The blossoms on the magnolia tree in my front yard are shyly opening white, waxy petals to the sun, revealing their exotic core. I bury my nose in one of the cabbage-sized blooms and inhale the heavy, sweet perfume. I am transported to the spring of 1971, when I first smelled this distinctively southern scent.
I was eight years old and my family (mom and seven children, ranging in age from eight to twenty years old) sold our house in Ohio and loaded up all our possessions and moved to a small town in the northwestern corner of the state of South Carolina. Abbeville was the spot chosen by a group of Mennonites as an escape from the commercialization and urbanization of their hometown of Virginia Beach, VA. Wanting a more rural, agrarian locale to perpetuate their subculture and raise their families, they put down roots in the red dirt of the palmetto state. Perhaps because some of these pioneers were our relatives, my mother decided on a change of address for our family as well.
It was more than a coincidence that another family from Hartville, Ohio, moved to the Abbeville area: Paul and Esther Overholt and their four offspring settled into a sprawling, gracious, old, southern home on a country road, in this southern state. On May 2, 1971, their oldest son, Kenny, was the groom at the first Mennonite wedding in Abbeville. The bride was my big sister, Sharon.
One humid Sunday afternoon in April, some families had gathered after church at the Overholt’s home for a lovely, starch-filled, Mennonite lunch. I was part of a gaggle of school aged girls playing in the front yard. I remember the warm dappled sun streaking through the tall trees, the steamy humidity in the air that made my hair frizz and curl, and the delight of being able to run barefoot in spring. In Ohio my mom had a rule that we could not leave our shoes off until we saw the first bee. My brother Lowell and I would diligently search the grass; we would have imported a buzzing insect from the zoo if we would have known how. And I remember the scent of the magnolia blossoms on the giant tree in the Overholt’s yard.
Kenny’s sister, Shelby, knew of an elderly neighbor who lived nearby; being dutiful children, we devised a plan to share our good will and faith with her. We walked down the country road barefoot, in long dresses and long hair, which was caught up in tight buns and covered with caps. As we practiced our Sunday School songs, we gathered a roadside bouquet of wildflowers. Inside an old hut of a house with a packed earth floor, sat the oldest black lady I had ever seen. Our little quartet of Mennonite girls sang our songs to her sweet beaming face: Jesus Loves Me This I Know, I Met Jesus at the Crossroads. At the previously arranged place in the stanza, “see what He offers me,” whoever was holding the bouquet of flowers, hoisted it high into the air. We left the wilting flowers with the sweet neighbor and walked back home. And that is what I think of, even now, nearly half a century later, when I inhale the aroma of magnolias.
Why is smell commonly described as the most memory-evoking of the five senses? In an essay titled, How Smell Works, Sarah Dowdey, a contributing editor for howstuffworks.com, explains:
A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people’s moods and even affect their
work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area
so closely associated with memory and feeling it’s sometimes called the “emotional brain,”
smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.
The olfactory bulb has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the
hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning. Despite the tight wiring,
however, smells would not trigger memories if it weren’t for conditioned responses. When
you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment. Your
brain forges a link between the smell and a memory — associating the smell of chlorine with
summers at the pool or lilies with a funeral. When you encounter the smell again, the link is
already there, ready to elicit a memory or a mood.
Honey Suckle Vines blooming along our Chattanooga Riverwalk.
Unlike the heavy, sweet, bar-of-ivory-soap scent of magnolia, the wispy, syrupy smell of honey suckles is the fragrance of fairies. If you breathe too deeply, it might disappear. It’s the sweet essence of a prenuptial, bridal party beverage, purity personified. Yesterday, as Larry and I biked on the Riverwalk through wooded areas, I noticed that faint floral scent; my nose told me before my eyes confirmed it, that honey suckle vines were wrapped around the trees. Honey suckles immediately take me back to the two years of my childhood spent in rural South Carolina.
Mom with her two youngest children, Lowell and Cindy, in Abbeville, SC.
Honey suckle vines were everywhere around the pastures and acreage surrounding the modest home we rented, on Shriner Club Road. Some previous tenant had built a platform about five feet off the ground, between several tall pine trees. I loved to play house there, climbing the ladder to my domain. For food, I collected honey suckle flowers. As the name implies, if you carefully pinched the base of the flower with your fingernails, and slowly drew out the stamen, a tiny droplet of golden sweet nectar would rest at the base, to be suckled by imaginative children. It was a hard earned meal, as it takes quite a few flowers to produce any measure of satiety. To this day, that is my image from childhood, whenever I smell honey suckles.
In 1972, I celebrated my tenth birthday in the palmetto state with my first organized birthday party. I still remember the euphoric feeling of excitement that I was actually permitted to invite Mennonite school girlfriends over for the sole purpose of honoring my double digit birthday! I invited all the girls in grades 3,4, and 5 at our little church school, to walk home with me after school on my birthday.I think there were nine of us. My cousin, Debbie, must have been out of town or she would have surely topped the list of invitees. We walked two miles from the school to my house, through pine forests and across streams, oblivious to snakes and forest creatures. We played silly games in the yard and then gathered in the dining room, for cake and ice cream.
What made that event a party, most of all, was the beautifully decorated cake, the ultimate luxury, complete with pink roses and my name written on the top. When you are one of seven children and the spotlight shines on you, trust me, you cherish the moment! And on my tenth birthday, do you know who made that happen? It was my big sister, Sharon. Now a newly wed and with a child on the way, she baked and decorated that special cake for me. She did the same for some of my other siblings, on their birthdays. She was always such a selfless person, thinking only of others.
My tenth birthday, with the special cake baked and decorated by my sister, Sharon.
Sharon was more than just a big sister, to me; in many ways, she was my “angel mother.” When our mother was pregnant with child number six, my brother, Lowell, her doctor discovered the extent of damage to her heart valves from untreated childhood Rheumatic Fever. He told her that she might not live through another pregnancy and that she should not have anymore kids. Half a year after he was born, she was pregnant again. The physician wanted to do a therapeutic abortion, to maximize my mother’s life. She switched doctors, spent much time on bedrest (can you imagine doing that with six kids?!), and delivered me on February 24, 1962. My dad was out of town, so in the middle of an Ohio blizzard, my grandfather drove my mom to Aultman Hospital, in Canton, Ohio, to give birth. She said my middle name of Faith was intentional, that God wanted me here for a reason.
During childhood, my mom told me this story many times. She never made me feel guilty for contributing to her many health issues; she instilled in me a sense of purpose, a most unselfish act on her part. But there is another unsung heroine in this story. When mom returned home postpartum from the hospital, she was too exhausted even to care for her infant daughter. My crib was placed in ten year old Sharon’s bedroom and my grandmother taught my big sister how to warm the milk to feed me the bottle. I choke up now as I think about this fifth grade girl, weighted down with the responsibility of caring for a newborn.
Sharon was always a nurturer, always looking out for her younger siblings, never complaining about the load placed upon her slender shoulders. She remembers many mornings when our Daddy would come into her bedroom and tell her that she would need to stay home from school that day, because Mama was too tired to get up and care for the little ones. Her own childhood was shaved thin because of the heavy maternal responsibilities placed on her, as the oldest daughter. How does one thank a sibling for sacrificing for you in that way?!
My earliest memory of Sharon is the security of her bed. Many nights, two or three of us “littles” would make our way to her bed for warmth and comfort from dark dreams. Inevitably, one of us would have an accident, and we would all wake up at 3 am, swaddled in cold, wet sheets. Teenage Sharon never scolded us. She would gently herd us all out of her bed, replace the peed-on sheets with clean, dry ones, and then we’d all snuggle back under her covers like a pile of puppies. Do you know any teenage girl who would do that today?! I honestly can say that I don’t know where I would be today without my big sister’s mothering and kindness to me.
For a Mother’s Day tribute, I would like to present Sharon with an enormous verbal bouquet of fragrant southern blooms: magnolia blossoms with their green, shiny leaves and trailing vines of sweet honey suckle. If anyone ever deserved such flowers, it would be my big sister, for her unselfish care of her younger siblings. You are loved, Sharon!
This is my family, before the addition of the two youngest. Sharon is the dark haired beauty in front of our mother.
Happy Mother’s Day Sharon! Even the mounted boar’s head is smiling. :)