Ann

Ann died ten years ago. She would’ve been 94 today.

When World War II broke out, she enlisted in the Army. They tried to assign her stateside but she dug her heels in, saying she didn’t join up to sit out the war in Jersey. She was reassigned to North Africa to serve under Eisenhower. If you asked her, and even if you didn’t, she would tell you that she showed Ike how to win the war.

After she mustered out, she applied to the local chapter of a veteran’s organization. She was informed that their bylaws stipulated that members be male, although they did have a women’s auxiliary she could join. She said she didn’t fight in an auxiliary war and wouldn’t accept auxiliary membership. She was inducted as a full member.

In the early 50s, the city was installing some storm water drainage. The plan showed an enclosed system in the “good neighborhood.” When it reached ours, it essentially changed to an open ditch. Ann thought that presented a drowning hazard for small children and filed an objection. When that was ignored, she organized the neighborhood mothers and, in their Donna Reed dresses, they laid down in front of the excavation equipment. Unheard of at the time. The plan was revised to enclose the entire system.

She was not content with the one-worker/one-car family model of the time and wanted her own freedom of mobility. She worked as a crossing guard and sold Tupperware door-to-door to buy a used, hot V-8 convertible. I’d get calls wanting to talk to my parents about my laying rubber around the neighborhood. I’d have to tell them that I didn’t drive.

Once I was in high school and she felt she could take one eye off me, she got a job with a department store. Her department head resigned and she applied for the position, even though there were no women at that level in the entire chain. She went in with six reasons why they’d benefit from promoting her and demanded the promotion. She got it.

My female cousins delighted in and emulated her, referring to Ann as “Auntie Mame.” Most of them went on to become CEOs, college professors, teachers, actresses and similar professions, rare outcomes for our neighborhood.

Life with Ann wasn’t a piece of cake. While she was a free spirit, she didn’t want that for her son. Though she and my father ruled with an iron hand (sometimes, close to literally), their unique personalities couldn’t help but manifest themselves in me. If she said it once, she bellowed it a thousand times, “I hope you have five kids just like you.” However, she was later quite pleased when her two grandchildren turned out much more docile than their old man.

We had our pitched battles, but the death of my father when I was in my teens drew us closer together. Years later, she married a very genteel older man. How he survived us is still a mystery to me.

Ann is long gone. But, to this day, when I hear the term “the weaker sex,” I don’t think of women.