HAPPY NATIONAL WOMENS HISTORY MONTH! Heres Mimi Steffens story, part 2. Mimis roots in the soil of NEPA are solid and deep. She was born in 1928 in Rileyville, PA in a house that has been in her family since the early 1900s. Her grandmother and aunts were summering nearby, and her mother wanted to be surrounded by her female relatives when she gave birth. Saying a temporary good-bye to her husband who delivered milk seven days a week in NYC, she traveled to the country. Its hard for us in the cell phone, Wi-Fi era to imagine a time when rural homes lacked electricity, and an outhouse was more common than a bathroom. In order to be in contact with his wife, Mimis father had a telephone line brought to the house from a little over a mile away. The family spent summers in Rileyville where they maintained a huge garden. The children picked berries, cleaned them, and peddled them door to door in the nearby town of Honesdale. We would so timidly ask could we please have the baskets back because the baskets cost a penny. The women and children also canned what they grew, boiling vegetables for three hours on a wood-fueled stove, an activity that rendered the kitchen unbearably hot in the days before air-conditioning. During the school year, they lived in a middle class enclave in the Riverdale section of the Bronx where Mimi attended parochial school. There were so few cars, she remembers, We played on the streets all the time. We played ball. In winter we sledded down to Broadway or the Hudson River. One year during the war when meat was scarce, we raised chickens in our backyard in the Bronx and brought them up to the country. That was our Sunday meat. After our reminiscences of life past, I asked Mimi, Whats the best thing about growing old? Freedom! she answered without hesitation. In the 1970s after graduating from Hunter College and enjoying a rewarding career as a teacher, and after two decades of marriage and raising six children, Mimi and her husband divorced. It took me a long time to realize I was not me, she says, referring to her married years. Once single, I had freedom just to be myself. I could be me. If there was a protest I wanted to join, said this life-long activist, there was no one to prevent me. Whatever book I want to read, whatever friends I want to have, I could. Now at the age of 85, I am who I am, and I dont think Ive ever been that. It took a long, long time to evolve. She was in her seventies when the freedom to explore her authentic self led to her fascination with local history and genealogy. She served on the board of the Wayne County Historical Society and wrote a column, From the Vault, for their newsletter. She would literally wander around looking at the societys collection of artifacts until she found something that sparked her interest, which she then wrote about. She discovered that genealogical research had been done on the men in her family, but Mimi didnt know anything about her grandmother. It was the men who were important, she said with a wry smile, so I became interested in my female ancestors. I knew my mother had been a teacher, but when I asked her questions about different things, she always said I dont remember. I discovered I had lots of relatives who were teachers, and I started collecting materials. Someone at the historical society helped me make a database and people gave me names and told me stories and showed me pictures of schools. She has written three books to date: The Rural Schools of Wayne County, published in 2011 when she was 83 years old; followed by Rural Schools of Dyberry Township and Bethany Borough, Wayne County, PA; and The Rural Schools of Preston Township, Wayne County, PA. She is currently working on a book about the schools in Buckingham Township in the northeast corner of the county. Uncovering facts, mistakes and details excites and fascinates her. I found a new school in almost every township or a picture that had been misidentified, she says with delight. Mimis life is a study in freedom and courage; she has had the courage to search for her authentic self and freedom to craft a well-lived life regardless of the circumstances thrust upon her.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:42:48 +0000
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