"Mama Rosa knew a lot of medicine. She probably never heard of the word 'genetics,' and if she did she probably didn't understand it's importance. But before her son got married, Mama Rosa wanted not only to meet the woman he was marrying, but her mother, her father, her sister, aunts, uncles, and any other kin. As Mama Rosa was fond of saying, 'The acorn don't fall far from the tree!'"
--James A. Freeman, MD
Those words are quite ironic considering Grandma Rosa's past.
I remember that I had my own room at my grandma Rose’s home.
It was cozy and quaint --and best of all, all mine. I stayed there a lot as my father and
mother were very, very busy adults who had me "later in life." (I suppose “Susan” was a much
nicer name than “Oh shit!”) I loved my grandma’s house. She cooked and cleaned, taught
me to bake lemon meringue pies, watched spaghetti westerns, and had a baby Jesus
atop her TV. I remember her yelling out to the good guy, "Watch it! Watch that snake in the grass!" And then she would go about change baby Jesus' vestments in accordance with whatever Catholic
holy day it was. Yes, she was Catholic – Sicilian Catholic, not Catholic light, as I
am.
She went to church every morning, dropped her quarter in the
offerings box, lit a candle, and said a prayer -- all before mass. Then she
would genuflect at the pew, slide down the bench to her same spot, get down on
her knees and begin to pray the rosary. She prayed that rosary over and over,
again and again throughout the entire mass. I always wondered if she ever heard
one word of the sermon.
She was quite an interesting person. She too was a rebel.
Apparently, I come from a long line of rebellious women. Anyway, she was one of
many and I think the oldest of the girls. Let’s see, there were six for
certain, perhaps seven (I cannot be sure): Guyatano (they called him Guy), Rosa,
Angelo, Mary, Lawrence (they called him Bootsie; I don’t know why), and Tina.
Their mother, “Great Grandma Louise” was still alive when I
was a little girl – and man was she alive. She was the meanest woman I had ever
known in my five years of life. We’d go to visit her and she would yell and
scream about my new shoes and how people are starving and here I am in new
shoes. Wow. I was five so of course, she scared the hell out of me. She’d make
me take my new shoes off – she wouldn’t have them in her house. She spoke
Italian and barely any English, as I recall. However, like most of us, she knew
how to curse you in many a language. My mom would send me out of the house and
into the garden to see the strawberries and such while my dad and she visited
with Great Grandma Louise. I always thought it odd that we would go visit this
cranky old lady without my Grandma Rosa – after all, wasn’t it HER job? Great
Grandma Louise was a hard core Sicilan, a very black or white, “my way or the
highway”...well, no -- more like “my way or you’re dead to me” kind of woman. She
was EXTREMELY Catholic -- I mean nervy enough to call out the Pope when he was
being “stupido!” She’d say, “Che cosa che problema?!” Actually she would yell
it. Now that I’m older I realize it may have been poor hearing that caused her
to yell. However, poor hearing had nothing to do with her being angry all the
time.
Her daughter, my grandmother, could not have been more
different. She was the perfect grandma. She clearly chose me as her favorite
grand child and all my cousins knew it. Though I don’t believe they hated me
for it. I think because I was so much younger than they and my mom simply
wasn’t as engaged in the mothering thing, as my grandma was. I was forbidden to
drink Coca-Cola or eat donuts or cookies so what was it grandma let me do every
time I was there? Yep. She’d say, “Now don’t tell your mama” and she’d send my
grandpa out to get freshly made donuts at Sims’ Bakery on Railroad Avenue. When
I’d awaken before school, hot donuts were on the table...along with a cold
Coke. I scarf down this breakfast of champions before I would walk by myself
across this huge field that separated my grandma’s house on Bubba Street from
my elementary school.
I remember thinking how lucky I was to get to stay at her
house for days on end. I never thought to ask her where my parents where and
why I was staying at her house. However, as I grew older I began to ask about
my grandma and why she never went to see Great Grandma Louise. As it turns out
-- Great Grandma Louise banished Rosa from the family.
Rosa ran away from home at age 16 and got a job with the
railroad. It is beyond belief that she survived at such a young age -- and in
that era. With that, she saved enough money to get through nursing school in
New Orleans and ultimately became a Registered Nurse.
Somewhere along the line she met a professional gambler. Wow
-- how exciting that must have been. He was older than she but they got
along well and had fallen in love. He asked her to marry and she said yes. She
told her mother of her happiness and in Great Grandma Louise-style, she was
exiled from the family. Why? Because he was Jewish. Alvin (Al) Freeman was a
brilliant professional gambler who decided to take my grandmother as his bride.
Yes, they travelled and gambled and swindled and saved. Perhaps history has it
that she used some of that money for nursing school. As I am not exactly
certain of the chronology, I cannot be sure. Nevertheless, they had some fun.
When Rosa got pregnant, they settled down. She practiced nursing and they had
three children, James, Robert, and Joan Lee. (Yes, all the women in my family
went by two names not just one – Joan Lee on my father’s side and Joan Lou on
my mother’s side, and then there is my mother, Janet Sue, of course).
My grandfather was accustomed to being treated poorly
because he was Jewish. The sick-and-twisteds of the world were alive and well
then as much or more than they are now. His own father had changed their name
from Friedman to Freeman so they would not be known as Jews. It was a measure he
took to protect his family. He went to great lengths to do so. Oddly, the poor
fellow was struck by lightening and killed in the doorway of his home – or so
the story goes.
Anyway, Rosa and Al settled down and raised their three
children. Unfortunately, when James (may father) was only ten, Al died, leaving
Rosa to raise three children on her own – and that she did. She became a hard-nosed,
no holds barred, git ‘er done kinda gal and was going to “make it” at all
costs. She REALLY did walk four miles to work and four miles back each day to
keep food on the table. It sounds cliché but in this case – it is not. It was
easy in a small town, raising three kids who were Jewish (they decided on
Judaism as their faith at the time) as a single Catholic woman. She really did
not know what to do with the children as far as their faith went, as she was
raised by such a strict Catholic, she felt they may suffer for being not enough
of either. With Al dead, who would teach the children? She decided to raise the
children Catholic after all. However, by then, my father had known and loved
the Jewish faith. It spoke to him. He made the switch, however and they were
all raised Catholic in small-town Louisiana. It made things a bit easier for my
Rosa, I am sure.
I remember stories of a chilling night when the kids had run
out of firewood and they were home alone as Rosa was at the hospital working.
They were so very cold, they made the decision to chop down every door in the
house, save for the one to the outside and the one to the bathroom. They burned
the doors as firewood and tried to collaborate on what to tell their mother
when she came home. As the story goes, they lived in a shotgun shack on the
wrong side of the tracks. People used to tease them and say, “You’re so poor,
even the blacks won’t talk to you.”
For those who knew my father, they know he grew up to help
many, many, people of every race, religion, and age – he even helped those who
made fun of him and called him “monkey” as a child.
Over time, Rosa raised some fine children. She did remarry
-- the Fire Marshal -- oddly enough. She continued to practice nursing at the
local hospital, long after her son ended up owning it. She continued to praise her
baby Jesus, in the house my father built her. Together, they all went on to
value God, family and education, in that order. She was quite a tough cookie
and proved to be an amazing woman. A woman I am proud to emulate and blessed to
have known.
She had gone in for exploratory surgery, as they feared she
had a tumor in her stomach. After finding her insides riddled, they removed
most of her stomach. She did not do so well after that. I remember that I was
going on my senior trip during her surgery. Knowing how close she and I had
been, they did not want her to die while I was gone so they kept her on life-support
until I returned. Upon return I went to the hospital. I was immediately
regretful for seeing her so white, weak, lifeless.
Grandma Rose died the night of my first cousin Lisa’s
wedding. She was a lawyer marrying another big-time lawyer and it was quite the
extravaganza at the Pentagon Barracks along the Mississippi River in Baton
Rouge. Her father was a high-ranking elected state official at the time so
everyone who was anyone was there – except my Grandma Rose. I miss her – and to
this day, when I look to find a strong, smart, driven, never-give-up role model
in my life, I see only her. She still moves me.
