Tag: The Karen Files

The Karen Files, pt. 10

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Another in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the life of our mother:

We very much like this snapshot of Karen and her father, Cecil, Sr., but it carries with it a poignancy, too. (Let’s face it, when you lose a parent, every photo of them you come across is poignant, but this one is particularly so.)

We like the mood of this shot. Karen looks so happy, and her father appears at ease and content, as well. It appears to have been shot outside the home of Cecil and his wife, Frances, in Okemah, Oklahoma, and we’d guess the year to be 1950 or so, as Karen looks to us to be a bit younger than she appeared at the time of her wedding to Lloyd, in 1954.


Hi-res view

This photo is sort of a bridge between the Granddad we knew and loved dearly (we were fond of all our grandparents, but Cecil was especially dear to us) and the young man we’ve discovered for the first time recently while sorting through all the photos that Karen left behind. We wonder if Cecil was yet wearing glasses at this point in his life. Perhaps he was, but only for reading — or it could be that his vanity convinced him to leave them behind on a table inside as they stepped out to snap this shot.

It’s not hard, in this photo, to see exactly what Lloyd found attractive in Karen. Hers is an open and friendly countenance, and she appears ready to take on the world (which she certainly did). She kept a positive outlook throughout her life, and that attitude is apparent in this picture.

We also like the bobby sox.

But the photo stirs up mournful feelings as well. We’re reminded that both Cecil and Karen were afflicted with Alzheimer’s, that these two smart, dedicated, generous souls, who loved each other so and were so beloved by others, met the same sad, debilitating fate.

Both faced it with courage and a stiff upper lip, which was no surprise to anyone who knew them, but it’s sad to think they were both so reduced by the illness that they battled so hard.

Still, it’s nice to see them in better times, both looking happy and hopeful. They each had many wonderful years ahead of them at this point in time, before the tough times took over.

The Karen Files, pt. 6

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Another in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the life of our mother:


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We can remember, as a child, feeling a bit shocked when we saw Karen and Lloyd’s wedding photos. They looked very happy and the occasion was clearly a joyful one, but Karen was, for us, almost unrecognizable. If an impartial party were to appraise those wedding photos, based purely on traditional standards of physical attractiveness, Lloyd might well be deemed the biggest catch.

Of course, we know that no one is assessed purely on physical features alone. The plainest John or Jane can overcome their physical limitations with personality, intelligence, vitality, kindness, a sense of humor, a spark of adventurousness, and the most alluring slice of cheese- or beefcake can quickly lose its appeal when the contents of the book are revealed to fall well short of the cover’s promise (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphors).

As has been established in previous installments of The Karen Files, Mom went blonde in the late ’50s, and the change suited her. She also somehow grew into her features (if it’s appropriate for a son to make such aesthetic judgments about his mother) in that way some people do (we’re still waiting to grow into ours).

In this photo, which we’re guessing is from her late high school years or perhaps early college—right around 1950—she looks lovely, but a bit awkward, too; one might even say gawky.

But it wasn’t Karen’s appearance, lovely as it could be, that was her strongest asset. It was the person she was—the vivacious, outgoing, strong-willed, soft-hearted, smart, witty and fun gal she was back then and remained throughout her life.

The Karen Files, pt. 5

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Another in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the life of our mother:


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It’s Christmas, 1955 (don’t let the date on the border of the photograph fool you). We think the setting is the home of our grandparents—Karen’s folks—in Okemah, Oklahoma.

That’s our grandfather standing in the archway, holding my older brother, who was nearly six months old at the time.

We like the candid nature of this photo—that Karen appears caught unaware, that Cecil and Tony seem not to know a shot’s being snapped.

And we especially like that Karen is playing the piano.

Karen’s mom, Frances, made a little money on the side giving piano lessons to the no-doubt reluctant children of Okemah. And, given that Cecil was the superintendent of schools, it must have been a bit daunting for those kids to step through the front door of the Oakes residence.

We can recall a time when our first-grade teacher, Ms. Crowell, paid a visit to our home (actually, in those days, it would have been Miss or Mrs. Crowell, and we don’t know just which). When the doorbell rang, we ran to answer it. Flinging the door open, we were stunned to see her standing there. What was Ms. Crowell doing at our house? Surely we weren’t in trouble for anything. First grade was over, for Pete’s sake. We had pried ourselves loose from her grip and were enjoying our barefoot summer months before moving on to second grade, savoring some well-earned down time before moving on to a new, as-yet-unnamed taskmaster.

Ms. Crowell was, as it turned out, paying a visit to Karen, but what they talked about and what inspired Ms. Crowell to come calling, we’ll never know.

But we can remember quite well how unsettling it felt to have our two worlds—school and home—collide unexpectedly, and on a warm summer morning, at that. We imagine it was equally unsettling for those Okemah youngsters, all those years ago, to cross the threshold of Superintendent Oakes’ house for piano lessons.

It’s said that Karen played the piano very well when she was young. It was a pursuit she held quite dear. As she moved into young adulthood, though, she and the piano parted ways. She and Dad simply didn’t have the money to buy a piano, and when they finally did manage to purchase one, it seems to have been too late. Mom almost never sat down to play it.

Why? We don’t know for sure, but it seems likely that she was distressed at having lost her touch, that, after so many years, she was disappointed to realize she no longer had the facility she’d once had. Surely she could have regained her skills with time and effort, but perhaps that task seemed too daunting, what with her busy schedule and four teenagers to herd.

We like to think Karen’s disappointments in life were relatively few, but we have to count among them the fact that she never again played the piano with any regularity. She’d probably long dreamed of the day she and Lloyd could acquire a piano, and when they did, to have her reunion with those eighty-eight keys prove a clumsy one must have been difficult.

So it’s with a bittersweet feeling that we share this photo with you, dear readers. It makes us smile to see Karen at the keys (and we’d love to know what she was playing—a Christmas carol, perhaps?), but it reminds us that she gave up a very special part of her life when she began to devote herself ever more fervently to her family.

The Karen Files, pt. 4

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Another in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the life of our mother:

Most folks, curmudgeons and misanthropes aside, like kids. Many people, as we do, love kids and consider interacting with them one of life’s great pleasures.

Hi-res image

But Karen loved kids more than anyone we—or you, mostly likely—ever knew. She devoted much of her adult life to their betterment and wellbeing—and not just her own kids or her friends’. She spent years working, on primarily a volunteer basis, for the preservation and improvement of public schools. She was founder and chair of the Oklahoma Coalition for Public Education, an organization whose primary goal was the preservation and improvement of public schools, and served as Executive Director of the Oklahoma Network for Excellence. She served two terms as the president of the Oklahoma State PTA, was president of the National PTA’s State President’s Council, and served as Regional Vice President of the National PTA.

And that’s the just the tip of the iceberg, believe it or not. There were dozens more affiliations and commitments she willingly undertook, and all of it was done purely out of her love for children and her belief in education.

But we’ll remember most fondly her individual interactions with the kids she met in the course of her day. Wherever she encountered a child—in a restaurant, at church, at the mall, you name it—she was likely to pause and to coo at the baby, to have a brief conversation with the toddler. It’s a trait we share with her (to the occasional exasperation, we suspect, of Ms. Cladrite), but she almost never missed an opportunity to brighten a child’s day (and to have that child do the same for her, of course). And the kids knew immediately they’d found a friend in Karen. They always responded warmly to her overtures.

So it was a special treat to come across this week’s entry in the Karen Files. As we mentioned in a previous installment, we’d somehow made it to adulthood (well into adulthood) without seeing any photos of Karen as a child or even a teenager. She kept insisting she had boxes and boxes of photographs (and she wasn’t kidding) and swearing she would one day pull them all down from the attic and get the photos organized, but that was one of the few things this go-getter didn’t get done.

This photo of Karen tenderly cradling an infant (the offspring of dear friends of Karen’s parents), is one of our favorites among those we uncovered in the days following her passing. We miss her dearly, of course, but photos like this one, taken in 1947 when she was 14, allow us to feel she’s still with us (we know, we know—we’re sentimental saps).

And we’re happy to share it with you, the Cladrite Clan, today.

The Karen Files, pt. 3

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Every old-movie buff has seen scenes set in nightclubs in which a pretty gal with a camera sidles over to the protagonists’ booth and asks if they’d like to have a picture taken.

We’ve often wondered, when watching one of these movies, just how common a practice it was for night spots, tony and otherwise, to employ someone whose job it was to take and sell souvenir photographs. Was it always a woman?

And if it was common, what’s become of all those pictures?

Well, we can tell you what became of one of them.

As part of our ongoing weekly tribute to our mother, we’re very pleased indeed to share with you this shot, discovered in the days following Mom’s passing, as we explored hundreds of stashed-away photos and documents that she long meant to take down from the attic and organize.

The cover of the folder that held the souvenir photograph Karen and Lloyd in the middle, Marilyn and Ronnie on the left, Katie and Lowell on the right

The setting, as you can see from the cover of the folder in which the picture was stored, was Louie’s Club 29, which was located at 2929 S.W. 29th Street in Oklahoma City.

We’re guessing the year was right around 1955, give or take a year or two. Mom and Dad can be found smack dab in the middle of the picture, and she hasn’t yet gone blond, a transformation that occurred in the late ’50s. And that’s Dad’s younger sister, Marilyn, and her first husband, Ronnie, on the left, each sporting a wedding ring. As Dad recalls it, they were wed in 1954 or so.

And that’s Katie and Lowell (Lo-Lo to us kids) on the right, backyard neighbors to our folks from 1955 through 1964. The two couples were so close they ran a fireworks stand together for a couple of summers in the mid-1950s (doesn’t that sound like the plot of a forgotten I Love Lucy episode? Fireworks: Lucy hatches a get-rich-scheme, convincing the Mertzes to go in with the Ricardos on a seasonal fireworks stand).

There are other details we find intriguing about this photo. For one, everyone appears to be limiting themselves to Coca-Cola—there are several bottles scattered about the small table and what appears to be an ice bucket. Was that how soft drinks were served at Louie’s: self-service, with bottles, glasses, and a bucket of ice provided?

We note from the cover of the photo folder that Louie’s Club 29 featured three floor shows nightly. We don’t mind admitting we’d give our eyeteeth to see one of those shows.

And the photograph, as the cover touts, was taken by a gal named Peggy. We can’t help but wonder where Peggy is today. Is she still snapping souvenir photos somewhere at some time-capsule of a night spot? Probably not, but here’s hoping she’s still going strong somewhere—taking photos of her great-grandkids, perhaps.