I’ll begin with my mother, Sharon Brezee Zentner, shown here with me and our daughter Carrie, who is now a mother herself.
And then there is my grandmother May Brezee, who was a special person in my life. She is shown here having just been introduced to her great-granddaughter, Carrie. May had a number of children of her own (four surviving), and loved having grandchildren. “My little lambies,” she called us. She would make cakes that looked like bunnies at Easter, and surround them with flowers.
I would now and again, in a temper, run away to May’s house (my mother would call her, “Sandra’s on her way.”), and May would sit me down with an unglazed pot on her patio, and get me to decorate it. Then there would magically appear on the table beside me a freshly baked thick slice of brown bread, lathered in butter. Mothering at its best!
May was an amazing potter and fabric artist. There was no limit to her creativity.
My mother, Sharon Zentner, was also a creative crafts-person. Here is one of her many hooked rugs:
This is a detail of one of her many beautiful quilts:
In her 20s, she painted, as well. I’ve framed and hung one of her paintings in the dining room downstairs. It is one of my favorites, a painting of me (far right, clothed), and “the devil in me” (naked, and pondering mischief). It is set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where we lived for a time.
Our daughter, Carrie Sudds, has carried on with the family fabric-art tradition. (My own first book was on Seminole Indian patchwork, very nearly published.) Here is a detail from a beautiful quilt she has made for me.
And here’s one of the gorgeous quilt she recently made her father:
I want to also mention my mother-in-law, Margaret Gulland, with whom I had a dear relationship.
We were very relaxed with each other, and could chat for hours. She loved the Royals, so I always brought her the latest magazines, and, after her eyesight failed, I would read them to her. (We would have had a lot to talk about these days!)
Margaret was very fond of her youngest child’s husband, Jean-Ives Paquette, who sadly passed away last night. He was a dear man, and his affection for Margaret was obvious. I’m comforted in the thought that Margaret is with him now.
I wish you a happy Mother’s Day, and healing hugs to those of us who have reason to mourn.
