Eliza's Rocker by Rosalind Benton

First Place (Tie), Adult Non-Fiction

This is a story that I wrote from reminiscences that I collected from my father. He had congestive heart failure and when I went to visit, I sometimes took my tape recorder, and we would sit on the patio, and he would tell me about his boyhood in NE PA. 

Some people love babies. They love to hold them and rock them. My father was one of those people who loved babies, and when we were little, he would sit in this great big rocker in the kitchen and hold us and rock us. 

My father grew up in a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania called Falls, along the Susquehanna River. He was raised by his great grandmother, Eliza Diantha. He was raised by his great grandmother because his great grandfather had a cleft palate, and nobody could understand him. He was a local politician, and he needed to be understood. My father could, so he would "interpret" for him. But this story is more about Eliza. 

Eliza grew up in the 1860's. Times were different then. Her mother had too many children, and although she loved them dearly, she couldn't afford to take care of them, so Eliza left home at the age of five and went to live with a family nearby. Her job was to make the soap. 

Outside they had a big wooden barrel to collect the rainwater. It had a spicket at the bottom. Everyday, Eliza would empty the ashes from the wood stove and take them outside and dump them in the barrel. This would create a chemical reaction that produced lye. Then she would get a heavy cast iron pot and fill it up at the spicket, take it in the house, and put it on the stove over a very low heat. To that, she would add all the fat that they saved from cooking. She would cook it and stir it until it got to be just the right consistency, then she would take it outside, let it set a little bit and cut it into bars. For that she was paid fifty cents a week, which she sent home to help her mother. 

Years went by and Eliza met and fell in love with a man named Beecher Van Auken. Together they ran a hotel along the Susquehanna River when the river was a primary mode of transportation. Coal was shipped on barges to the Philadelphia area. Salesmen stayed at the hotel, and they rented livery so they could go around to all the little country stores and sell their wares. 

Eliza was a very kind -hearted woman. She took in people who couldn't afford to pay. My father remembered a Civil War veteran who was old and had no family left. Eliza took him in and gave him odd jobs to do to earn his keep. She took in a young girl who was an orphan because in those days, orphanages were not good places to be. She even took in a young woman who had TB. Everyone else was afraid, but Eliza took care of her anyway. Everybody loved Eliza. Everywhere my father went people would ask, “How's Aunt Di?" That's what everyone called her, "Aunt Di". 

In those days they had adequate closets, but Eliza had nothing to put in them. She had one everyday dress, one semi-good dress, and one dress for weddings and funerals. It was the same with her shoes. She didn't have a closet full like some of us do today. She had two pairs, one for every day, and one for special occasions. Her underwear-why she made them out of Pillsbury flour sacks. My father said everybody did. It was nothing to go riding along in the buggy and see Pillsbury flour sack underwear hanging on the line, but Pillsbury made it so that after a few washings the "Pillsbury" would wear off. 

Eliza was a simple country woman, but she taught my father so many things. She taught him origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. She taught him how to crochet. She taught him how to sew. As a matter of fact, when he married my mother, he taught her how to sew. 

She taught him how to make braided rugs. In those days, they didn't waste anything. They didn't worry about clothing going out of style. When they could no longer turn a collar or mend a sleeve, they would cut the garment into strips a couple inches wide, sew it together so it looked like a long worm, then take three of them and braid them like you do your hair, and coil it and sew it around and around until you got a doily or a room size rug. When Eliza's friends came over to quilt, my father's job was to get under the table and push the needle back up through. He didn't mind, because after a while, they forgot he was there, and he knew everything that was going on all round town. 

Twice a year, Eliza would take my father by train to the nearby town of Pittston where he would get a new jacket, a new pair of knickers and a new pair of shoes. His four brothers and three sisters had only hand-me-downs to wear. One year at Christmas, my father remembered getting his own brand-new tricycle, while his brothers and sisters had one wagon to share. 

Eliza was rather a large woman. When she went out in the buckboard they would strap in a rocker, and that's where she would sit. She lived well into her eighties. 

After Eliza Diantha's death, that rocker sat outdoors for years by the shed, in all kinds of weather, and you know what happens to wood when it's exposed to rain and snow; it grayed, weathered and started to rot. 

One day my father saw that rocker and he said, “You know, if nobody wants that rocker, I'd like to have it." It was a mess, but he took it to his workshop-- a magical place. He had all his tools neatly hanging on pegboard. He had little drawers neatly labeled with every kind of nut and bolt, nail and screw that you could ever need. 

He started working on that rocker. It was missing a spindle in the back, a spindle that was almost triangularly shaped. No problem. He cut one out of wood and glued it in there nice and tight. It was missing a dowel on the bottom. No problem. He cut one out and glued it in there, nice and tight. It was even missing one of the rocker rungs, but he took one from another chair that had no sentimental meaning, and he glued it in there nice and tight.

Then came the hard work of refinishing. First, he got sandpaper of every grade--very coarse, coarse, medium, fine and extra fine, and he rubbed and rubbed. Then he got steel wool in every grade from very coarse to very fine and he rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. Then he rubbed it with a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine. When he got finished, that rocker was just beautiful. It is solid oak, with a wide seat and rounded arms. It has a beautiful design of carved flowers across the top of the back. That's the rocker that he would sit in when we were little and rock us to sleep. 

Years passed and I met the man I was to marry. He's very traditional and felt that he should ask my father's permission to marry me. That's the rocker that Jeff was sitting in when he asked my father for my hand. 

More years passed and I had a daughter who I named Eliza Diantha. I hope that someday that rocker and all the stories that it holds will belong to her.