harry Belafonte (March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023), American singer, actor, and activist

I have only known for the last 10 years that ‘no’ is a complete sentence.
Jane Fonda, American actress, author, and activist

Be true to yourselves and be useful to the journey.
Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, film director, and diplomat

The best thing you can offer anyone is your honest self.
Mister Rogers (1928-2003), American children’s TV show host and national treasure

Don’t be afraid of dying. Be afraid of never living.
Adrienne Shelly, (1966-2006), American writer, director, and actress

~ Anna – 4/30/2023

Posted in Autobiographical, Courage, Happiness, Ideas, Op/Ed Thoughts, The Arts | Tagged Adrienne Shelly, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Mister Rogers, Nanci Griffith, Sidney Poitier | Leave a comment

The Thing With Feathers

Posted on March 23, 2023 by aamontgomery

The fairy sprite that was my sister smiled easily and often. She lifted people from their everyday lives with her exuberance and charisma. She loved children–not just her own, but other people’s children as well. She loved to sing and garden and hike and waterski and run. She especially loved to run, which she did competitively in high school. She continued running even after her body could not quite keep up with her drive to move forward.

She adored the music of Tom Petty and John Fogerty–two legendary songwriters who were born at the tail end of World War II. They both inspired people throughout the world with their singular vision. It could be argued that Tom Petty was one of the best songwriters ever–and Lisa would definitely have made that argument.

Besides her faith and family, being Lisa Stanley of Stanley’s Greenhouse was her raison d’être–her reason for living. Just a year out of high school in 1977, she married the youngest child of the founders of Stanley’s: Charles and Mary Kathryn Stanley. They had named him Roger, but he was by no means a “Roger”, so everyone called him Rocky. And Lisa adored him.

In a way of speaking, Lisa worked at family businesses her whole life. Shortly after she graduated a year early from high school in 1976, she found a job at Lay Packing Company. She worked there as a secretary for long enough, a decade or so, to be a fixture at the Lay family’s meat-packing business.

She was briefly a receptionist at the UT Medical Center, then worked at the UT College of Human Ecology for the associate dean Jim Moran. The University of Tennessee and its medical center in Knoxville were not family-owned, but they seemed as if they were since the majority of people in this part of the world act as if UT and its athletic programs are as important as family. Around here UT is more like a religion than a university.

But Lisa’s dream was to work at the Stanley’s family business, which was a thriving plant nursery built on the Davenport-Stanley Farm that had its roots in the early 1800s. Finally in the early 1990s Lisa talked Rocky into making her dream come true and he joined his family’s business where our mother Arzelia had worked since 1973.

She was in her element. She loved people; people loved her. Increasingly Lisa became the smile, the face, the voice, the image of Stanley’s Greenhouse. Not because there were not able, knowledgable, and amazing people already on board, including Rocky’s older brother Monte who is a legend for his kindness, humility, and love for his community. And there was Rocky himself who was a phenomenal grower and headed the family’s growing team. Yet, Lisa’s joie de vivre (joy for living) and naturally extroverted personality made her a natural.

Lisa with her dear friend Susie Styles at the greenhouse.

Christmas 2012: Mama, Lisa, me, and Daddy.

It was at the greenhouse that she could be found–six days a week during the spring, fall, and Christmas season. She attended church, she and Rocky drove down to Charleston in the off seasons for vacation, and she enjoyed family birthday dinners, but her lifeblood was Stanley’s Greenhouse. She was dedicated to her customers and the business.

Stanley’s Butterfly Festival in August? Check! The fall Pansy Project Benefiting the Pat Summitt Foundation? Yes! Stanley’s Christmas Open House the first Sunday in December? You bet! The Beat the Winter Blues fund raiser in February supporting the Ronald McDonald Charities of Knoxville? A big hit!

We loved Lisa and Lisa loved us. Sure she struggled with her first round of cancer in 2010, but she beat it and moved on down the pike missing nary a beat. Was she a bit larger than life? Yes, she was. It did not seem at all fair when the cancer returned in 2019. Worse this time. More advanced.

Lisa with the ladies of Gatlinburg after the fire that destroyed homes, and their gardens, in 2016.

Her faith was strong, in her oncologist and radiologist, as well as in prayer as she endured radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and the final experimental therapy that I can no longer recall. She went to church, she saw friends, she did a little gardening when she felt up to it, but it was a great loss to her that she could no longer work at the greenhouse. She needed to marshal her energies for the cancer treatment regimen. But if she was visiting the greenhouse and saw a customer who needed help or guidance, she was on it.

Today, Thursday, March 23, 2023, would have been my sister Lisa’s 64th birthday if she had not died of bone cancer on June 19, 2022. The last words I heard her say on June 17, were about hydrangeas. Hydrangeas need plenty of hydration, it’s right there in the name. They need plenty of water. Then she said, “Cultivar.” Merriam-Webster says a cultivar is:

an organism and especially one of an agricultural or horticultural variety or strain originating and persistent under cultivation.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

Ahh, look at these beauties! Lisa loved hydrangeas.

My sister was incredibly persistent under cultivation. She pressed on when there was no there left. She fought, battled, waged war on cancer, bought Christmas presents, and baked her signature red velvet cake for my husband Kurt’s birthday and holidays. And Lisa loved, loved, loved the Island Home neighborhood of South Knoxville where she lived for 45 years, first on Maplewood Road, then just across the road and down the street to Spence Place where she and Rocky moved in 1989.

Island Home was where Lisa ran nearly every morning, and walked her beloved dog Plum. She planted annuals at the entrance to the neighborhood and was on the neighborhood association board. She knew who lived in nearly every home, where they had come from, where they worked. She tried relentlessly to find me a home in the neighborhood so we could live near each other, but the right property never came available. Still she persisted. As she always did.

After she died, some of her neighbors decided the gardening spot just past the entry columns of Island Home–where the trolley would turn around before making its way back to Downtown Knoxville in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s–should be dedicated to Lisa. They named it Lisa’s Garden, and used their skills to perfect the space.

Longtime neighbor and able carpenter (among his many other talents) Wayne Williams made a beautifully crafted bench and placed it under a dogwood tree–a perfect choice, because Lisa loved dogwood trees. Wayne and his gardening partner Joni Morabito spruced up the area, and local artist Mitzi Congleton designed and painted the sign making the designation official. This is Lisa’s garden.

Lisa’s bench resting under the arms of a dogwood tree.

With Lisa’s birthday approaching, the celebration is different this year. On March 21, I visited Lisa’s Garden and picked up three pinecones from the nearby tree dominating the space, Wayne had placed a bed of small rocks in a wooden frame to support and anchor Lisa’s bench. I picked a coral-pink one that glistened a bit in the noon-day sun. It felt like the right one.

In the Jewish tradition, placing small rocks on the headstones of the dead signified love, veneration, respect, and remembrance. They are called visitation stones. I witnessed this act at the end of the incomparable 1993 movie Schindler’s List, directed by Stephen Spielberg. A few of the 1,200 Jewish people saved from the Holocaust by Oskar Schindler, a German businessman, placed small stones on his grave alongside the actors who played them in the movie. Tears came to my eyes as I witnessed this profound statement in such a small act.

Cemeteries have a multitude of rules about what you can place on the graves of your loved ones: Artificial flowers, yes or no? Approved vases, yes, other vases, no. Items placed on graves during mowing season: no, no, no. Christmas trees, yes or no–and if yes, how long can they remain? I have never considered such questions because I prefer to think of my loved ones as they were in life. Full of life. Losing Daddy was a huge loss in December 2016, and I did place a stone on his gravestone a year or so ago. But somehow Lisa’s death feels different, more personal, more defining, more challenging. Her death was too soon.

I drove to the highest hill of Woodlawn Cemetery, on land that we are told was once owned by Rocky’s ancestors, the Davenport-Stanley family. Rocky’s parents Mary Kathryn and Charles are buried there, and our grandmother Jerushia’s brother Charles (Uncle Charlie) Cunningham and his wife Helen rest nearby.

Lisa’s gravestone features phalaenopsis orchid blooms, one of Lisa’s favorite flowers. I placed the three pinecones on Lisa’s grave marker with the gem-like rock at the center. Since pinecones come from evergreens that do not lose their leaves in winter, they signify life, human enlightenment, and regeneration. Some sources say that pinecones symbolize immortality–eternal life. And I certainly wish that for Lisa and for all of the people I love. And I know that Lisa fervently believed just that.

It is not for me, however, to know what comes after human life is over. Does the soul soar over the earth making patterns of white against a blue sky? Do the birds cry from the sheer sorrow of it all from the barren trees? There are so many mysteries around living and dying. Life and death. With mystery comes doubt, but also possibility. Hope? The thing with feathers that can fly?

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) , from her poem ” ‘Hope’ is the thing with Feathers ” (written around 1861)

I recall. also the words sung by the American troubadour Nanci Griffith about a miner’s daughter who died in Tecumseh Valley:

Lisa waving goodbye, Independence Day 2021.

Her ways were free
And it seemed to me
That sunshine walked beside her.
Townes Van Zandt, “Tecumseh Valley”

It seems to me that sunshine still walks beside her.

~ Anna // March 23, 2023

Posted in Autobiographical, Blooming, Courage, Fabulous, Family, Happiness, Knoxville, Love, Wonder | Tagged Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers, Island Home, Jim Moran, John Fogerty, Joni Morabito, Knoxville, Lisa Stanley, Lisa's Garden, Mitzi Congleton, Nanci Griffith, Oskar Schindler, Schindler's List, South Knoxville, Stanley's Greenhouse, Stephen Spielberg, The University of Tennessee, Tom Petty, Townes Van Zandt, Wayne Williams, Woodlawn Cemetery | 3 Comments

Blooming on Bare Branches

Posted on February 28, 2023 by aamontgomery

Through the window in our backdoor, I see bees buzzing round the pink flowers of my plum tree. Plum trees bloom in late winter or early spring on bare branches before the leaves erupt. They do not wait to bloom until their leaves arrive to provide shelter and protection. No, they sally forth and bloom.

Here in East Tennessee blooming in spring can be treacherous as our springs are riddled with the potholes of mini-winters. Today it may reach a balmy 70 degrees and in a few days it can be a high of 30 degrees, windy, and cold. When I was younger and complaining about the unpredictable nature of our so-called spring weather, Daddy would declare, “This is blackberry winter, Anna.” Now how did he have any idea it was blackberry winter when we did not grow, or see any blackberry bushes around us?

I thought my father was simply telling tall tales that had no attachment to reality. But according to the Tennessee Historical Society, Daddy was right. The farmers who settled this area of Appalachia observed the natural world and named the little cold spells in spring accordingly. Thus, our spring “winters” were named for the activity going on at the time: redbud, (black) locust, and dogwood winters for when these trees were in bloom. Blackberry winter was when blackberry canes get their buds, “britches” winter for when you could put away your long underwear, and whippoorwill winter was when you began hearing the sweet sound of the whippoorwill singing at dusk.

In practice, East Tennesseans of the past and today emerge from the winter of our discontent (thank you, Shakespeare), ready for a reliable spring, and we instead suffer setback after setback as winter returns throughout February, March, and April, raising hopes and then dashing them.

Globally we have been suffering such setbacks since March 2020 when the pandemic began.

Today British author Katherine May’s book, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age became available, Her last book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times was published during the height of the coronavirus pre-vaccine days of November 2020.

According to an article called How to Find More Joy by New York Times writer Christina Caron, May wrote Wintering during the Covid-19 pandemic, a time in her life when she was feeling dormant, depressed, and empty. Her usual way of living with action and purpose had fallen away and she felt calcified.

She clawed her way out of her doldrums by simple steps forward: writing a Post-it note for herself saying, “Go for a walk,” and committing to do just that. In her latest book, Enchantment, she writes about how taking the time to look for the simple acts of wonder around her pulled her from her malaise. This commitment to take notice of the simple joys around us is not easy amid the cacophony of distraction, obligation, and strife of modern life. Katherine May suggests we keep it simple and just asks ourselves what soothes us. A hot bath? Dancing alone to our favorite song? Taking a walk? Watching swirls of wispy clouds moving ever-so-slowly across the sky?

Simple pleasures have not always been enough to carry me through the last three and a half years. My dear sister Lisa was diagnosed with Stage 4 bone cancer in the fall of 2019. Covid 19 became known to us in March 2020. While we tried to find our footing with a disease that killed people around us, we watched as Lisa’s failed treatments, one after the other throughout 2020, 2021, and half of 2022, left her body a husk. Somehow, her shining eyes and spirit seemed undiminished, yet, her pain grew harder to manage. After two days of coma, she slipped away from us on June 19, 2022, at the too-young age of 63.

We learned Mama had breast cancer a few months after Lisa’s death. Luckily, she had what appears to have been a successful surgery to remove it just before Christmas. Our winter has indeed been one of discontent.

Yet there are others who have suffered more. For inspiration I have turned repeatedly to the people who were alive in the early part of the 20th Century when most of the world was at war. World War I and World War II were only a little over twenty years apart–with the influenza pandemic sandwiched in between.

I am inspired by the brave people who laid their lives on the line willingly fighting the Nazis through Resistance efforts. As well as the Jews and other oppressed people who were imprisoned by the Hitler war machine, yet found a way to live when death was all around them.

Similarly I am inspired by the father of quantum physics, the German scientist Max Planck who won the Nobel Prize in 1918. I do not pretend to understand quantum physics, but I am inspired by all he overcame during his lifetime and his urge to do his ethical and moral best despite incredible hardships.

Planck married his wife Marie in 1887, and they were blessed with four children: eldest Karl, twin daughters Emma and Grete, and son Erwin. Just 12 years after their marriage, Planck’s wife Marie died. Two years later Planck married his second wife, Marga, and they had a son named Hermann.

During World War I in 1914, Planck’s second son Erwin was captured by the French, and his eldest son Karl was killed in battle. In 1917, Planck’s daughter Grete died giving birth to her first child, and in 1919, her twin sister Emma died in childbirth as well. Although their mothers died, both babies survived and were named after their mothers. And in the final chapter of Planck’s life, his beloved son Erwin, who survived imprisonment by the French, fought Adolph Hitler and the Nazis from inside Germany and was hanged in January 1945 for his part in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler in 1944.

Albert Einstein and Max Planck (center) at a dinner in 1931.

What can we learn from this man, Max Planck? Despite his work in science, he says:

. . . there is no science and no intellect capable of answering the most important of all the questions facing us in our personal life, the question, that is, how we are to act. . . . what is important . . . is to work unceasingly toward the ideal aim, to struggle daily and hourly toward a renewal of life, and despite every setback to strive toward improvement and perfection.

. . . There is . . . an inalienable treasure which guarantees to thinking and feeling men their highest happiness, since it assures their peace of mind, and thus has an eternal value. This possession is a pure mind and good will. These afford secure holding ground in the storms of life . . .

Those who are ever striving forward
Them we can save.
Max Planck, German Physicist (1858-1947)

What is worth doing? Living to see the light and feed the light in the eyes of those around us and those we love, creating beauty, bringing the joy, easing the load of the fellow traveler, making a difference in the building of community, and finding a balance in the middle of the riot of extremism. Seeking the light. Being the light. Fighting the fight to be our best selves in a time of earthly chaos–which is always.

~ Anna 2/28/2023

Posted in Autobiographical, Beauty, Blooming, Courage, Family, Ideas, Op/Ed Thoughts, Wonder, Writing | Tagged cancer, Christina Caron, cold spells, Enchantment, Erwin Planck, Hitler, Katherine May, Lisa Stanley, Max Planck, mini-winters of East Tennessee, The New York Times, Wintering | Leave a comment

Add a “Y” to Your Fox

Posted on January 29, 2023 by aamontgomery

My husband Kurt and I were finishing up a Scrabble game a few years ago, and he had one letter left: a “y” which can be quite difficult to find a place for late in the game. He was about to throw in the towel and subtract the points from his overall total when I noticed there was a solution he did not see: the “y” could be added to the word “fox” that he made earlier in the game.

My friend Mary would say Kurt and I are so competitive when we play games because we are both firstborns, but I know plenty of oldest children who are not as competitive as we are. In any event, even though the game was close, I had to tell him he still had a play he could make.

“You could put the ‘y’ on ‘fox’,” I said. I knew it was possible that he might beat me with that move, but it is a great word, and I thought he should make it–and of course he did.

I am constantly looking for symmetry and serendipity when random things show a pattern and come together to make something new and revealing. Many times my life has been enriched by hearing the lyrics of a song, watching the right movie or television show, or reading a book that points me in a new direction or reinforces my view of living a passion-filled life.

And There Was Light, by Jacques Lusseyran, has been just such a life-changing book for me. It was originally published in the U.S. in 1963 when I was a small child. I discovered the book when I worked at my former high-octance job that required me to work long hours, and I often found I did not have time to read anything beyond newspapers. Yet, I ordered a British publication of the book, never read it, and promptly forgot I had it.

If I had not seen an e-blast from our local independent bookstore Union Avenue Books about Lussreyran’s autobiography, I would probably never have rediscovered and read this beautiful gem of a book. In his memoir, Lusseyran tells about his inner (and outer) life as a blind 17-year-old–yes, a blind adolescent–who started and led a Resistance group in World War II, Nazi-occupied France.

Most of the members of his group, Defense de la France (DF), were not yet 21 years of age. And yet, the underground paper they published for disseminating accurate news and boosting the morale of the French people became the most important daily newspaper in Paris and was published after the war as France-Soir.

Jacques was blinded by an accident at school when he was 7 or 8 years old, but only briefly found it to be an impediment. He taught himself Braille in six weeks so he could return to school. As a child, he grew alarmed by the rise of Adolph Hitler in Germany and decided to teach himself German so he could listen to the Third Reich’s radio broadcasts. He was obviously a driven, focused prodigy who did not see his blindness as an impediment to living a full life.

Remarkably within his blindness, he saw light and shadow and colors attached to people and sounds. Perhaps due to the loss of his sight, his other senses became more acute and he had a gift for telling when someone was lying by their voice, presence, and his strong intuitive sense. This gift came in very handy at weeding out possible traitors when he interviewed would-be members of the Resistance– although he was eventually betrayed by a member of his group and was imprisoned by the Germans in Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Lusseyran is one of the best writers I have ever read. My words fail to capture the music of his writing. I highlighted so many paragraphs in my copy of his memoir that I began using different colored highlighters to differentiate the passages. He captures the fragility and beauty of life perfectly as in the following passage:

Memories and emotions are fragile things. You should never bear down on them, or draw on them by main force. You should barely touch them with the tips of your fingers, the tips of your dreams. The best way to bring love back to life, and happiness with it, was to catch hold of a reminder of love, catch it lightly as it passed by.
Jacques Lusseyran, “And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II”, 1963.

And he writes eloquently about his friendships with the young men who were his best friends in words that, in our age, are reserved only for describing lovers.

I walked in the middle and was happy, without knowing exactly why–happy to be with men who, like me, were not willing to shut their eyes to life.
Ibid

He was a religious man, a Catholic, who nevertheless wrote with the open nature of a humanist:

God is neither a German nor a Russian nor a Frenchman. God is life, and everything that does violence to life is against God.
Ibid

This photo captures a volunteer dill courageously growing through a crack in the driveway beside my sister’s home in Knoxville in September 2015. Dill symbolically means: “powerful against evil.”. Photo: Kurt Weiss.

He was imprisoned for 15 months in Buchenwald, the Nazi concentration camp for non-Jews where he was one of only 30 Frenchmen to survive of the 2000 people imprisoned at his sub-camp during the final years of the war.

How did he survive? By giving to others and living life boldly. He proclaims, “Fear is the real name of despair. Fear kills and joy maintains life.”

I could try to show other people how to go about holding on to life. I could turn toward them the flow of light and joy which had grown so abundant in me. . . . That is what you had to do to live in the camp: be engaged, not live for yourself alone. . . . Joy I found in strange byways, in the midst of fear . . .
Ibid

And he writes:

When a ray of sunshine comes, open out, absorb it to the depths of your being. Never think that an hour earlier you were cold and that an hour later you will be cold again. Just enjoy.
Ibid

And oh, the joy and relief his fellow prisoners must have felt, in April 1945, when the U.S. Third Army liberated Buchenwald and its sub-camps under the command of General George Patton. Lusseyran mused, however, that:

Buchenwald survivors when the U.S. Third Army liberated the camp in 1945.

Joy does not come from outside, for whatever happens to us it is within. The second truth is that light does not come to us from without. Light is in us, even if we have no eyes.
Ibid

We have eyes and too many of us still do not see, as we are reminded by the heartbreaking death of a young, unarmed Black man pulled over in his car for an alleged traffic offense by five Black Memphis police officers in an unmarked car. The 29-year-old man, Tyre Nichols, father of a 4-year-old child, died three days later of the wounds he endured. I have not watched the video of this senseless beating, released last Friday by the Memphis police, but I have read accounts of it, and it breaks my heart. Those officers that were chosen to serve, protect, and help make their community safe could not find a spark of recognition that they should treat a fellow citizen, a fellow Black man, as a human being. It reminds me of how the Germans viewed not just the Jews, but anyone they did not value. For humanity is truly about values and what and who we choose to hold dear–and what and who we do not.

Lusseyran wrote that the true heroes of Buchenwald were not the most religious, wealthy, learned, accomplished, or powerful people. He found it was the most humble and surprising people who showed the most humanity.

The religious searched everywhere for their faith. They did not find it again, or else they found it so reduced in force that they couldn’t make use of it. . . . The people who had been generally respected ran after their lost respect, but there wasn’t anything left of it. And the intellectuals, the cultivated men, the great brains, had great sorrows. They didn’t know what to do with their learning for it didn’t protect them against misfortune. . . . They could understand anything more readily than the fact that their intelligence was out of season.
Ibid

But the shining beacon of Jacques Lusseyran’s insight, spirit, courage, and love has shone down through the many years between our lives and has enriched my own. If you are looking for strength and courage in this sometimes bewildering time, I recommend you read, And There Was Light.

Thankfully we have not lived the horrific systematic deprivations visited upon the people who got in the way of the Nazi war machine during the worst of the madness of World War II, but we can learn from the principles of a man who did: that bringing joy to others, and sharing joy with others, can make even a difficult life worth living. By lifting others, we find ourselves.

You can’t imagine how despair smells, or for that matter confidence. They are worlds apart in odor. . . . The remarkable thing was that listening to the fears of others had ended by freeing me almost completely from anxiety. I had become cheerful, and was cheerful almost all the time, without willing it, without even thinking about it. That helped me, naturally, but it also helped the others. They had made such a habit of watching the coming of the little blind Frenchman with his happy face.
Ibid

Living to lighten the load of others, serving others, was Lusseyran’s way forward in the worst of circumstances. He kept his sanity, remained humble, found joy in the simplest things, and shared his inner light with his fellow prisoners. He lived through the madness of a concentration camp, and although he died in a car accident in France with his third wife in 1971, he told his story, shared his wisdom, and made a difference in countless lives.

After hearing Lusseyran’s inspiring story, you are probably not concerned about the outcome of our Saturday afternoon Scrabble game. However, in the spirit of Jacques Lusseyran’s noting that giving is the real receiving, I will report that Kurt put a “y” on his “fox”, made the word “foxy”, and I won the game. I could make the argument that he did too.

~ Anna – 1/29/2023

Posted in Autobiographical, Beauty, Courage, Happiness, Intuition, Joy (Joie de General), Love, Op/Ed Thoughts, Tribute | Tagged And There Was Light, Buchenwald, Defense de la France, France-Soir, General George Patton, Jacques Lusseyran, true courage, Tyre Nichols, Union Avenue Books, World War II | 1 Comment

Dancing With Holidays Past

Posted on December 30, 2022 by aamontgomery

My father Roy Rotha Allen with his grandson Zach, Christmas 2012.

I remember the year our beloved nephew Zach played his classical guitar for us on Christmas. “Play one more song, Zach! That was beautiful!” And there was the time we gathered for our annual wacky family Christmas group photo and Kedi, the neighborhood cat that had adopted us, refused to stay in my husband Kurt’s arms, and we laughed till we cried.

This year I had plenty of time to consider Christmases past–and other family get-togethers–as I joined the many people who were sick for Christmas 2023 and missed the whole festive occasion.

Christmas 2013 with our passionate and somewhat crazy family: (Seated) our lovely niece Abby, Daddy, Mama, our nephew Zach, and his wonder dog Jack; (standing) my sister Lisa, her husband Rocky, our son Justin, my husband Kurt, and me.

I began feeling sick enough to call it that on Friday, December 23. At first I had hopes that I would recover in time for Christmas. I thought: Maybe it is just a cold, and I can mask up and wash my hands a lot and join the family get-together.

But it was not to be. My temperature shot to 101.3 during the night, and my doctor was kind enough to call in Tamiflu on Christmas Eve just before the pharmacy closed at 6:00 p.m. We assume it was the flu that came calling for Christmas–the unwanted visitor–since three at-home Covid tests thankfully came up negative. A few dear people I know where not so lucky in that regard.

This was the first time I have ever been sick at Christmas, so I am grateful for that. But it was hard not to feel sorry for myself, and the other people I know who have suffered with Covid and other respiratory infections this holiday season. And of course, this was the first Christmas without my dear sister Lisa who died in June of cancer. Lisa achieved so much in life and inspired so many people. The mystery of her passing confounds us. How could cancer overcome such a fighter? The holidays are not an unalloyed gladness for those with empty chairs around the table.

Instead of considering our family’s loss this year, I will share our family’s most exuberant celebrations over the last decade.

THANKSGIVING 2014

The string of Thanksgiving hilarity started in 2014 when our family attacked the turkey together and Daddy thoroughly enjoyed himself even though he had began to show some mental decline. In the turkey-takedown photo at left are: my husband Kurt, our son Justin (during his goatee period), my niece Abby (fetching as always), Daddy, Mama, my sister Lisa, her husband Rocky, our nephew Zach, and me. The turkey did not have a chance.

THANKSGIVING 2015

Thanksgiving 2015 we celebrated together at Daddy’s assisted living facility and had the main entry space to ourselves–piano and all. Our usual hijinks ensued.

Clockwise from top left: (Photo 1) Our son Justin (still with the goatee) was accompanied, physically not musically, by his fiancee Tracy who is an accomplished pianist. Daddy was the matchmaker who was an early cheerleader for the relationship and could not have been more delighted. (Photo 2) Mama is usually very reserved in photos, but she showed her playful side in the photo below. (Photo 3) I was a relentless photo bomber (someone had to do it) in this photo of our gorgeous niece Abby and Daddy, and (Photo 4) most of the family showed some attitude except for Mama who took a more relaxed approach.

THANKSGIVING 2016

Matchmaker Daddy was over the moon that his grandson Justin and the love of his life Tracy had married in the spring of 2016, and he was Justin’s best man. That Thanksgiving we gathered at Daddy’s rehab facility to celebrate the holiday and Tracy’s birthday.

Daddy had broken his hip a few weeks before Thanksgiving and the rehab facility was kind enough to allow us to gather in their cafeteria. The top three photos show Kurt’s efforts to take a photo of Daddy with his girls: Lisa and me. Kurt could not get Daddy’s attention which cracked us up–and eventually Daddy started laughing too. The group shot captures Daddy’s relationship with Kurt: total delight with each other! It was great to pull of such a fun occasion at a rehab center!

A few days after Thanksgiving, which was on November 24, Daddy died of a heart attack at his rehabilitation facility during his morning exercise workout. We were devastated, but there were so many reasons to find comfort after Daddy died: We all had such a lovely time together at Thanksgiving. Mama was at his side when he died. He did not have a long protracted death. He had some mental decline, but he still knew us and was very much himself even in his final days. For all these reasons, we celebrate that Daddy no longer was in pain, and he did not suffer.

CHRISTMAS 2013

On this Christmas nearly a decade ago, I made a scrapbook for Daddy filled with photos of his favorite musicians, along with a CD of his favorite music from the 1950s. Lisa and I had grown up listening to Daddy’s 45s, so we knew every word of his favorite tunes. One of those songs “Love Is Strange”, by Mickey & Sylvia, was also featured prominently in the movie “Dirty Dancing” which Lisa had watched repeatedly with her daughter Abby. So the three of us did an impromptu dance to “Love Is Strange”. Kurt caught the magic which is just one of the many advantages to having a photographer for a husband!

Love Is Strange

Love
Love is strange
Lot of people
Take it for a game
Once you get it
You never want to quit, no no
After you’ve had it
You’re in an awful fix

Many people
Don’t understand, no no
They think loving
Is money in the hand
Your sweet loving
Is better than a kiss
When you leave me
Sweet kisses I miss

Sylvia
Yes, Mickey
How do you call your lover boy
Come here, lover boy
And if he doesn’t answer
Oh lover boy
And if he still doesn’t answer
I simply say
Baby, oh baby
My sweet baby, you’re the one
Baby, oh baby
My sweet baby, you’re the one

Written in 1956. Songwriters: Ethel Smith (actually Bo Diddley using his then-
wife’s name)/ Mickey Baker / Sylvia Robinson

Yeah, Bay-bay, you’re the one!!!!

CHRISTMAS 2018

All the family, including Zach’s beautiful partner Paige, was in town for Christmas 2018 at our new (yet more than a century old) home in Old North Knoxville. This was the first Christmas gathering in our smaller home where photobombing had to be done on the stairs. I was definitely up to the challenge.

CHRISTMAS 2019

The yuletide celebration three years ago is significant because: Zach came in alone from Portland without Paige who stayed home to care for their adorable dogs Jack and Bear. He could only stay until December 21. We did not know it at that time, but due to the pandemic of Christmas 2020, Lisa’s illness during Christmas 2021, Christmas 2019 would be the last Christmas season we would be together as a family with Lisa.

Lisa was diagnosed with Stage 4 bone cancer in the fall of 2019, and she fought valiantly with full steam ahead through all that the local medical professionals offered her: radiation and chemo, needles and infusions, immunotherapy, and whatever the final treatment was that I have now forgotten. Lisa’s spirit was undaunted no matter whatever the news from the oncological battlefield that was her body. It was, after all, her body that gave out on June 19, 2022, but her spirit never did.

Lisa, me, and Zach, December 15, 2019, near Lisa’s home in the Island Home area of South Knoxville.

Can we get our heads around it? No. We never will. She is gone. She has a grave on one of the highest hills of South Knoxville, near where we grew up on Scarlett Court, a short walking distance away.

I see her stone there on the ground marking her resting place, but she is not there for me. She continues to dance, she continues to love, she continues to sing, she continues to smile, she continues to hug, she continues to inspire. There is not another. Lisa. She is still with us as long as we draw breath. We fought alongside her whether we were there for the infusions or not. Whether we saw the oncologists or the nurse practitioners, we were there with her in spirit. And she is with us now. We will not give her up.

Christmas 2019: (clockwise from right front) Lisa, Rocky, me holding my grandson Lincoln, Kurt, Abby, Holden, Tracy’s parents Ronnie and Vicky, Justin holding Penny, Mama, and Tracy.

Words, words, words. They are not enough. Visions of the past, we danced together. We found joy together. We shared sorrow. We laughed; we cried. We grew up in those houses together. We heard that music. We sang those duets. We joined our souls together, my beloved sister.

I had to give you up on that hill high above the land we walked together, but I see you still. Tears fill my eyes. I remember you. I see you. You are still here with me. And yet you are gone.

~ Anna – 12/30/2022

Posted in Autobiographical, Courage, Dance, Dementia, Family, Home, Love, Music, Tribute | Tagged cancer, Christmas, Covid, Dirty Dancing, empty chairs, Island Home, Lisa Stanley, Love Is Strange, Old North Knox, Old North Knoxville, Sylvia & Mickey, Thanksgiving, The flu | 4 Comments

The Superheroes Among Us

Posted on November 30, 2022 by aamontgomery

Stay gentle, keep the eyes of a child
Don’t harden your heart or your hands
Songwriters: Brandi Carlile / Phil Hanseroth / Tim Hanseroth
Warner/Chapell Music

Last Thursday our family gathered for Thanksgiving while two superheroes ran among us with their capes flowing ever so gracefully behind them.

The good intention of these heroes was obvious. They flew without care and appeared to understand the stakes involved: Living in the moment, living for today, living with passion and exuberance. Because they are children, they dwell in the land of the possible and the playful. May we join them as often as possible. May we learn from them.

Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the sky
And ask the sky and ask the sky

Don’t fall on me
Songwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck [REM] © Universal Music Publishing Group

Flying above the ordinary world, these heroes do not become trapped in their heads, ruminating about their past and future. As every child–and feline or canine companion–can show us, the present is the only actionable time period for eating, playing, jumping, running, and living. We adults are heavy with burdens and doubts and sadness that have piled so high that we feel incapable of flight, of being ourselves. It is for the superheroes, the children, to help us remember the sky and the broad firmament of now.

Don’t let ’em lower your shoulders
Love ’em more while they try
Grow younger while you’re growin’ older
Be amazed by the sky
Songwriters: Brandi Carlile / Phil Hanseroth / Tim Hanseroth
Warner/Chapell Music

Fighting bad guys can be difficult even for superheroes. There are many people with their own agendas selfishly ready to shoot down the simple pleasures of being yourself, singing your song, shining your light, loving who you wish to love, and just enjoying the natural world around you. Keeping your chin up and back straight are tough when so many people are filled with anger and hate. But the antidote of child-like wonder is a powerful force for good in this world.

Darling, stay wild if you can (if you can)
The girl with the world in her hands (in her hands)
Songwriters: Brandi Carlile / Phil Hanseroth / Tim Hanseroth
Warner/Chapell Music

Staying wild does not mean lowering yourself to engage the haters and their enablers. No, the word wild means: “living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated.“

May the superheroes–and the rest of us–not be tamed by the forces of darkness and jealousy that weigh down so many. As the Holocaust survivor and groundbreaking Austrian philosopher Viktor Frankl learned, the Nazis could enslave his body, but they could not enslave his mind. To rise above despair, he found, ” . . . it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” May we see that even as we grow taller and older, seeking natural beauty and making a difference in the lives of others is the right choice for our own happiness as well as the people around us.

The ripples of love and kindness may seem small, but they flow outward inexorably. In other words, they are impossible to stop.

Stay gentle, stay gentle
The most powerful thing you can do
Oh, gentle, unbreakable you
Songwriters: Brandi Carlile / Phil Hanseroth / Tim Hanseroth
Warner/Chapell Music

As all true superheroes know, you must know your own strength to lift up the ones who are at risk of falling. Believe in yourself, gentle heroes: You who are flexible, resilient, and strong. Float like a feather on the wind, as you teach the ways of kindness and gratitude, even to those who do not understand you.

May you fly with the clouds, may you dance, may you sing, may you be passionate, may you love, and may you teach others how to live the now with you.

~ Anna – 11-30-2022

Posted in Autobiographical, Beauty, Blooming, Childhood, Courage, Creativity, Dance, Family, Happiness, Ideas, Love, Music, Wonder | Tagged Brandi Carlile, children, earthlings, Fall On Me, REM, Stay Gentle, superheroes, the now, true superheroes | 2 Comments

Ode to Halloweens Past

Posted on October 31, 2022 by aamontgomery

Over the past few decades, Halloween has both grown into a bigger event and become somewhat controversial in some circles.

When we were young it was a wonderful escape from the ordinary as my sister Lisa and I each picked out our mask for the night, which we called our “false face”. We would gleefully trick-or-treat around our small neighborhood in South Knoxville. I still recall the house on the corner of Baker and Davenport Road that gave the best Halloween candy. Seeing all the older people’s faces light up when we came to the door was enormous fun. However, it was hard to breathe with the masks on our faces, so we would remove them after each house and replace them only when we got to the next door.

For a few years we collected money for UNICEF on Halloween. As the door to each home opened, we would say, “Trick-or-treat for UNICEF!” We felt privileged to do our part–doing good on Halloween as well as collecting candy.

When my sister Lisa was in the 6th grade and I was in the 8th, her boyfriend and his best friend egged our house on Halloween. This kind of hijinks was typical, but it certainly did not endear the boyfriend to anyone in our household, including my sister.

As teenagers, our Methodist youth group had the run of our church fellowship hall, and we turned it into a haunted house of which we were very proud. We worked together to devise the most appropriately scary “haunted house” that would still be safe for all concerned. We chose the fellowship stage as well as the Sunday School classes leading to it. Going through the haunted house was electric with the unknown around every corner.

In my 20s, the church Halloween party featured simple handmade costumes as you can see in the photo above. Left to right, I am dressed in a robe and shower cap with cold cream on my face; our friend Craig dressed as a hillbilly, Russ put his shirt on backward and called it a costume; my sister Lisa was a witch; and our friend Jeff was a leopard.

Another Halloween church party, either the year before or after, I tied balloons to a purple leotard and went to the party as a bunch of grapes, while my friend Gina was a Hershey’s kiss. Although her costume was more ingenious, I won the prize for best costume. A few years ago, when we moved Mama from our family’s home into a condo, I found my trophy featuring a smiling pumpkin on top.

In the late 1990s, what had been for us a time of simple pleasures, dressing up in costumes with friends and playing games, became associated with darker forces. Sure mischief had always been part of the Halloween mix, but good fun was all we were ever looking for. Some churches and other organizations began sponsoring “trunk-or-treating” instead of “trick-or-treating” because it was seen to be less spooky, less scary. At these events, church members give children candy and toys from the trunks of their cars.

Although going around a parking lot getting candy from car trunks during the daylight can be fun, there is just something more compelling about the simple pleasures of dressing up, and going door-to-door at night in your neighborhood.

As I was searching for pictures of Halloweens past, I found other photos from the many lives I have led: a photo of the University of Tennessee system-wide administration women losing a tug-of-war against the UT campus women in October 1985. That’s me in the Paris Match T-shirt in the middle of the losing side.

I also found a picture of my beautiful sister Lisa (at left below) who was matron-of-honor when I married my now ex-husband Brian. This was my second wedding, and you can see my then 7-year-old son Justin (center photo) taking a phone call at the event. He would grow up to marry Tracy, the daughter of my lovely friend, Vicky Martin (photo below right), who helped serve at the wedding. It can be a small world in South Knoxville!

My sister Lisa as matron-of-honor, my son Justin, and his future mother-in-law at my second wedding in 1987.

My dear sister Lisa died in June and the mystery of her passing is something I will never quite understand. I was more sure of many things when I was younger and collected the thoughts of wise people who inspired me. I found two of these quotes today in one of my many scrapbooks.

It takes so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price . . . One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.

One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
Morris L. West, from “The Shoes of the Fisherman”

Today my younger self is advising my older self to be open, not to be closed off. To risk the pain that comes with living. To risk the loss of those you love–those you cannot imagine that life can go on without. I cannot always take these ideas out of the closets of my mind. I take them out today, looking forward to tonight when I will hold my 10-month-old grandson Walker in my arms and give away Halloween candy to children on our front steps. Walker’s eyes will be bright. He will try to take in the scene of colorful outfits and laughter. He will try to understand the mysteries of the night, as will I.

When we were young, we put on our false faces and for a few hours visited the friends of our parents and grandparents who were utterly delighted with our costumes and our chorus of, “Trick or treat.” I remember fondly our grandparents’ across-the-street neighbors Alfred and Grace Cummings. Always with a smile for us children, these dear people made a difference in our lives no matter that they were just our loving cheerleaders. They believed in the good in us. They helped us believe in ourselves.

As an adult I “learned to play the violin in public” by getting divorced a few times. The first marriage was a disaster in many respects, but from it came my adorable son, Justin, who has traveled many roads with me. On Halloween 1989 in Ft. Worth, Texas, I helped Justin into his Halloween costume–he went as a scarecrow–and the next day, on All Saints Day, gave birth to his baby brother, Aidan, who gave us great joy. Sadly I could not find the photo of Justin in his costume, but I found a few of him from that time period: Justin in his baseball uniform and singing a solo at an elementary school event. Fantastic, talented, much-loved Justin!

In one of my scrapbooks I found a quote by opera singer Beverly Sills in 1981 as she spoke to graduates of Barnard College, an independent women’s college in New York City:

Women are told today they can have it all–career, marriage, children. You need a total commitment to make it work. Take a close look at your child. He doesn’t want you to be bright, talented, chic or smart–any of those things. He just wants you to love him. He will be the one who pays the price for your wanting to have it all. Think carefully about having that baby. Not to have it would be a great loss. To have it too late greatly increases the health hazards for you and the child. To have it without a commitment to it would be a great tragedy. There are two keys: one, believe in yourself; two, love. You must ooze it from every pore. Love your work, your husband and your child, not just to hear his needs but to feel his needs. For your husband you must reserve that 30th hour of the day when he has you all alone to himself. If you wonder when you’ll get time to rest, well, you can sleep in your old age if you live that long. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.
Beverly Sills, opera star & impresario, May 1981

I never thought that I could have it all. Being born poor tends to ratchet down your expectations for taking over the world. Being female had it is own limitations, even though I have fought that reality for most of my life. Luckily for me, my husband Kurt does not feel threatened by a strong woman who has her own ideas.

The world has changed so much since I was young, but the fundamentals are the same: love deeply, profoundly, and passionately. Fight the fear. Flee the hatred. And open your door on Halloween.

~ 10/31/2022 – Anna

Posted in Autobiographical, Childhood, Courage, Family, Home, Ideas, Knoxville, Women | Tagged Barnard College, Beverly Sills, Halloween, Methodist, Morris L. West, South Knoxville, The University of Tennessee, UNICEF | Leave a comment

Lisa’s Garden and Her Island Home

Posted on September 25, 2022 by aamontgomery

First you learn and then you’ll teach
About that bright, bright light
Making its way
On up the mountain night and day
And you’ll get tired and you’ll get weak
But you won’t abandon your masterpiece
Now there’s a light making its way
On up the mountain night and day
And you’ll go down and you’ll go deep
But you won’t surrender your masterpiece
You won’t surrender your masterpiece
You will deliver your masterpiece
Jakob Dylan, American Singer/Songwriter

My sister Lisa delivered her masterpiece. She sought and created community and natural beauty wherever she was, and for all of her 63 years she lived within a few miles across the river from Downtown Knoxville in South Knoxville. Most of our ancestors go back a few hundred years in this area that used to be farmland outside the city limits. And Lisa married Rocky Stanley whose forebears have farmed and/or grown plants on the same land since the early 1800s. The Davenport-Stanley farm is now also home to Stanley’s Greenhouse which was started in 1955, by Rocky’s parents Charles and Mary Kathryn–where Lisa joyously worked for around 25 years.

Lisa & Rocky in front of their home with daughter Abby and her future husband Holden Jerrolds.

After their marriage, when Lisa was 18 years old and Rocky was 19, Rocky’s parents, helped them buy a home in the most desirable residential area in South Knoxville: Island Home. When the area was developed for residential housing a hundred years ago it was named Island Home Park.

According to the Knoxville History Project, led by its executive director, Knoxville historian and writer Jack Neely, Island Home gets its name from a small island down the river from downtown Knoxville. The land was originally owned by Moses White, son of Knoxville’s founder James White, who sold it to Col. Thomas Williams. There was a small island just down the river from Knoxville which became known as “Williams Island”.

Quite a few colorful characters and well-connected folk lived in Island Home from its beginnings, including the man that Col. Williams eventually sold the land to: Perez Dickinson. A relative of one of the most influential of American poets Emily Dickinson, and a native of New England, Perez originally came South to teach at Hampden Sydney Academy, a boy’s school that originally opened in 1817. The academy had several iterations and at one time was combined with East Tennessee University, the institution that would eventually become the University of Tennessee.

During the Civil War, Dickinson found himself on the wrong side when Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861 to join the Confederacy. Tennessee was the last state to secede (and the first to rejoin the Union) but tensions ran high in East Tennessee with loyalties splitting families, businesses being confiscated from Union sympathizers, and some men leaving the state to muster in Kentucky to fight for the Union. Although he was said to be a slave owner himself, Dickinson was a strong proponent of the Union and eventually left Tennessee.

After Dickinson died, his pastoral riverside property passed to his son, then, several other owners before it was laid out as a planned community by the Island Home Park Community in 1911. By 1922, the neighborhood had 44 homes, and more were built throughout that decade.

Abby in front of the Island Home trolley at the East Tennessee History Center.

Just past the entrance to the Island Home neighborhood, is a circular green space where, beginning around 1912, electric trolley cars turned around before making their way back to downtown. According to Knoxville Area Transit (KAT), the last trolley car made its run in Knoxville in 1947. A few years ago, along with help from her daughter Abby (shown in photos above), who lives on Island Home Boulevard, Lisa added plants, trees, and shrubs to the Trolley Turnaround site.

Professionals and civic leaders of Knoxville have lived in Island Home ever since. Their numbers included the physician Frank Faulkner, who not only was the head athletic trainer for the University of Tennessee Volunteers football team in 1928, but delivered our father, Roy Rotha Allen, when he was born in April 1935.

When we were young, Mama and Daddy had close friends who lived on Island Home Boulevard just down the street from Tennessee School for the Deaf that was relocated to the area in 1924 from its former location downtown. Many of our classmates in school lived in Island Home, and we had playdates with them. One of our high school teachers, Rose Mary Pressley, and her family owned the house that would become Lisa and Rocky’s home in 1988.

Our parents were also friends with Tom Jr. and Grace Parkhill (photo below) who lived on Island Home Avenue. Tom Jr. became a nationally known hybridizer of tall-bearded irises since his wife Grace was particularly fond of their flowers. Lisa and I played Barbies with their daughter Beth, and Tom III, Lisa, and I were in a high school production of the play”Tom Jones”. Lisa (shown rehearsing in the photo below right) was Sophie, the leading lady, but we all knew it was Tom that would be the one who would take his skills to the next level.

In 1989 Tom Parkhill founded the Tennessee Stage Company, a 501c(3) theater company providing local actors with professional opportunities. Tom remains TSC’s founding artistic director, and the company operates with the guiding motto typical of Tom’s wit: “Elvis is our co-pilot”.

When Tom found the leading lady of his life, Laura Regis, they were married on Knoxville’s Market Square right in the middle of the highly popular Rossini Festival benefitting Knoxville Opera. The marketplace where the Stanley family once sold its flowers and plants, hosted the marriage of Tom and Laura (above center) on April 23, 2016. Their touching wedding in the midst of the cacophony of a local street festival was one of the most perfect weddings I have ever had the privilege to attend. After their nuptials, Tom and Laura made their home in the only home Tom Parkhill has ever lived in, which was a few streets over and up the hill from Lisa and Rocky Stanley.

Lisa fervently believed there was no other place to live in the world than Island Home. Having lived in Fort Worth; Morristown, Tennessee; and West and North Knoxville, I found there were a few spots on Earth that were inhabitable besides South Knoxville.

In the past few days, I have come to understand more fully why my sister was rooted so deeply in the soil of Island Home. It was the people of Island Home, her neighbors. When we walked through the neighborhood together, Lisa knew who lived in every home. She knew how long they lived there, what they did for a living, where their children went to school, and how they changed their home or garden since they moved in.

When Lisa was diagnosed with Stage 4 bone cancer in fall 2019, her community rallied around her and over the next few years left gifts, flowers, and food on her front porch. As she endured radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, her spirit was indomitable, but her body weakened, and the cancer continued to spread.

When Lisa passed away on June 19, 2022, a few of her neighbors decided to celebrate her life in a tangible way. Wayne and Carolyn Williams, Lisa’s neighbors since 1977, put their heads together with Joni Morabito and Mitzi Congleton, and came up with a plan. Wayne, a talented woodworker, built a beautifully crafted bench out of pine and ash, created a raised bed of pebbles to anchor the bench to the site, and added a plaque that reads:

In Memory
Lisa Diane Allen Stanley
1959-2022

Mitzi, a sought-after portrait artist, painted a sign that reads: Lisa’s Garden. They decided to place the bench underneath a dogwood tree, Lisa’s favorite tree, facing the river.

When the garden bench and sign were finished, her neighbors invited us to a special family unveiling of Lisa’s Garden on September 16, 2022, the night before the official dedication for the entire neighborhood the next evening.

Tears came to my eyes when I saw Wayne’s handiwork and Mitzi’s sign officially dedicating this public space of Island Home as a garden celebrating Lisa’s life. Her neighbors’ generosity was overwhelming, but so perfectly Lisa. The next night I was delighted to see Tommy Smith, who represents the First District on Knoxville’s City Council. He lives in Island Home with his family and does a fantastic job for our city. It was also a pleasure to see Debbie Billings, former owner of Graphic Creations, who another neighbor of Lisa’s, who built her business with integrity, professionalism, and kindness.

Lisa’s passion was Stanley’s Greenhouse, but when she had a few moments away from the greenhouse, Lisa worked in her home garden. She favored pink cleome (photo below right), her Edgeworthia bush, panolas (a cross between pansies and violas), pansies, violas, hydrangeas, and a contorted willow (below center right) that she planted along her fence line in the backyard. This tree has quite a story.

Lisa gave birth to her first child, Zachary (called Zach), in 1985, however, when she tried to have a second child, she found it difficult to get pregnant. After many interventions failed to produce the desired result, Lisa stopped fertility treatments and, to her surprise and great joy, found that she was pregnant again. When Lisa gave birth to Abigale (known as Abby), in August 1995, my husband Kurt and I gave her a dozen yellow roses with a small branch from a contorted willow tree in the center. Of course, being Lisa, she decided to root the willow branch and when it was big enough, she planted it in her backyard. Now, 27 years later, the willow that was once a floral decoration, is a 30 foot-tall tree.

Just as she always did, Lisa took something rather insignificant and grew it into a powerful statement of natural beauty that can be enjoyed up close as well as from afar. Similarly Lisa created a sense of community with tangible gifts to her neighbors and neighborhood, but also gifts of her spirit. She inspired many people to share her passion and grow their own gardens. She shared her enthusiasm with her customers, neighbors, friends, and family. She was an original.

Kurt and I were watching a British crime drama called Silent Witness the other night and one of the main characters, Leo, quoted a line from British poet and novelist Philip Larkin’s “An Arundel Tomb”:

What will survive of us is love.
Philip Larkin, “An Arundel Tomb” written in 1956, included in the book “The Whitsun Weddings“, published 1964

From Lisa’s love of Rocky came their children Zach and Abby, and from Lisa’s love of the natural world and her love of people around her came the sense of community that she created so effortlessly. That communal spirit between the natural world and humankind continues in Lisa’s Garden in Island Home. She continues to bring people together even after she is no longer physically with us. Her love goes on. Lisa never abandoned her masterpiece.

// Anna ~ 9/25/2022

Posted in Autobiographical, Backyard Nature, Beauty, Blooming, Courage, Family, Friends, Home, Knoxville, Love, Stage, The Arts, Wonder | Tagged An Arundel Tomb, Civil War, Col. Thomas Williams, Dr. Frank Faulkner, East Tennessee University, electric trolley cars, Frank Faulkner, Grace Parkhill, Hampden Sydney Academy, Island Home, Jakob Dylan, James White, Joni Morabito, Knoxville, Knoxville Opera, Laura Parkhill, Lisa's Garden, Mitzi Congleton, Moses White, Perez Dickinson, Philip Larkin, Silent Witness, South Knoxville, Stanley's Greenhouse, Tennessee, Tennessee School for the Deaf, Tennessee Stage Company, Tom Parkhill, Wayne and Carolyn Williams | Leave a comment

found objects creative

Daddy, My Lodestar

Sow a Memory

Our Own Voice

The Thing With Feathers

Blooming on Bare Branches

Add a “Y” to Your Fox

Dancing With Holidays Past

The Superheroes Among Us

Ode to Halloweens Past

Lisa’s Garden and Her Island Home

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