We were chatting old times with Mom just the other day at her home at Clearwater Suites in Alexandria. We had found some old pictures in a scrapbook and were talking about her namesake niece, Frances Beverly.[Photo at right: Mom with Dumpling in 1937]
For some reason, that made her think of a shirt-tail relative, a woman who worked for Standard Oil in Fargo and we couldn't get the name, but had fond memories of her. We wondered about that on the blog, and sure enough, Mom's niece, Faith Cole, helped us out. Faith gave the eulogy for her dear aunt Dumpling, her mother's sister, and here it is. This is for you, Mom. She sounds like a cool lady.Frances Dorthy Isakson, 1908-2007
To us she is Dumpling, a name of endearment that Frances Beverly gave back to her. Frances was a chubby little baby and Dumpling called her “my little dumpling”. When Frances could talk she just turned the tables and our Aunt Frances became Dumpling for life. When we called her at Standard Oil and GPH, the phone operators knew who “Dumpling” was. We didn’t know she had any other name.
Always a soft touch, she was the one who gave us special treats, like pickle and butter sandwiches. She would take us to Dutch Treat for ice cream and she never checked the charges on her bill at Noonan’s, the neighborhood grocer, even when the bill was little high! We guess she knew there were extra charges on the tab and in one case, a toy gun was on the bill. Hmmm….
When we visited her in Fargo it was our habit to meet her after work under the railroad track viaduct and we would walk home arm in arm and hand in hand. We were most happy to have her home since she was our entertainment.
Being from an austere Victorian home, she would break the rules, often with glee. After church we would run home fast with Dumpling and she would read the funny papers to us before Mother got home. After she moved to Springfield she stayed with us for a short time and would sneak us into her big closet where we would watch tv together without Mother’s knowledge. Being a savvy dresser she owned earrings and had shoes that were colors other than black and white which was racy for that time. Fond memories are of her with her hose rolled down around her ankles dancing a little jig and calling her Hawaiian Punch “kickapoo joy juice”. She was having fun and breaking the rules again.
As a child of a landscape gardener she too enjoyed gardening and worked hard to try to have a garden in the rocky hillside on Campbell Street. Even after she retired she would be out in the yard swinging a pick ax to put a plant in the ground. She lived by the philosophy that flowers should stay on the plant and are not to be cut for indoors. Trips across town were commentaries on plants and landmarks were described by the plants on the site. She was a successful grower of orchids and would contribute them to special occasions like her nieces’ graduations, recitals and weddings, even when it was hard for her to give up her babies. And boy, you have better take good care of them.
As she aged she would play mind games with us. Mike Weter recalls that she would turn off her air conditioner and then call him because her place was too hot. When he put tape on the thermostat to keep her from changing it, she merely pick up the end of the tape, turned it off, put the tape back down and then called Mike.
She was never one to appreciate “domestic toil”, which she always said with a giggle. Vencil recalls that he would start to do her dishes and she would say “just leave them, I’ll do them”. Of course, the next time he returned she had another stack of dirty dishes.
Later, in the nursing home, she would walk us to the door, arm in arm, hand in hand, sometimes saying with a little giggle as we reached the door “This is as far as I go.”
