IN A NAME

My people take their names from the radio,

Jolenes and Rhiannons and Angies,

from magazines, from girls down the street:

Jessicas and Jennifers, Lees and Maries — 

there are many of us. 

But my great-grandmother got hers in a church, 

over kisses: Francis T. Lillie, Mrs.

 

Fanny Grace, she was born, in the forest,

closing the book on the 1800s, 

seventh daughter of Elmer, granddaughter of Johnston, 

“one of the county’s best residents,” 

and, probably, her grandmother was too,

were such things ever noted. And then they moved,

to town, and down to West Virginia, where she wore

many hats: Peggy’s mom, Patsy’s mom, 

unmentioned mother of Betty, whom she gave away.

Leader of the Ladies Auxiliary of the South Charleston Presbytery: 

Fanny Grace was hidden somewhere under there,

waiting to bloom (her beauty was beyond compare),

illuminated only in the light reflecting off a man,

her Rushmore, glowing down, stern and unmoved.

 

The papers made note of her comings and goings. 

Mrs. F. T. Lillie skulked through Kanawha County, she:

Directed the business girls’ circle.

Presented the play, Her Day of Rest.

Assisted at the 5th birthday of the son of Mrs. Charles Snow.

Visited relatives in Pittsburgh, PA.

Was ill at her home on Forest Avenue.

Sewed for the Red Cross.

Entertained the Mizpah class of the First Presbyterian Church.

Moto es red to Huntington for the football game.

Attended a dance of the West Side Women’s Club.

Entertained 100 guests at a covered dish supper.

Dramatized the story of the American Indian.

Decorated the table with bittersweet.

 

But by ‘53, there was a new woman 

hiding under the cloak of Mrs. F. T. Lillie,

when divorce became possibility. 

And as the world went Technicolor, 

our Fanny became Mrs. R. K. Belknap, 

and, later even, Mrs. Joseph Avigne, 

draped in a new name each decade

(wouldn’t you love to love her?).

A lady taking her husband’s name is a snake

slithering through the lines of type, 

leaving us to piece it all together,

(you can’t say we never tried)

making us work to remember.

-Jessica Manack

(originally published in the Bluestone Review)