Good idea, except for one thing.
The obituaries editor, ombudsman Christine Chinlund wrote, “seeks to present an obituary page that is not just about white men” — a mission she says is “complicated by the fact that many women who are now in their 70s, 80s, or 90s spent their career years as housewives and thus missed out on the adventures that make for a rich life story.”
How's that for some subtle feminist flummery?
Actually, there's nothing “complicated” about it, and many housewives didn't “miss out” on anything.
One of them is my mother, whose “adventures” are just as “rich” and worthy of recording in a newspaper as those of say, Martha Stewart, Ashleigh Banfield or even the Globe's ballyhooed doyenne of media commentary, Madame Chinlund.
My mother cooked dinner for seven people every night; nine when her kids' friends came over. A priest dropped in for chow occasionally, and there was also the annual visit from Mr. Duffle, one of my father's tax clients. He told corny jokes and always brought five boxes of candy. The kids got butter creams, but my mother got the heart-shaped box full of chews, nuts and other goodies. Usually, the butter creams sat around for months; my mother's candy was gone within days.
Maybe if a reporter asked, they'd get that kind of “rich” detail about the housewives who die in Boston.
A reporter asking about my mother would learn about the time she saw a bus driver deposit some kids at the end of a highway exit. She darted from our Volkswagen Bug to the bus door, and wagging a finger, unmanned the driver. She brooked no guff.
She met my father at a bus stop and was married nearly 59 years. Perhaps a reporter would like to see the cold, one-line, Western Union telegram she sent to my father, stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia, when she learned his brother was shot down over Austria in 1944.
Forty-five years ago in fifth grade, my brother wrote a priceless squib about our Mom and her “gray hairs shooting out the back,” concluding she was “a colorful woman.” That little gem is engraved on a glass box, which sits on a side table in her living room.
In Paris, France, she cornered Sammy Davis, Jr., in a restaurant for a chat. Undoubtedly, the one-eyed entertainer went away changed for life. At one of Nixon's inaugurals, she waylaid Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and James Drury, television's “Virginian,” to get autographs for her young son.
No adventures? No “rich” detail in the life of a housewife? You won't find any if you don't look.
A “professional” woman's “adventures” in the office are no more valuable, or treasured, than a mother watching her boy reading his first word or cracking his first base hit.
The Globe's ombudsman owes housewives an apology, and maybe next time she could write about snooty women in the media who think housewives don't merit coverage.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
