Heirlooms: Pollyanna

 

My mother, Kathleen (Kenyon) Von Fumetti, had very few books from her childhood that were still around by the time I was old enough to read.  We were lucky to grow up in a house with many books and trips to the library and I was an avid reader.  Looking through the bookshelves at home, I discovered Pollyanna one day.  I took it, curled up in the corner of the sofa and read it over the next few days.  Although the book was written in 1912, Pollyanna's story was compelling.  It really touched my heart and I believe it has always resonated and changed how I viewed things in my life and in the world from that point forward.  

For those not familiar with Pollyanna's tale, it is about an orphaned girl who goes to live with a maiden aunt who takes her in out of "duty".  Pollyanna and her father had played the "Glad" game together through the hardships in their life together.  Pollyanna brings that way of looking at her life, the world, and the people around her when she goes to live with her Aunt Polly.  Over time the people in her life are affected by how Pollyanna looks at and deals with hard issues in life.  She does not preach about how people should live; she simply is an example of what they could do in their own lives. 

Pollyanna's philosophy was not a naive way of looking at life through a rose- colored prism, but it was a way of searching for the good in a bad situation, coping with what life throws at you.  

My mother was given this book for Christmas in 1943 by her mother, Harriet (Shookman) Kenyon. Quite likely it was the only gift my grandmother could have afforded to give her that year.  Mom was 11 and in 6th grade that December.  

Kathleen and her older siblings had been raised largely in the Depression years; a time that saw them endure near poverty.  They lost not only their home, but also their farm, when the U.S. Government took a rural area, including Purdy Valley in which their land was situated, by eminent domain and added it to the nearby military base in October 1941.  Gone was their way of life in almost every way.  Her father, Charles Kenyon, lost not only his childhood home which he had worked hard to reclaim after WWI, but also the original homestead that had been settled out of the Wisconsin wilderness by his great-grandfather, Daniel Crane Purdy, in 1859.  Charles had lost his livelihood as a farmer which had quite literally sustained them during the past decade.  By 1943 the family had been forced to move and were renting a house on the outskirts of nearby Tomah, Wisconsin.   World War II was in full swing and two of Kathleen's brothers, Glen and Kyle, were overseas fighting and the third one, Jim, was waiting to go on his 18th birthday the following March.  

It is not a stretch to believe that my Grandmother, when she gave this book to my mother, was trying to encourage her to find a way to look for the best in a difficult life.  I cannot say whether this was Mom's impetus for her positive focus on life, but I do know it was her way of looking at and dealing with the hard things that came along.  Without a doubt, Mom's way of approaching life also had a significant effect on me growing up.  

The story of Pollyanna reinforced what my Mother had demonstrated all my life.  It was then, and is still now, a huge inspiration to me.  The impact it has had on my life has been immeasurable but so incredibly significant.  It is easy, maybe even natural, to focus on the negatives in life.  But to be given a gift to rise above simply surviving or enduring in life and instead see our blessings rather than the negative in any situation adds so much beauty and comfort to my life. 

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

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