This is something my grandmother, Elizabeth Anderson Hanna, wrote. It is dated August, 1977.
by Elizabeth Anderson Hanna
If you ask a small boy this question, you will get a quick answer. He will tell you without much hesitation that he wants to be a policeman, a fire man, a spaceman or perhaps just an old fashioned cowboy. He will not mention being an unselfish doctor, a scientist, an accountant or a lawyer. There is no glamor in any of these lofty positions in his eyes. He can see himself, armed and ready to go, walking into danger with his gun ready or fighting a roaring fire with determination and at great physical risk. Like the small boy, aged three, riding in his grandmother's grocery cart at the market and asking for the present of a gun from the grocery shelf, the ambition is already there. When they came to the cashier for checking out, she asked him why he wanted a gun and his reply came without hesitation: "I want to shoot a g - d Indian." His grandmother, who is a comfortable, round chubby type, with gray hair and a mild manner, was horrified and told him that "we don't say things like that." He looked straight at her and answered with confidence, "My Daddy says it." In spite of the desire to encounter a redskin or two, the real ambition is to draw his gun from his horse-back position and use it. Here is real glamor and excitement.
If you ask a small girl the same question as to her goal in life, she will think a minute and then with stars in her eyes she will say she would like to be a fairy princess, wearing a diamond crown and a satin dress and silver shoes. She can see herself drifting through the days, waving her wand in granting wishes and her hair would be curly and beautiful and she would be always smiling. Perhaps, another young lady might dream for a second and then say, "A nurse." Here she can see herself as an angel of mercy, dressed in white and bringing comfort to suffering people. She is not thinking of bed pans or back-breaking bed care or the unpleasantness of the operating theater. Her ambition is a noble one and one must admire a certain unselfishness, along with her own vision of herself moving from sick bed to sick bed. Today another little girl (and the numbers are increasing in this category), would answer, "An airline hostess." Here is excitement, a trim uniform, a cozy relationship with the handsome pilot in the cockpit and the feeling of being queen of the skies in a giant Jet leaving the ground in a burst of speed. She would reassure uneasy passengers, moving up and down the aisle with efficiency. She would speak nonchalantly of having lunch the day before in Paris and then, with a yawn, she would add that the flight to Turkey was rough and she didn't get much sleep. She will find herself the center of envious contemporaries asking how it was in Singapore or what did she do in Athens. This is glamor for the modern young lady of 1977.
But back in the early years of the 1900's when I was starting on my dream life, the choice was not so wide open. I did not start my dreams until I was about 11. Up until then, I was content to go from day to day, makng new friends at school, enjoying my life at home with a jolly mother and three brothers. I was sure, with the help of my mirror, that I was not and never would be a beauty with long curling hair, long curling eyelashs and all the appeal of a siren. In fact, I don't remember that I worried much about how I appeared. I paid very little attention to what I saw the few times that I looked at my face in a mirror. I was not a pretty child. I really don't now what I did look like except that I had brown stringy hair, brown eyes, and uninteresting face and probably no style in wearing my clothes. Life was more fun for me than worrying about how I looked. But when I was nearing ten, I began to wonder what I wanted most of all. Not to BE but what I would DO. There was one dream, which I would never breathe to a soul, even my best friend Alice. It was a dream I enjoyed in my own little bed, with the door shut and when I was all alone. I could see myself, dressed in white, whith my stringy hair parted in the middle, perhaps a wreath of small roses in my hair and I would be playing a harp softly and with great feeling. I don't know who would be listening. That didn't seem to concern me, but I, myself, would be using my hands beautifully as they touched the strings, and my expression would be mournful, due to my deep feelings. I thoroughly enjoyed this picture. I was the leading lady on my own stage and my dress would be long and flowing and the lights would be dim. This delightful picture stayed with me for quite a spell. It made me feel important and that alone made this ambition worthwhile. I must have considered that I was playing with talent and therefore bringing pleasure to any listeners. But most of all I saw myself expressing myself with music of great beauty and I was dressed accordingly. What my face looked like, wasn't important.
Vanity has never been a part of my life, in expecting compliments, winning contests or competing with others. I was always happy in the back row, but what went on in my mind was not back row thinking. I lacked self confidence but it didn't bother me. I loved my life but I did not bother to think about my days as "My Life." I know that my mother tried to improve my hair. She sent me to a beauty shop where the Harper Method was supposed to restore my plain brown locks to glowing tresses. They didn't do that of course and I just came home smelling of orris root and bored with a lost afternoon. Some of the timidity stayed with me, and as I remember certain dreams I had of what I would like to do, there was always a secret element in them. I was always a "power house" in my own mind but I hid it very carefully except during the lovely hours of imagining what I would like most to do with myself.
There was one series of ambitions (scarcely the right word) which kept me amused for days, even when I was far to old to be indulging in such dreams. I am sure I would blush now if I could remember how really old I was when this scheme brought me pleasure, many times over. I would apply to someone as a live-in maid. I would give a fictitious name, and I would not let my employer know anything about me except that I was quiet, honest and that I could cook. I would live quietly in my servant's room, wear a uniform neatly and I would be a model of efficiency in the kitchen and in my ability to plan meals, searve them and answer "Yes, Ma'am" when spoken to. Little by little, my employers would discuss, behind my back of course, how strange it was that such a person would do so well in the kitchen, appear to be well-educated and with an obviously good background and yet have no ties with family or friends. One day, they would stumble on my check book, which would show a healthy balance, and further, they would find a diamond ring or two and other signs that I was not what I appeared to be. They would find books that I was reading, surprisng to them and they would hear beautiful music coming from my closed door at night, quite different from the jazzy stuff most hired help preferred. They would find signs of nice clothes packed away, some costly and elegant. They would wonder about me but they would be too smart to confront me with a deception because my service was too good and their well-cooked and beautifully-served dinners were the envy of their friends. There was not a time limit on how long this engagement lasted or how it all ended. ONe solution was that I would get a mysterious call from a wealthy relative who had been looking for me and who finally found me, and then the cat would be out of the bag and my employers would be uncertain how to treat me and certainly how to say goodby to me. I woul pack my bags and return to my wealthier way of life and my employers would see my name in the paper either in the social column or in some important event and they would smile and say, "Can you believe that she was once our MAID!" This little fantasy was great fun for me and I lived the days over many times, even planning some gourmet dinners and amazing the guests and my employers iwth my familiarity with fine silver and the correct use. I apparently did not need the money I was earning. Ihad plenty of my own, it seemed. It was the satisfaction of doing something that only I knew about and doing it well. Failure was not in any of my dreams.
Now, more than fifty years later, I am still finding that dreams of what I could do, given the chance, are still a part of me. A great desire to be an officer of the law now has the priority. Perhaps this is because of the Women's Lib movement, of which I do not approve. Being a gun-toting lady is not part of my thinking. I only want the authority to stop someone, snoop out suspects, hide in a dark corner and see what happens and then move in. I would like to carry a tiny radio and give signals to waiting associates and then together, we could bring in the criminal -- speeder, burglar, or whatever. Murderers I don't want to mix with. But I would willingly do some detective work, watching for licenses, posing as an old lady fumbling in her purse for her keys at the market or peering at a bank cleark through bifocals but all the time, listening with the ears and eyes of a bird of prey. I would give the signal; I would trigger the raid and the arrests and at that moment, I would be gone in the darkness and quitely go back to my warm bed or put on an apron and get dinner. But I would have played my part in this drama. I would like to be licensed, of course, and as I move through my days as just an old crabby lady, I would be one of the officers of the law who have dedicated themselves to keeping peace and protecting citizens and their properties. Rewards are not in my dream -- just the excitement of the various events, which of course would be frequent. Sometimes there would be a rescue which would be heart-warming. But most of the time, the satisfaction of coming out on top in dealing with the law-breakers would be enough.
Imaginations are one of the great gifts in life. Boredom is the loser when there is a lively imagination at work. Days are not long and there is no emptiness at the thought of a day with "nothing to do." All my life my imagination has gone at full speed. If I played my paino, some of my happiest moments are just doing what comes to me, with not much rhyme or reason but just plain pleasure -- for me at least. If I write, my words are my own and, good or bad, I like putting them down as they come out of my mind. I sometimes wonder what the inside of my mind must look like. It would be a mess for sure. It would look like an old attic, with things stacked here and there, cobwebs at all the windows and dust on the floor. But the lovely things that are stored there, old and worn as they would be, have accumulated through all of my life. They are there, with more being added, and going into my mind to look for them is like a visit to that secret old attic, full of beautiful things, put there lovingly by me over the many years of my life.
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