The Golf Gypsy: My Mother's Words

The Stapp Family at the Country Club about 1966-67
Jonya, Johnie, Helen, Letty

Monday Evening

(June 1967)

Dear Letty,

Just read your note since your phone call and am I glad Mabel is two doors down from you. (Mabel Hotz was my childhood dream golf mother, and one of the first women inducted into the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame.)

Back story:

That Monday, June 5,  I qualified for the Women' Oklahoma State Amateur held at Oakwood Country Club in Enid. However, I did not qualify for Championship Flight and my opportunity to win the state championship dissolved,.  My disappointment led to tears of frustration and for me humiliation. 

I had played golf for two years on the men's golf team at NEO. I held a 2 handicap and could play to it on the difficult MGCC course, but my nerves won that day. I was 19 years old. That evening, from the hotel  room in Enid, I called home, collect, sobbing to my mother. 

NOTE: My researching curiosity won out and I searched for the write up on this State Amateur. We played Oakwood CC at 6,529 yards for that championship. I suppose that comes from not having forward tees. I qualified for President's fight and took runner-up after Jarita Askins beat me 2 and 1. 

I would go on to play in the WOGA Championship in 1968 for the last time as a youngster, who felt the weight of winning for her father, her mother, and every member of the country club.

Mother continues:

Letty, the 91 is no disgrace--golf is just a game for some, but it is a way of life for us, and that is why we take it so seriously. Daddy makes his living at it, but you probably won't and neither will Jonya. Just remember that at the end of the day, being a good sport and associating with all those nice people is most important.

You saw Billy Casper (in Tulsa at Southern Hills) smile when he missed a putt and smiled when his opponents made one--you have been looking for an ideal to follow--I think he would be the one I would choose if I were 19 again. He also does not drink and I want you to be a clean pure girl athlete.

Daddy was at the river fishing when you called. In fact he is not back yet.

Just as you told me you "bombed out" and I was thinking you shot a 110-112 or something like that, Jonya sat down by the phone with blood streaming all over the place. She had used an old razor and sliced about two layers of skin from her ankle. I had to put Merthiolate on it and she yelled so loud that on top of your disappointment I thought I would have a nervous breakdown. 

We are calming down watching TV now and I'm getting my nerves put in their proper place now.

Letty, if you are still nervous tomorrow go to a movie. Maybe Louise (Stekoll Johnson) or Rinda (Koppitz) would like to go with you. It is best to get out of this world sometimes. A good book might do the same therapy. 

None of the Miami players did any good at the Hill Blast  tournament in Bartlesville, But just think Ben Hogan bought Daddy's team and we mingled with movie stars and golf stars for two days. 

Are the Bell's there? Tell them all hello--

I got Dad to stay home all day and he is rested. Now if I could get him to a movie.  I'd really be living. 

Well it's time to put Jonya's T.V. dinner on. She has stopped bleeding.   

Remember darling--the golf does not matter.  It is the gladness of your mind that is really life.   Smile win or lose.

Love,

Mama cita

 (Mother loved to use the Spanish language and thus my sister, Jonya, is fluent in Spanish, and spent her life living out some of Mother's dreams.)

Little did we know that my younger sister, Jonya, would go on to the Oklahoma Junior Girls Championship in 1968 Oklahoma Junior Girls Golf Championship

Luckily, like kids and children do, I lived and learned about life through competitive golf. I, also, became better golfer and competitor as it as I grew into adulthood. 

My mother's letter has traveled with me from Enid, to Ft. Hood, to Kansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and back home to Oklahoma. Her words have never left my heart and to this day I seek a good book or sometimes a movie to escape my worries..

My parents died in 1989 and I miss them everyday, but I must add that Dad has certainly entertained my mind when I am playing golf.  He gave me the nickname of Tizzy, does that tell you something about my scattered brain as teen?  

The Address Book

The old and the new.

My address books may not have carried much value over the years, except at Christmas when I yearly mailed cards and short stories to friends and family.  The year my parents died a few months apart, my sister and I felt abandoned and lost when Christmas time came.  Someone else lived on the farm, and the Miami Country Club, our second home, had burned to the ground.  In the midst of my Christmas heartache I found Mother's address book, with names and addresses of hundreds of friends they had met over the years.

That December I used my mother's address book and began sending cards to many of my parent's  friends, along with a short typed note explaining that our parents had died unexpectedly that year.  Most every person I contacted replied, and many of them shared hand written stories or pictures of mom and dad.

That year I learned the value of personal address books. In a distant way it kept my parents memory alive.

This year my old address book looked more like scribble than readable address. In the decades of that book friends had moved several times, some simply lost touch, while others died. I couldn't even read some of my own handwriting, as I searched for people and addresses that were current.  A simple solution, I bought a new book, one with a shining cover. Then began the task of writing out names and current addresses of people with whom I shared Christmas, birthday, or anniversary cards  With each and every name in my book I see that person and for a moment my brain scans through times we shared, through tears, hysterical laughter, somber moments, tough talks.

One year LaVonne's letter shared how her son had run through a plate glass window. When other people might have been shocked or worried, I laughed. Our son, Michael, had once run through our sliding glass door without bloody injury the day before we were to leave on a two week vacation in the yellow van. We had to hire a house sitter for a day or two until the glass company could be there to fix the door. Oh, such memories. 

Christmas cards are pictures on a world of people who have walked through my life and made it better.

That should have been the end of the story except this time, more people had died than I ever realized. It rattled me to realize how decades had passed.

I posted on short note on Facebook sharing my feelings. Barbara replied, "I hear you. We are at that age where we have friends dying all too often. I replaced my address book last year for the same reasons you mentioned."  Her words lifted my spirits.  Someone else shares my feelings. Her words were echoed through out the list of replies.

Still there was no answer for my heart on what to do about all the names of people who have died. Then another friend posted the answer that put me back on track. Debbie wrote, "One of my least-favorite book work tasks. I feel I am disrespecting a friend or loved one by marking out their name or deleting their phone number on my phone. I can't do it. In time, I start a new address book but their phone number will remain in my phone until I need a new phone..."

Thanks to Debbie's words, I noticed a place on each tab page of the new address book that stated 'Quick Reference.' A perfect place to list a name and hometown of a friend who has passed away from this earthly life.  Now for the next few decades my friends will have a new home in my address book, and a smile from me when I see their names.

Thinking back about address books and writing this story, I realized that there is more to the value of that book than just printed names. Addresses write our history. My stories come from 209 H st. N E,  3030 Oakland, Nebraska st, Canterbury st and more. We didn't have many pictures, so our words had to tell the story.

August 4, 1911, Hulst Holland, Peter de Bakker, Prosperity Mo, Amerika

Place was how families stayed connected with oceans between them. Letters told of babies dying, people moving, aches and pains of growing older, and other news of the day. The stories of our families, our genealogy are directly tied to place and time. 

I started writing pen pals letters in 5th grade  through addresses found in My Weekly Reader.  Then on vacation in the summer of 1959 at Branson, Missouri, I met the Kuhlman family. Susan and I immediately became friends and pen pals until the 1970's when we both had children and lost touch.  A few years ago during a trip that Jack and I took to St. Louis, I saw a highway sign that showed Mexico, Mo. I wondered whatever happened to my friend Susan.  Over the next week of traveling, thanks to Facebook, I found my long lost Pen Pal. A year later we met up in Mexico, Missouri and told stories all morning long.  Sadly, Susan in now in hospice care. I heard the tinkling of tiny china bells the other day and wondered when or if Susan had received her angel wings.

The ebb and flow of our lives will continue in the book of life. 

If you like this story you may also like these stories. Simply click on the link below.
Postcards from the Wild

Postcards from the Road


Postcards from Alaska

Pen Pals Lost and Found

Consumed by a Story

Postcards to Pen Pals

The sun came out and colors came to life.

We were on our way up I 44 toward St. Louis, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a green highway sign saying, "Mexico near." 

An arrow with a mile sign pointing to Mexico, Missouri caught my full attention, luckily Jack was driving, because I suddenly remembered a childhood connection to a Pen Pal who grew up in Mexico, Mo. Somewhere before we stopped for the night I shouted out, "Her name is Susan Kuhlman."  "What?" Jack curiously turned toward me.  "Tee hee hee," I laughed. "I just remembered my Pen Pal's name. I wonder where she is now?"

The Peters family

The trip to Monticello, Indiana, meeting a new family of cousins once removed and sightseeing, took my attention away from a lost pen pal.

Ironically, it was postcards from one hundred years ago that brought our distant families together.  My grandmother Pearl saved her postcards, and they eventually found their way into my hands and onto the web.  One by one Pearl's story in postcards united nearly all of the grandchildren from her sister's side of the family and her side, too. 

1909 view of Indianapolis

Her sister, Mae, died one hundred years ago, leaving behind three small children, who would be raised by a less than kind and loving step-mother and their father.  My grandmother's story was that of following the oil fields, as her husband was a geologist. 

The Boat House, Chicago, Illinois  1912

For four days in June, the Peters family, Jack and I shared stories of our lives and connections.  Genealogy is so much more interesting in person, rather than from the tombstones.  We realized that not only did the postcards connect us, but that four of us are librarians. Our

3rd st Bartlesville, Ok  1914

grandmother's would be so proud.  What great connections the past offers us, when we take the time to look back and begin asking questions.  





Two family stories that I discovered in postcards are already on my blog:   When They Were Young and  Consumed by a Story

As for my Pen Pal, that's another story.

What about the art of sending notes and sharing our lives through postcards?  Postcards are still being sold at state tourism departments and in a few old souvenir shops.  I still send postcards, do you?  Christmas is coming, how many of us will send Christmas cards with a note of happenings in our lives?  

So much to read, so little time.  Why not make it easy and send a postcard?


Check out these stories for more thoughts and pictures in postcards. The Postcard is Alive and Well: The Iconic Muse

Biloxi before Hurricanes Camille and Katrina.  Biloxi, Mississippi

History of postcards Smithsonian

***This is like Christmas, only early.  Look what just arrived in my mailbox from Dori and George, who spent some time this fall in Vienna.