Remembering my Mother, I

My mother, Sarah Agnes Jones Dunn, died 41 years ago today on October 9, 1966. I was only 19. She was only 54, six years younger than I am now. If she had lived, she'd now be 95.

Those four sentences provide the major facts. I could write a book about my mother. I may someday. In fact, I think over the days to come I'll try to blog a bit about her, and what her death meant to my life. Maybe not tonight -- it's late, I'm tired -- but I wanted to note something on the day itself.

Her name was Sarah Agnes. She always said she preferred Sarah to Agnes, joking that "in movies and on TV, Agnes is usually the name of the mule." But her family -- everybody, sisters, brothers, even my Dad -- always called her Agnes or Ag. (I think she disliked Ag even more than Agnes.) Once, when I was in high school and she was starting to look for a job to help out financially now that I was old enough to be on my own during the day, I answered the phone and someone asked for Sarah Dunn and I told them they had the wrong number. My mother was furious; she feared it was a possible job offer. I was innocently ignorant: I knew somehow that her name was Sarah Agnes but I'd never heard her called that.

I hope she's aware of the fact that my daughter is named Sarah, not Agnes. Just as Sarah is named for her grandmother, my mother was almost certainly named for her grandmother, Sarah Fitzpatrick Cleary, shown in the second photo here. If you look at the two photos, this one and the one above (I'm the kid if you haven't figured that out yet), I think you'll see a clear family resemblance in the eyes, eybrows, nose, and facial structure.

It was traumatic, of course, to lose my mother when I was 19; it seems impossible that it can have been 41 years. But it also gave me an early lesson in the uncertainties and foul balls life can throw at you. My Dad lived another 10 years after that, but by the time I was in my late 20s I was without my parents, an orphan at 28. Not alone in the world: I had and still have valued relatives, aunts and uncles then, cousins now. I owe them a great deal. If my Aunt Kathleen Landis had not left me a comfortable bequest, the Chinese adoption would not have been affordable.

Sarah Grace Dunn has an interesting pedigree, even if not a genetic one. The Sarah Fitzpatrick Cleary on the right was born in Ireland (either Leix or Tipperary, there are conflicting reports); Sarah Agnes Jones Dunn was born in Galena, Kansas, and my Sarah was born in Changde, Hunan, but they alternate generations by passing down the name. Her middle name, Grace, comes from Tam's great aunt, a powerful figure in her family apparently. I'll let her tell that story. I'll tell more of my Mom's in coming days.

Miss you, Mama, even now. More later.