Hope Marguerite Brown

Recollections from our childhood on Mom.

DRIVE-IN MOVIES

Mom was resourceful. Without credit cards and using only our own resources for entertainment, we would go to drive-in movies. Mom would gather up blankets, pillows, and put on our pajamas (this was to save time later for when we got home late). We would load up the station wagon as it was perfect for us climbing in the back and enjoying the ride. Mom would fix some food like hot dogs with buns or some chips or popcorn. We would have some sort of treat in there, but mostly it was to make it a nice evening without going to the “refreshment stand” who charged as much for their items as the entry into the movie! There was one important stop we made, before the drive-in movie and that was the A&W Root beer Stand. We would get a big jug full of Root beer and take it with us, sitting it in the back seat on the floor. I know there must have been times when we could not get this with the movie but it was special when we did. But Mom was the one behind all of this and she is the one who made it a memorable evening and added to our memories at a time when we could not afford much. We certainly didn’t know it but felt quite loved and cared for. We might have rarely stayed awake to watch the double feature but were happy and content, sleeping in the back and being together as a family. - Elaine

FUDGE

Whenever the three of us had been especially good or at Christmas time, Mother would make chocolate or vanilla fudge as a treat. I remember the dark chocolate liquid boiling in a pan and then it was poured carefully into a buttered dinner plate to cool. There were so many squeals of delight from us kids. We had a family tradition which was that the youngest or at least the youngest one present, got to scrape the pan clean and eat it clean. Or was it fair game for anyone, when Mom stepped out of the room? I forget.

Later on, I learned to make chocolate and vanilla fudge myself and today can make a fairly tolerable batch. - Gary

BLANKET TENTS

Mom could always come up with creative ideas to keep us occupied without breaking the bank. People didn’t use charge cards in those days, so were innovative to find ways of entertaining themselves. On rainy days when we were tired of playing board games, we could put blankets on a table and put it in the living room for a little tent. We would secure the blanket with heavy books on top, then place the blanket/s or sheets to make walls in our little ‘house’. Then we would make a door and maybe secure it open with clothespins but the most exciting thing was to have a place of your own, blocked off from the world or at least the world of mom cooking or cleaning in the house – to keep you from the wild jungle OUT THERE. And you were safe inside your little tent and sometimes Mom would make cookies to bring you for refreshment. I remember bringing in my doll, her blanket, a pillow for me and a blanket to cover up with and maybe a favorite book to read with a flashlight. It was heaven to make such a wonderful plaything. I was sure other mothers would never allow their kids to do such a thing or clutter up their living room for a wild safari tent, like Mom let us. Perhaps they did, but it was their secret too.

Along this same line, in nice weather on South Elati Street in Englewood, CO, I recall us taking old sheets and/or blankets and draping them on the backyard clothes line (everyone had clotheslines in those days, along with an incinerator in the back yard to burn trash). This took more effort and work than the inside tent version. We would hang the cloths by clothespins and build a little house with a roof that way and tall walls. It could be as large as we had blankets for and soon, we would have a neighbor friend there too sharing in our adventure. I remember one time we left it up overnight and determined to sleep out there. We did but I recall wanting to go inside to use to the bathroom, and then falling asleep in my own bed. It was great fun for day playing but nighttime our beds felt best. We sometimes had Kool-Aid and cookies out there –with our kiddy table and chairs. Or course, Penny our dog, was there too sharing in the fun. Yes, sometimes the blankets and sheets would tear – but they were old ones that we had permission to use. - Elaine

PIZZA AND FRENCH FRIES

In the late 1950’s Pizza was just becoming known in the US. However, the only place you could get it was at an Italian restaurant. These restaurants were few and far between and very expensive if you did go to them. So Mother resolved to make her own pizza. She bought a large, round pizza pan, rolled her own dough, and then spread olive oil over it from a small bottle. In those days, olive oil was rare and expensive. She then added tomato sauce, shredded cheese, pepperoni, and whole cumin seeds. The aroma of it all baking in the oven was irresistible. Today, I can’t imagine pizza without cumin seed. I believe that cumin seed should be required by law on all pizzas sold in the US, it’s that good.

Also in this time period, French-fried potatoes were becoming popular. But living in a rural area or small town we rarely got to stop at a McDonald’s or other French fry places. So Mother bought a small deep fryer with a wire basket, and sliced her own raw potatoes and we made our own French fries. It was a nice variation from the usual baked, mashed, or fried potatoes. – Gary

PENNY

When we were young on South Fox Street in Englewood in the 1950’s, Mother would put out the clean laundry to dry on a clothesline. A large rambunctious puppy in the neighborhood liked to come over to jump and claw at the clothes as they were blowing in the wind. One day that puppy clawed and ripped several pieces of clothing and sheets. On seeing this, Mother was furious and went over to the neighbor’s house to give “that woman a piece of my mind”. About 30 minutes later she came back walking down the street with the dog and a big box of dog food and we had a new family pet. These neighbors on the corner were a young couple, had a new baby and a puppy with it was just too much for them. The puppy didn’t even have a name yet, so we called her tippy or tag just for fun. But having her for our own pet, now, we gave her a proper name “Penny” for her copper-colored coat and she became the family pet for 10-12 years, coming with us every time we moved. Penny was the most beloved pet we ever had.

And she did get cured of her habit of tearing clothes. Mother would not allow that at all. Penny got lots of love from us kids, with us laying up against her on the living room floor and taking her everywhere we went as we played in the neighborhood. - Gary

TACOS AT HOME

I remember when Mexican Food came out in fast food restaurants. Mom being innovative and wanting to save money would buy the makings and make them at home. This was very special because it was a long process for her to make. I remember her cutting up the side items (we might have helped with this), laying out the shredded cheese, lettuce, cut up tomatoes and onion bits, taco shells, and taco sauce all in separate dishes. Then the fast order “process” began. As quickly as Mom could fry up the hamburger, was as quick as we would help ourselves to building the tacos. It seemed like they were eaten quickly, then another batch of hamburger was made and the next batch was devoured, and on and on it went. I would look at Mom cooking the hamburger and we kids eating these little tacos so quickly and thought how good and patient it was of Mom to fix these for us and go to all the trouble. It was not a very relaxing meal for her but it was her way of making us feel special and not to feel the sting of being unable to afford a visit to a Mexican restaurant for the latest of food crazes. - Elaine

CRANBERRY SALAD

Since this is Thanksgiving season, you may want to hear of a Thanksgiving tradition in our family. We had a heavy, iron grinder that my Mother said she received as a wedding present. Every Thanksgiving, we would make our own cranberry salad by fastening it to the table and grinding up the ingredients. We would grind up whole cranberries, pieces of apple, oranges and celery, as well as walnuts to top it off. The recipe was always the same. The grinder had to be cranked by hand with a pan placed on the floor to catch the juice flowing down the body of the grinder. Then the juice along with some sugar was added to the mix. That made it the most delightful cranberry salad you could imagine. It was served in a large glass bowl we used each year or sometimes in individual glass cups. That big heavy grinder stayed with us for decades. I once asked Mother why we didn’t throw it away and buy a newer version and she said no, it was still perfectly good. It may still be around the house somewhere. I can still hear those popping noises as the cranberries and fruits slowly exploded inside the grinder with the big screw relentlessly grinding them into pulp. The back of the grinder also had a pan placed near it to catch the pulp that was not used. So it was quite a process to watch it grind and watch the pulp coming out and the juice for the sauce. It was very fascinating for a child to watch. – Gary

NEWSPAPER DRIVES

I remember Mom allowing the boys, who were in cub or boy scouts at the time, to use our garage on South Fox St. to collect newspapers for a “newspaper drive”. After they were all collected, they would be picked up and money was made for the scout troops. Slowly and steadily newspapers were brought to our garage and were wrapped up in twine. They were stacked up so high that they nearly went to the roof and all along one side of the garage wall. This of course, was irresistible for kids to not climb on and climb on it, we did. It became quite a mess after a while with it often tumbling down and would have to be straightened up, and then we would climb it again. What fun that was and such an adventure to learn climbing skills and then sit at the top and look down at the small world below. At the same time as this was going on (or maybe it was earlier) Dad rigged up a large, strong, thick rope to hang down from a strong ceiling joist. It was just a long hanging rope with a knot at the end, but we kids would hang onto it and roller skate in a circle round and round the garage, hanging onto the rope. It was such great fun and you would think we’d get dizzy but it was too much of a novelty to think about that. I remember that time as such a blast and such wild wonderful fun. Newspapers to climb and tumble on and the rope to play with and roller skate around the garage with uproarious abandon. How many other parents would allow their kids to use their garage for such things, then make a mess of it and clean it up again, just for the sake of fun. – Elaine

PHOTOS

Just another memory about when we came to visit Mom. She would at one point, say “Why don’t you bring up the box of photos.” This meant loose photos. They were all sort of tossed into a box from years and years back – family and extended family photos. It also meant pouring out the box on the living room floor and rifling through them – commenting and remembering our family history. We had a couple of photo albums, the ones with the black pages and little corner holders for the photos. These albums were our favorites to go through. Mostly because Mom had under each photo, written a caption with a white marker (to show up well on the black pages). We could all see Mom’s great sense of humor with her captions and looking at the photos was only half the fun – the rest was seeing her captions and maybe a little bit of art work here and there. It made for hours of entertainment and I know Mom had in mind to keep our small family intact with memories, since we were so far away from other relatives of the Perkins’s in Indiana and the Drew’s in Ohio. - Elaine

MOTHER TO THE RESCUE

My Mother was always a strong woman. One of her best strengths was her willingness and ability to rescue her children when they got into trouble. When my brother came down with HIV positive-related dementia in 2003, Mother gave him a place to stay, saw to his medications, paperwork and doctor appointments here in Denver. He moved here from California for her to nurse him back to health and did so until he was sufficiently recovered to live on his own again.

When my sister had too many bills and was at an intolerable job, Mother took her in until she was ready and financially fit to go out on her own again.

In 1978, after I had done poorly in California, I came home to Centennial, CO to live with Mother and our stepfather, Don Brown, with free room and board – to rebuild my life. – Gary

BEST HOMEWORK TUTOR

Struggling with a book report or some encyclopedia-heavy homework assignment, Mom was eager to help. We'd laboriously thrash over a sentence, its structure, better synonyms or carefully mull over a paraphrase so it didn't sound paraphrased. Mom excelled in English and grammar, I got lucky in that regard, a bunch of it stuck.

In early elementary school, my teacher sent a note home (probably pinned to my shirt) stating how appalled she was that I couldn't spell my own middle name. Second or third grade, yet. So Mom plopped me down on the living room floor with blank paper and a pencil to write over and over and over again: STEPHEN MICHAEL PERKINS STEPHEN MICHAEL PERKINS STEPHEN MICHAEL PERKINS STEPHEN MICHAEL PERKINS....

Got it now, Mom. Locked in forever, thanks. - Steve

CARDS AND LETTERS –HER MEMORY BOX

I always knew Mom wrote a lot of notes to people and sent cards, but I didn’t know to what extent until cleaning things out later on. I saw plastic bags full of ALL THE CARDS we kids had sent her. At least since she had moved to this house with Don. Each bag was for marked for each child and nearly all our cards were there. Also there were plastic bags of cards Don had lovingly sent her and her friends from her ladies and community groups – the Christmas, Easter, and Thank you, Get Well cards from them all. I discovered that it was quite a tradition for these ladies to send out holiday cards to one another with long prayers and thoughtful messages, beautiful cards thoughtfully chosen for flowers and scenes, and the message they wrote inside was so personable. Mom had really extended her family (by us NOT having grandkids) to include all these other people. The notes were so lovely that were written to Mom. One side note she had written was these were all the thank you cards I received this year – next year I shall have to write MORE THANK YOU cards. It was almost like it was her way of receiving love and knowing she was loved by so many people was like a health tonic to her – to write these notes and cards as an expression of her love. Well, she was deeply loved by many for all the effort she put into these.

Mom kept up with relatives from both sides of the family, even after her divorce. I know it was to keep our family ties intact and secretly she loved a big family. She would call Dad’s relatives each Christmas as well as her family, back east in Ohio and Indiana. She stayed quite close to them and I always thought she was the “hub” of the family in that regard. I saw all sorts of mementoes in her “hope chest” - a wooden box downstairs that Dad had made when he was in Nebraska for treasures. He called them “goodie boxes” and were just made of a simple wood design with the lid on with hinges. Inside were numerous awards, ribbons from the State Fair for setting up wonderful displays and apple pies, notes on nutrition talks at the booth, and in general making the Colorado Extension Homemakers exhibit a “prize” each year. I found old newspaper clippings from her father’s death, her mother’s, her uncle and aunt’s (who were really our 2nd cousins – but we called them aunt and uncle), her nephew’s mementos, college graduation programs and photos, her graduation certificate from Mar-Dell’s Institute of Beauty in Milford, Oh in 1939, and many certificates of commendation for exceptional English grades in the high school era of her life.

Steve’s photos were there when he modeled for a magazine in Europe, Bob Drew’s letters when he was in Operation Mobilization, her brother’s photos of the library he founded at his mobile-home park in Arizona, our 3rd cousin’s husband eulogy for Bart Brauer - Mark Storch – and his navy appointment announcements, old newspaper clippings and poems written by her ancestors in Ohio. Ironically, I found an award Mom had received for being runner up for “Homemaker of the year”. This was particularly surprising to me because Mom was not a clean housekeeper at home and never really wanted to be – her interest just wasn’t there from working full-time all her life. But obviously, others could see her Donna Reed qualities in other areas of life, like volunteering, leading community groups, inspiring others, giving lectures on organizing and nutrition, and keeping your faith in our busy worlds. I also found one stack, or roll, that was marked “famous newspaper articles” that were headlines like the US landing on the moon, Eisenhower doing this or that, John Kennedy moments, many momentous points in history. I faintly remember when she got interested in this project and here I was NOW looking at her life before me – all her hobbies, personal mementos, interests that kept her busy and alert and connected to people. A person can do a lot when they don’t have grandkids – they make their own ‘grand-babies’ and outstretch the tent pegs of their tent (as the bible verse talks about a woman without children, inviting many, many children into her home). – Elaine

GREAT MINES FLOW IN THE SAME CHANNEL

As one of the famous sayings Mom would say to us kids, this was one I particularly liked. If I mentioned something I had thought about and she had thought it too she would quote this, “Great mines flow in the same channel.” Where did she come up with these – were these sayings people just always said to one another in common conversation in her day? I like that because there were bits of wisdom tucked in. I would say, “Great minds think alike” but I liked her version better. Yes, I can only hope that my mind flowed in similar channels as hers. She was a good model to us kids in many ways, unlike maybe other mothers who had a pristine and clean house, Mom’s model was to appreciate good thoughts, articles, poetry, and sayings of wisdom and to have friends and be a friend. I told her once that the Rose Kennedy biography talked about her doing this very same thing and she gave those gems of wisdom to John Kennedy as president. He used them in his speeches to the nation. So you never know what those wisdom keys are doing for another person’s life. I also discovered later that Gary had a similar interest. Only he enjoyed saving and cutting out sayings from famous people like Winston Churchill, Thoreau, Mark Twain, etc. anything from these people that made you think and apply nuggets of wisdom. He also used Mom’s “love for words and wisdom” by collecting words to songs that were particularly meaningful. Thank you Mom for spreading wisdom and passing that love to us. – Elaine

HOPE MARGUERITE BROWN

Loving mother and friend, 93

Hope Marguerite Brown of Centennial, CO born on March 20, 1918 in Milford, OH went to be with her Lord in her own home Nov. 12, 2011. She was 93. She came with husband, Floyd Perkins to Colorado in 1952. Memorial Services were held Nov. 22 at the Salvation Army Church in Centennial and she was laid to rest at Ft. Logan Cemetery.

She was a born-again Christian, active in Loganettes, Colo. Ext. Homemakers, Calvary Temple Missionary Circle, Englewood Presby. Ladies Circle and a Shaklee Distributor and received numerous awards for community service. She graduated 1939 from Mar-dell’s in Milford OH as a beautician and retired from Honeywell in 1978. She was fond of dramatics, elocution, baking (her family owned a German Bakery in Milford), nutrition, encouraging others, poetry, and flowers/birds. She won many contests with Don including a trip for 2 to Rio de Janeiro which they gave to a missionary friend. She also won Colo. State Fair ribbons for her apple pies.

Her husband, Floyd Perkins died in 1993 and her 2nd husband, Lt. Col. Donald Brown died in 1996. She is survived by sons Gary Robert Perkins of Aurora CO, Stephen Michael Perkins of Palm Springs CA, daughter Elaine Annette Williams and husband Bryn-mor Williams of Centennial CO, nephew Robert Drews Jr. of Orlando FL and niece Kathy Smith of Mesa AZ.