JUNE 14, 2023 – (Cont.) If for many years it played a central role in Mother’s life, the piano was rivaled—even exceeded at times—by other pursuits. One was the Junior Great Books program, of which Mother became a principal proponent and leader in the local public schools. As with everything else she tackled, Mother threw her whole mind, heart and soul into the effort. Notebooks, brochures, book sets, program materials piled up in the den, the phone desk just outside the den, on the breakfast nook counter, across from the phone desk, and even on the dining room table on the other side of the kitchen from the breakfast nook. At every opportunity inside and outside the house, Mother was the great proselytizer of great literature, and when the English teachers in local middle schools and high schools felt threatened and resisted Mother’s crusade, she took them on without hesitation but always with good cheer and intentions.
None of us was surprised when Mother auditioned for and won the role of “Aunt Eller” in the Anoka community playhouse production of Oklahoma! directed by the inimitable Peter Jablonski, barely out of high school and who, quite predictably by all who knew him, would go on to great things in the New York theater scene. I was not embarrassed by Mother’s thespian venture. She played her part well and made us all proud. At the beginning of the school year following the summer of Oklahoma! I found myself talking about it with Debbie Paulson, a smart and popular classmate of mine. When I revealed Mother’s role, Debbie said, “Your mom was Aunt Eller? Wow! Was she ever good! And that was your mom?!” When I heard that, I forgave Mother for her general wackiness.
Another of Mother’s great projects was the sponsorship of displaced Vietnamese in the aftermath of the American withdrawal from South Viet Nam in 1975. Through a church connection, Mother spearheaded the sponsorship of two brothers, Long and Thuan Van Tran, and for the better part of a couple of years, our house served as Saigon Central. Long had been a student at Hamline University in St. Paul, subsidized by the South Vietnamese Government, but when Saigon fell, he became a man without a country. Meanwhile, Thuan, who had graduated first in his class from the South Vietnamese Naval Academy and was captain of a patrol boat on the Mekong River, narrowly escaped capture by the invading North Vietnamese and found his way to America, without anything more than the clothes on his back and an empty wallet, except for a photograph of his family.
Mother and Dad were more than generous with Long, Thuan and their wide circle of fellow Vietnamese refugees. Mother allowed them to take over the kitchen, which, in turn, was soon over taken by the odor of cooking oil, exotic flavorings, and fish sauce or “nuk mam” or “Look Mom!” as I called it. She also acquired lots of Vietnamese vases, plates, and other decorative items to display around the house and did everything within her means to make these two shell-shocked brothers feel not just welcome as house guests but as her very own sons. It is a testament to her love and concern for them that they forevermore called her and Dad, “Mother and Dad.” It didn’t hurt that both Long and Thuan were interested in aeronautical engineering. In fact, in perfect sequence with Mother’s own engineering career, Long would someday become a PhD engineer, marry another (Vietnamese) PhD engineer and go on to work for Boeing, while Thuan would marry the sister of his commanding officer, get his masters in engineering and wind up working on the Space Lab project.
After Dad died and my sisters and I moved Mother to an assisted living facility, I was rummaging through the old, maple secretary where Mother’s slide rule from her own aeronautical engineering days had been stored. The device was in still in its place. In the same drawer I found a copy of a letter that Mother had sent to the admissions director at RPI, urging him to accept Long or Thuan—I forget, now, which, but it matters little, for she would have done so for either—into the school. (Cont.)
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
