Since I mentioned in my last post the fact that my mother and grandmother had the same name, it got me thinking about the whole name thing in my family.  At least on my mother’s side of the family.  Names were a really big deal.  I think that a lot of thought went into what someone was named.  Whether the person appreciated that thought – like me – was questionable, in some cases, but it meant a lot what name you received.  And sometimes there were unintentional consequences to the name you got!

My grandmother was Marion Carney Malone and she married Boyce Wilson Hunter, thereby becoming Marion Malone Hunter.  She was called “Mame” by most.  I don’t know where that came from, but I really liked it.  I think Mame is a very cool name and I also think she probably should have considered asking for that to be her grandmother name.  My grandmother had 3 daughters – Marion Malone (my mother), Amelia Ann, and Sara Caldwell Hunter.  Obviously my mother was named for her mother.  Amelia Ann was named for my grandmother’s sister, Amelia Carney Malone.  Sara got the Caldwell name from her father’s father, James Caldwell Hunter.

Amelia Ann, Sara, Marion and Marion Hunter

As I alluded to, my grandmother did not use “Mame” as her grandmother name.  She was quite a pistol, so it always amuses me that she allowed her grandchildren to come up with her grandmother names instead of telling us what it would be.  Although, I have to say, she did learn by the time the third set of grandchildren came along. J

Mocha!! - Isn't she pretty?

Sara married first and she married Julius Jennings Wade, Jr., also known as Jake.  They had 3 children – James Hunter Wade, which was her grandfather’s name; Julius Jennings Wade III, named for his father and called Jay; and Amelia Ann Wade, named for Sara’s sister and born on Amelia Ann Hunter’s birthday.  Jimmy Wade was the oldest of Marion Hunter’s grandchildren and clearly had been thumped on the head more than once as a baby since he came up with the ridiculous grandmother name “Fomoma”.  I’m pretty sure my grandmother was mortified and probably pretended not to know the Wade children in public when they hollered for her.

My mother married next, of course the great and wonderful William John Moore.  They had 4 children – me; William John Moore, Jr., named for Daddy and called John; Paul Boyce Moore, whose first name provenance is a mystery but whose middle name is from Mother’s Daddy; and George Lee Moore, who was named for our grandmother’s brother George Lee Malone.  Mother was unusually sensitive to the fact that people routinely mistook her for a man when they saw her name, which was spelled Marion.  So she still named me for her, but gave me the feminine spelling of the first name, so that I was Marian Hunter Moore.  I was the second oldest grandchild and was given the honor of picking another grandmother name for our maternal grandmother (our paternal grandmother was already named “Grandma” so I got no choice in that naming) and I chose “Mocha”.  Legend has it that I was trying to say “Mother” and it actually came out “Mow-ker”.  Someone, probably Mother, thought to spell it as “Mocha”, which meant that Mocha was really named “Chocolate”, which, even though it was odd, was pleasant because it was chocolate.  Small wonder that my favorite sweet is chocolate. J  So while Mocha may have also flinched a little at that name, how could she be unhappy being known as chocolate?  So I think she was ok with that and probably actually, if truth be known, flattered.  I’m pretty sure it was her favorite grandmother name.

Then, finally, Amelia Ann got married to Oliver F Roddey (I can’t remember what the “F” is for).  Now, Amelia Ann was called “Mee Ann”, the southernized pronunciation of Amelia Ann.  But she also has this nickname “Meechie”.  I have no idea where “Meechie” comes from, but many people call her Meechie or Meech for short.  My uncle’s nickname is “Bo”, like the President’s dog.  I have no idea where that comes from either.  Anyway, they were pretty unimaginative in naming their children and their names are Oliver Hunter Roddey, otherwise known as Hunter, and Amelia Ann Roddey, otherwise known as Ann.  My grandmother forced them to call her the pedestrian and boring grandmother name of “Grandmother”.

An interesting side note to the grandmother naming – my former mother-in-law had the normal grandmother name “Grandma” from her first two grandchildren.  When grandchild #3 came along, he called her “Bubba”.  I can’t even imagine what it was like to be out with your grandson and have him holler at you “Hey! Bubba!”  J

So family names are huge in my family.  The most desirable family name to have is “Hunter”.  Probably because it’s THE family name, but there are an unfortunately large number of family members who got it.  Some aren’t even actually in the Hunter family, but they liked it so much they stole it!  As an example, my grandmother’s sister Amelia Carney Malone married Harvey May.  Not a Hunter in sight.  But she named one of her sons Hunter.  And he named his son Hunter.  And her other son, Harvey, named one of his daughters Amelia Hunter.  And she got to be called Hunter!  That was another thing that annoyed me.  My cousin Hunter Roddey got to be called Hunter and two of my second cousins got to be called Hunter, but I did not get to be called Hunter.  I think I would have had a much happier life if I could have been called Hunter instead of Marian.  My sister-in-law even suggested that I change my name to Hunter, one night when we were enjoying dinner at an outdoor restaurant in Corsica.  I have to admit that I did think about it.  But, alas, it would have been too difficult to remember now.  Plus Hunter Hall sounds like a dorm.

Family names have been passed down to the next generation as well.  My cousin Jimmy Wade has three daughters named Malone (another family name I would have loved to have), Quinn (his wife’s maiden name), and Carney.  Jay Wade named his daughter Abby, randomly, but his son is Julius Jennings IV.  Amelia named her daughters Sara Ann and Stewart.  The Stewart is because of our Scottish heritage – the Hunters were part of the Royal Stewart clan.  My brother John’s son is William John III.  Paul’s sons are Allen (his wife’s family name) George and Boyce Wilson.  And then my cousin Ann has children named Bo and Ann.  Hunter Roddey has children named Harrison and Caroline and, quite frankly, I have no idea where those names came from!

And then we have the unintentional naming.  I’ve lost count of the number of times that people are taken aback by the fact that my brothers are John, Paul and George.  The inevitable next question is “where’s Ringo?”  My biggest beef growing up was having to be called “Little Marian” so as not to be confused with my mother.  Just one more reason why I should have been called Hunter.  First.  Before Hunter Roddey came on the scene.  I do remember asking one time why no one called my mother “Big Marion”.  That did not go over well.  I also suggested changing my name to Vicky.  That was not well received either.

When I was growing up I was not as big a fan of all the family names.  But as I’ve gotten older I’ve seen how they link a family and make us even more a part of each other.  There’s some pride in having a family name, especially when it’s a well-revered name.  And then sometimes you end up with something silly and ridiculous like “Fomoma”. J

The family (without Mother) - front:  Jake Wade, Jimmy Wade  back: Sara Hunter Wade, Boyce Hunter, Amelia Ann Hunter, Marion "Mocha" Hunter

This is a letter opener that was in the silver that my sister-in-law Beth has that belonged to my mother.  You can’t see it here, but it’s engraved with the initials “MMH”, which we assume are her initials – Marion Malone Hunter.  It occurred to me afterwards that it could also have belonged to my grandmother, also named Marion Malone Hunter, called “Mame” by her peers and family, called “Mocha” by her grandchildren.  At least the ones that matter.  J

Anyway, Beth and I imagined Mother using this letter opener to open letters from home while she was in Germany.  We haven’t come across any letters during that time period, just postcards, but I would imagine she wrote letters too.  And received letters from friends and family.

I’ve mentioned before that I like to write.  I’ve always enjoyed writing stories, although I don’t know that any of them are any good.  I’m sure that I violated many copyrights by rewriting “Dark Shadows” storylines to include a few extra characters, one of which was always me.  And I’ve rewritten other TV shows and movies to suit myself.  I have even written a whole novel, although I’ve never tried to get it published.  I did send it to a romance novel contest, which I did not win or even place, so someone other than me actually read it.  I hooked up with a critique partner a number of years ago who read the beginning of my novel and gave me feedback, both good and painful to hear.  But when I gave her some critical feedback about her own novel, I never heard from her again.  I don’t know if she did it because she was pissed at me or if she got bored with my linear storyline, but in any case, I’ve let it sit.  I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with it.  She suggested a secondary story line, but I can’t think what it would be.  I recognize that I need one, but I’m not sure who would be the focus of that.  When I wrote it initially, I wrote a fictionalized version of my own life, with a fantasy ending of sorts.  It didn’t really end up having a happy ending, so it probably wasn’t true romance fiction, but it was a story I wanted to write.  But it was very linear and probably wouldn’t have been that interesting to others.

I started working on another story that was based in Wrightsville Beach.  I told a friend about it and he wanted to help me with the secondary plot line, so he “helped” me come up with this crazy story about a special kind of coffee and a greenstone and some corporate espionage and a plot to kill someone.  But that wasn’t really “my” story and it got so convoluted at one point that I couldn’t keep up with it.  I kept writing the romance aspect of the story, because that was really what interested me, but eventually it kind of died.  I had a lot of pieces and parts to the story, but found that I couldn’t put them all together cohesively.  And when he stopped helping with the story, it just fell apart.

So I will probably never be a best-selling novelist.  I’ll probably never retire to the beach to write on my porch.  And since Oprah went off the air, I’ll never be on The Oprah Winfrey Show as her book club’s latest read.

I remember writing letters.  Some of the first letters I remember writing, and receiving, were when I went to Girl Scout camp for two weeks.  I did that two summers in a row.  The first summer I was so homesick that I think I cried my eyes out whenever I got a letter and I probably was pleading with my parents to come rescue me in the letters I sent home.  (They didn’t.  Rescue me, that is.  They made me stay.)  The next year, I remember getting a little misty-eyed over a letter my brother John wrote to me telling me about what was going on on “Dark Shadows”, which was my favorite show.  I wasn’t homesick that year, but the letters were still nice.  I’m sure mine were more positive that year.

I really got into letter writing when we moved back South from New Jersey, after my junior high school years.  I had several friends that I wrote to, long letters about life in Georgia.  Most of those friends didn’t write back, but I kept up a long letter writing habit with my friend Irene Jacus.  It was always a big day when I got a letter from her.  They were always several pages long and full of juicy gossip and information.  I would wait to hear from her and then write her back, first commenting on all the tales she told and then adding my own.  We continued to write each other well into our adulthood.

When my best friend Debbie moved to Houston, we started writing each other.  Similarly we wrote long letters about what was going on in our lives and sharing thoughts about the soap operas we both watched.  And I always was excited to get a letter from her.  We also sent each other cards, picking out the ones that we thought reminded ourselves of each other.  Eventually the day came when we sent each other the same card at the same time.  I remember laughing when I opened it because I had just sent it to her a day or so before.  We still write, although now it’s via email instead of letters.  And I get just as excited when I see that I have an email from her.

So I’m guessing that when Mother was in Germany, she got excited too when there was a letter from home.  And especially since she wouldn’t have been able to call family and there was no email or IM or Facebook or Twitter back in those days, she’d have to wait to get the mail to see if there was something from home.  And sending letters to and from Europe probably took forever, so it would have been an even bigger deal.  And I imagine her sitting in her room with this letter opener, savoring the opening of a letter from home, hoping it was multiple pages full of gossip and information and interesting tidbits.  And then reading it over and over, imagining the letter writer telling her all of these things.  And then picking up a pen and some paper and, with the letter she had just gotten next to her, starting to respond, first with responses to what was in the letter she had just received, and then with the stories of her own adventures and travels. 

Without all the party talk, though.  J