Margaret Elizabeth Orr MUNN

Family 1: George Whiting HENDRY
  1. George Orr HENDRY
  2. Andrew Munn HENDRY 
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|--Margaret Elizabeth Orr MUNN 
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INDEX

Notes

Line in Record @I0038@ (RIN 38) from GEDCOM file not recognized: _FA2 My mother. MARGARET ELIZABETH ORR MUNN HENDRY She was named for her Grandmother Munn and her Aunt. She was the third of the Margaret Elizabeth Orr Munns. She was called "Peg" JUNE 12, 1901 - APRIL 8, 1991 Our mother was born at home in East Orange, New Jersey. She had one older sister, Helen, born a year earlier, younger brother, Edward, and a younger sister, Lois. Her parents were Harry Alexander Munn and Mabelle Whitney Trowbridge Munn. She was named for her paternal grandmother and one of her aunts. Her early years were spent in East Orange, New Jersey where the family lived in a civil war vintage farm house with maids to do the housework and nurses for the children. The Munn Family, of Scottish descent, had come to the United States in 1860 and established themselves as successful ship chandlers. Mother's father, Harry, was a successful coal broker. His success was to last into the early 20th century when oil replaced coal as a principal source of fuel. The children had the best money could buy but the security and prosperity did not last. Our mother's mother, Mabelle Whitney Trowbridge Munn, died in 1906 of kidney failure, not long after the birth of Lois. At first, Mabelle's sister, Sarah Warner, tried to take on responsibility for the four very young children but was unable to do so. At the same time, the market for coal plummeted and Harry, unable to cope with the loss of his wife, could not provide the home the children needed. One of the children's aunts, another Margaret Elizabeth Orr Munn, had married a John Wade and was living in Chico California. They were childless and agreed to take Harry's children. Our mother and her sisters and brother came to California to stay in the early summer of 1912. Our mother was eleven years old. Aunt Daisy and Uncle Jack, as we always called them, lived at that time in Chico, California where Uncle Jack was employed. The following year, 1913, Uncle Jack operated a gold dredge on the Klamath River in Northern California. Some of our mother's first memories of California were of the wagon ride north from Chico to the Klamath River, a long journey in a horse drawn wagon. Many are the stories Mother told us as children of her summers on the Klamath and vivid were her descriptions of that country before the coming of paved roads and automobiles. However, the gold dredging operation was not profitable and was soon abandoned. Even today though, one can still see the tailing piles thrown up by the dredge after pulling gravel from the bed of the river. Following the gold dredging enterprise, Uncle Jack, Aunt Daisy and the children settled on Chestnut Street in San Francisco. Mother went to school in San Francisco and even though family fortunes had fallen on hard times, there was a fierce pride in the Munn family, a pride that demanded they excel in whatever they did. All three of the girls, Margaret, Helen and Lois, did exceptionally well in school. Mother, in addition, showed considerable talent in music and became a more than competent violinist. While in the Klamath, Aunt Daisy became a devoted follower of Christian Science and sought to raise the children in the strict teachings of that faith. Aunt Daisy's conversion to the Christian Science faith was to have a significant and lasting effect on our mother and her two sisters. From the time she was very young, our mother suffered from severe migraine headaches and would be severely ill and unable to function for two or three days at a time. Her only relief was to have darkness and complete quiet. This affliction was to affect her most of her life but never were her circumstances as bad as when she was young and living with Aunt Daisy. According to the Christian Science doctrine: "There is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter". Thus, when the headaches came, Aunt Daisy had no sympathy and would simply say: "It will go away if you will think 'truth'. Aunt Daisy believed that sickness was a retribution for "error" and inappropriate thoughts. Mother told us how sometimes she would simply find a dark place to hide and stay there until she was again able to function. To give her credit, Aunt Daisy would let her stay hidden away. Following her graduation from high school, Mother studied music at the Juliard School of Music in New York. Her musical studies were interrupted by illness. She then returned to California to take her teacher training program at San Jose State Teachers College. Her first teaching job was in a junior high school in Petaluma where, in addition to music, she taught Mathematics and English. Saving her money, our mother then entered the University of California in Berkeley and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Education in 1927. After her graduation from the university, she held teaching positions in Petaluma and San Anselmo, later establishing a private, academic, elementary school in Berkeley which was called Greenwood School. Her students were the sons and daughters of university personnel. That private school kept her in constant contact with the university community and her circle of friends was made up of those people. Through the parents of the children, she met many of the university professors of which our father was one. He had long been a bachelor and at the time he proposed to our mother he was 47 years of age and she two months short of her 32nd birthday. He built for them a home on Point Richmond where they lived until moving to Napa in the Spring of 1939. Their first child, George, was born in 1937 and their second, Andrew, in 1939. The years following their marriage were good years with many joys and accomplishments. There were incidents too, which in retrospect, were funny. One incident we remember Mother describing concerned one of our father's pet projects that he carried on in conjunction with his work at the University of California. Our father had a deep and abiding interest in locating and mapping old adobe buildings constructed during the time California was governed by Spain and Mexico. He would travel all over California searching out these sites, examining any remains and taking samples from the remaining mud-bricks from which these buildings were constructed. Of course, our mother accompanied him on these trips. In the summer of 1932, not long after they were married, our father and mother set off to locate the site of an old adobe rancheria in the Paso Robles area. They stopped for gasoline at a small country store and to buy some supplies for lunch. While Dad got the gasoline, Mother went into the store to pick up the lunch supplies. When the tank was full and the gas paid for, our father simply got in the car and drove away in search of his old adobe. It had completely slipped his mind that Mother was with him. The ending of the story came when Mother, having gotten a ride to the site, finally showed up. Dad wanted to know where she had been and why lunch wasn't ready. Before the house at Point Richmond was built, our father constructed a one room adobe house on the property, a replica of small farm dwellings he had seen in Italy during his trip around the world in 1923. With thick walls and tiled floor and roof it was a very special place, but with no plumbing or kitchen facilities hardly a fit place for living all year round. Mother told us the story of how one time that little house was the center of one of the only domestic disputes we ever heard Mother mention. It happened like this: Our father was away at the university all day and usually returned late. Mother, deciding to surprise him, set out to give the little adobe house a thorough cleaning. Hauling out all the furniture, she got a long hose and washed down the floor. What she had forgotten was that the floor was set two inches below the outside ground level. Very soon she had a lake. Angry at herself but not terribly dismayed, she set about bailing out the water. She was still at it when, at 2:30 in the afternoon, our father showed up with a group of friends he had, without notice, invited for supper. We were never really clear on what happened but did get the impression it was not the most pleasant party. In the summer of 1937 an event occurred which is noteworthy in a life full of noteworthy accomplishments. It was typical of the person our mother was and only in retrospect can one appreciate how exceptional her action was. George was born in June and Mother was still in the hospital when word came that her two sisters, who now lived together in New York City, had committed their father, Harry Alexander Munn, to an institution for the insane. Mother left the hospital immediately, hired a wet nurse to care for George and took the next train to New York. She took her father (our grandfather) from that institution and brought him with her to California. He was 69. She cared for him until his death in Napa in 1962 at age 93. The rift this caused with her sisters was never really mended. Our father had always wanted a farm. He wanted to grow things and actually do the agriculture he taught to students in Berkeley and Davis. He and our mother found their farm on Redwood Road just outside of Napa, California. They bought the property from a German family, the Buhmans, who had settled there in the 1860's. They moved to Napa in April of 1939. The first years at the ranch in Napa were a new experience for our mother. She had two very small children, a husband who was away four days a week, a house built prior to 1884 that did not have a single room with a whole coat of plaster. By June of that first year the five hand-dug wells were dry and Mother hauled water in two ten gallon milk cans in the trunk of her car. That water was for everything - cooking, baths and the diapers from two babies. When winter came, the creek washed out the bridge and Mother carried groceries and babies on a single tree felled across the creek. The rotten timbers under the porch broke. Wind whistled through poorly fitted doors. Cooking was done on a huge cast iron stove. Fireplaces provided the only heat. To have a real farm, one must have animals and every week or so when our father came home from the university, he brought animals for Mother to care for. There were horses. There were mules. There were ducks. There were cows. There were dogs. There were chickens. There were pigs. There were even guinea fowl. While she loved the ranch, each new addition meant more chores to do while she carried one baby and the other toddled around behind her. But the chores got done. All the chores. Every day. In time, there was water, lots of water. In time there was a bridge constructed in such a way that another washout was unlikely. In time the walls were replastered and the porches fixed. But milking, feeding, care of the house, children and her father still meant long hard days to the small but resourceful woman. Then too, in each season there was cultivation of the small orchard and six acres of vineyard. There was harvest, hauling and pruning. There were endless fences to mend and runaway stock to find and drive home. Equipment broke down or became helplessly mired in the soft spring ground. Trees fell on the barn roof and animals required help in delivering their young. And, while our father was usually home three days a week, these tasks fell largely to our mother. Then, unexpectedly, in the spring of 1944, our father died, and with his death, our mother was left without an income with which to maintain herself, her father, her children and the ranch. In terms of resources, all she had was the property and, without exception, she was urged by friends and neighbors alike to sell. Her answer was "No! This property is my legacy and their father's to our children". In the face of her refusal to sell, it was decided by the courts that there must be some security for the children and she was required to secure a bond to ensure their welfare. It was signed by a neighbor, a Mr. Claude Hook, who operated a bird farm near the top of Mt. Veeder Road. When friends and the courts decided Mother was without resources, they did not appreciate or understand the inner strength and determination of this woman. She did provide for her children - both their physical needs and their need for love and attention. She did provide for her father and she kept the ranch. There were endless hours of toil. There was the devastating loneliness that comes from feeling absolutely alone with unceasing and overwhelming responsibilities. There were heartbreaks and there were bitter disappointments. But, over all of these, she was victorious. The taxes were paid, the children were clothed, fed and supported in their interests, school work and activities. The small crops of prunes and grapes were harvested, the orchard and vineyard pruned and cultivated, the house maintained. She took a job teaching at the small, one room school on Mt. Veeder Road. She converted the upstairs of the house into apartments to provide some cash income. She rented the pasture and the barn. Life went on. Goats replaced the cows to provide milk. She expanded the small vineyard, hand watering and nuturing every vine. She canned and made preserves each year. Each year there was a gift for the boys on their birthdays and at Christmas. There was also the expectation that they would do their part for the ranch. They learned to milk, to cultivate, to prune and to do many of the never ending chores that are part of farm life. They learned to cook, make beds and clean house. It was a full life but a good life. Mother made it that way. We have since learned that by many standards, we were poor. We never felt poor. Ours was a rich life. Mother believed that, next to love, understanding and good health, a chance for a good education was probably the most important gift she could provide for her children. From the first day we attended school she was always there to help and encourage us. Sometimes she was there to demand that we did our assignments accurately and on time. She made a practice of reading to us out loud after supper and in this way we were exposed to the classics of literature and history. Indeed, this practice continued well into our adult years and set a pattern that would be followed with her two grandchildren. Mother felt so strongly about education that, in time, she took us out of the public school system and enrolled us in a private school that was more academically oriented. How she found the money to pay the required tuition, we have never known for sure. She made it very clear to us, however, that taking advantage of the opportunity for the best education was not really a choice, it was a responsibility. Accepting this as a responsibility has paid high dividends for us both. It must not be assumed that Mother escaped the agonies of child rearing that nearly all parents face. Andrew, particularly, was at times rebellious and her patience was often tried to the extreme. But no matter how great the crisis or disagreement, there was always love and we knew that, no matter what, Mother loved us and would always be there when we needed her. Always. She was there when we cut ourselves or broke bones. She was there when we came home from school. She was there when we got in trouble. She was there when we could not handle a challenge alone. She was there when we needed her. Some memories of childhood will always stand out. In retrospect, it is hard to imagine how she managed it but every year she took us on some kind of trip - a real vacation. Usually it was to Lake Tahoe where we stayed with an old friend who had taught her music. There were special trips too to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Once we even drove to Mexico over Christmas break where George got his only broken bone, ever. It was always understood that we would go to college and in the mid 1950's, when we finished high school, George went to the University of California at Berkeley and Andrew to the University of California at Davis. Although it was unusual for her, she accepted the help of a distant relative's help to cover the costs. That was how strongly she felt about our education. Nevertheless, our years at the university were years when she simply did without many of the things she could have had were it not for the cost of our education. When we finished, and finish we did, we had no debts, no loans to repay and a home and mother who were still, always there. Mother had raised us according to a very clearly developed set of moral and ethical values which provided the touchstones that have enabled us to grow and understand both ourselves and others. She taught us that we could indeed direct our own lives, which meant we had to accept responsibility for our failures as well as our successes. She taught us to be self reliant and set, by her own actions, an example that enabled us to cope with difficult and trying circumstances. She taught us to believe in ourselves and to take pride, not in being the best at something, but in truly doing the best we could. She taught us a sense of responsibility that has made it possible for us to do difficult and unpleasant things when they must be done. She taught us to think and to act with honor and integrity. She taught us to respect those things and persons who are entitled to respect. She expected, no, demanded that we strive to be the best persons we could be. She taught us understanding. She taught us courage and determination. Mother had inherited from her father a tendency to arthritis and decalcification of the hip joints and the years of heavy work had taken their toll. By 1960, occasional shooting pain in her legs became constant and she faced the possibility of spending the rest of her life in bed or in a wheel chair. Yet she continued to work in the orchard and vineyard, she continued to cook, clean, wash, shop and care for the animals. It was not until both her sons were financially independent and established and George had taken full control of the ranch work that she at last consented to surgery. At age 69 she had the first of her hip joints replaced and a year and a half later, the second. The doctors were concerned that at her age full recovery was unlikely. But recover she did. She was one tough woman. In the 1970's and 80's Mother could look back and see that the challenges had been met and her goals achieved. Her sons were grown, well established and prosperous. The Ranch was intact and in full and active production. There was not a single debt, lien or encumbrance - either personally or on the property. She had provided. More than that, she had laid the foundations for her sons to have the rewards that come with achievement and dedication to responsibility. Few have accomplished, few could have accomplished what she did. For her love, care, dedication and guidance, for her sacrifices and selflessness, we will be forever in her debt. She, however, would not call it a debt but would respond: "What else would you expect a mother to do?" Mother died April 8, 1991 in her home, on her Ranch, content in the fact that she had done what she set out to do. We, her sons, will continue to hold before us her example as a guide to our lives and the challenges that we face. No children have ever had a parent who loved them more than Mother loved us. No mother has done more for her children than she did for us. We will never forget or cease to honor her and the things for which she stood. May we do as well as she.



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