ALL THE MARYS
Mary Jo Bremner just became first female enrolled Glacier County Commissioner.
Mary Margaret McKay Johnson became an efficient and beloved Superintendent of Schools for District #9.
I don’t know where Mary Lee Rosenburger is.
Mary Kay Ward died of breast cancer.
Giving everyone the first name of Mary is Irish and Catholic and a practice of nuns. Probably the grandmothers of these younger women, who are in their seventies now, were influenced by both the Church of the Little Flower in Browning and the nuns who were part of it and possibly boarding schools who bused their students to the Browning Public Schools.
These Marys were all faithful, hard-working, dedicated.
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In mid-Europe, esp. the Slavic nations who were engulfed by the USSR for so long, there is more veneration for Mary the Mother of Jesus than for Jesus. Mothers are key.
In particular, the dark Madonnas are more sacred than the pale West Europe depictions. Some were buried to keep them safe, which darkened them.
“The Black Madonna guides us through our darkness and represents the inner process of transformation. Her blackness has been attributed to the accumulated smoke from votive candles of the faithful, or the dark-skinned inhabitants of the Holy Land, or simply to artistic license. (internet)” There is more than one, but the particular cult began in Czechoslovakia and extended into Poland. Some say there are 500 black madonnas all over the world, but not particularly associated with Africa.
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One day I was in the Church of the Little Flower where a huge replica of Scriver’s corpus hangs in the front. It was made by Gordon Monroe, Scriver’s fiberglass man, and it’s made of fiberglass.
It was around Easter and I saw that the naked corpus was wearing a gold lamé sarong that went over one shoulder. An old tribal woman was there and I asked her why such a glamorous garment had been added to a traditional depiction of stripped suffering.
She looked at me sternly. “Jesus is our Son and we protect our sons and clothe them!” It wasn’t theological — it was heart-felt. And the People had had enough suffering.
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One year the daughters of the chair of the school board, the superintendent and the police chief were all pregnant. None were married. They sat together in the back of the room, knitting and chatting. Class was irrelevant.
I said, “Would the Young Mother’s Club come to order?” I was a little sarcastic.
The next day the chair of the school board, the superintendent, and the police chief came to visit me. My job was at risk.
In the end two mothers married the fathers, one raised her son alone, and one married someone else. I lost track of the children but all mothers graduated. They would be grandmothers now. Maybe great-grandmothers.
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In white prosperous suburban America, the brides no longer prize virginity. Neither do they particularly want pregnancy. They dress like starlets in rhinestone-studded strapless white gowns, demand to be treated like queens, and — if they age — plunge into despair.
On the rez the girls may not marry before they begin having babies, which are a proof that they are desirable and productive. Also, they qualify for Child and Family support with checks that amount to more than they could earn, even if they managed to find a job. Families support babies, no matter whose they are or what the circumstances might be. Grandfathers and uncles join in the support. The pattern is that when the babies go to grade school, the mothers — who have earned GED’s — now begin community college. They are often successful, stable people.
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