This tribute to my late mother-in-law is my last submission to the class on Creative Non-fiction I've been taking through the Story Circle Network.  I've really enjoyed the work and I offer it here as a testimony to the power of love.

THE AMAZING LIFE OF LILLIAN EDITH

How could she know, that petite pig-tailed child, as she waved to her father and watched the train vanish, its sound growing faint?  How could she know that for the rest of her life the sound of a train whistle would evoke such pain within her chest that breathing ceased for a moment? How could she know she would never see or hear from him again?

To back track a bit, the journey of this little girl, rather like Anne of Green Gables, began in a frigid January, 1894, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The journey would not be an easy one.  For reasons she never knew, her parents divorced shortly after her birth and  Lillian was “given” to her father by her mother for the sum of $100.  It was all very official, a typed page signed by both parents. Why?  She never knew.

Those first few years, she lived with her paternal grandparents in northern Michigan, seeing her father only when he came home from the railroad.  Much of that life was carefree and fun, as she played on the inviting beaches of Lake Michigan.  She adored her grandparents and they, her.  Occasionly she visited her mother in Grand Rapids.  “Mother” was stiff and formal, never giving her the least bit of affection.

At some point, Walter, her dad, remarried and she went to live in Muskegon with her “wicked stepmother”, who made her work like an adult and frequently beat her when dad wasn’t around.  That union produced a son, the apple of his mother’s eye, which didn’t help Lillian’s status.  It was a few years later, when she was maybe 10 or 11, that Walter deserted the family.

Grudgingly, her birth mother, who had married a
stern and hard-nosed German man, took her in, moving her back to Grand Rapids.  These “parents” were financially comfortable and lived in a pleasant neighborhood, but their rules were harsh and demanding, at least they seemed so to Lillian.  And no affection was displayed.

In her old age, she liked to tell how one day at school she talked in class and was sent to the cloak room as discipline.  When the teacher came to check on her and put her arm around Lillian’s shoulders, wondering aloud what she was to do with her, it was the first time Lillian could remember anyone putting an arm around her, ever. Thereafter, she would work to get sent to the cloak room, longing for a repeat of that affection.

Life was soon to improve, however. Following 8th grade graduation, she took a job at the telephone company. One particular day she had terrible menstrual cramps and left work early.  After walking the many blocks home, she found no one there and in misery and some desperation, she went next door. Clara Norris, a tall, thin somewhat severe-looking woman in her mid-20’s, warmly welcomed her and soon she was tucked up on a couch with a heating pad on her abdomen.

Clara, whom everyone called Daisy, was quite alone. When her fiance’ didn’t return from WWI, she never married. Instead, she nursed her grandmother till her death and now lived alone in Grandma’s large, brick house. It seemed Daisy and Lillian were meant for each other.

They spent countless joyful hours together.  Daisy introduced Lillian to culture, music, art, dance and  St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, a venerable old parish in downtown Grand Rapids.  It was there that she had her first taste of God, of unconditional love and acceptance. She hungrily devoured it.

A few years later, with financial help from the church and the support of Clara Norris, she set off for St. Faith’s, a missionary training school for women, on the grounds of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.  Imagine her sense of awe and inadequacy, moving alone to that great city, studying with young college graduates, she with her 8th grade education, attending one of the largest and most beautiful cathedrals in the world.

Characteristically, she worked hard and excelled during training, also volunteering at nearby St. Luke’s Hospital.  The record of the 47th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan states that “Lillian Minhinnick, having completed two years’ study at St. Faith’s School, has been sent to China.”

And so, with the love and prayer support of Clara Norris, she set sail from San Francisco in 1920, a small, attractive, feisty and warm-hearted envoy to the people of Soochow (now Suzhou), a large and beautiful city 100 meters northwest of Shanghai.  Over the next six years, she learned the language, befriended missionaries of various denominations, helped to eliminate eye disease, loved and was loved by the Chinese with whom she worked. Her  name there was Ming Ching Ling.  Her closest friends called her Ming the rest of her life.

We must stop here, though there are countless stories of Lillian’s life adventures.  She came home in 1926 to marry Cliff Ingells, a widower with two young children.  In 1933, much to their surprise, she bore a son whom she named Norris, after guess who?  That son was my husband for 40 years, his mother my delightful mother-in-law, Daisy his surrogate grandmother.

Once, years later, I watched Lillian stand wistfully in front of a steam engine at Henry Ford Museum, the train’s whistle playing over a loud speaker.  She stood there quite a while, maybe remembering the day the train took her father away forever. Then she sadly turned away, a stoic look of determination on her strong and care-worn face.