By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--April 22, 2024
HeartlandLifestyles | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
This week marked the end of an era in my family. Maxine, the last survivor of the four Moles daughters, passed away on Friday, April 19 at age 99. Gemma, Maxine, Marie, and Wanda defined a family for me, my two brothers, and the nine first cousins they brought into the world.
The Moles daughters were the children of Jess and Ethel Moles, all four born in the 1920s. Gemma was born in 1922, Maxine in 1924, Marie in 1926, and Wanda in 1929. When Wanda was born Ethel was just 22. Jess and Ethel came to New Castle, Indiana on a journey to Bellingham, Washington, a place Jess had seen from the deck of the battleship USS Tennessee when he was still a teenager. Jess and Ethel never left New Castle, so the girls grew up there in a tumultuous era of depression and war, and they all bore the scars of their family life in those difficult times.
When the war came along, the girls had already learned to make their own way. Each of them worked at jobs in the little industrial town in the course of the war. Gemma worked as a domestic, for the Morris 5&10, and for the gas company, Maxine worked for Ingersoll Steel, Marie at Perfect Circle, and Wanda worked at a dress shop. None of them was ever afraid of work.
All four of them married during the war. Gemma married an army ack-ack officer, Maxine married an army air corps bomber crew chief, Marie married a navy radio operator who went to the Pacific on a Martin Mariner, and Wanda married a local man who became a policeman. Each of them had three children which made up the twelve cousins we would eventually expect to see at family reunions.
The four Moles daughters were the foundation for our family life. Each had her own personality. Gemma was always quiet and reserved. Maxine was more outgoing, with a smile that always made her eyes squint. Marie had the reputation of being the fun loving party girl with her red hair and nervous gestures. Wanda was the dark-haired beauty, quiet but with a quick wit. She was prone to sarcasm and irony. All four loved to laugh. All four loved their kids dearly, and all four loved their nieces and nephews just as fiercely. Whenever we visited them they were delighted to see us all. They knew their way around a kitchen. All ten of us boy cousins loved to visit and be called when it was time to eat.
They loved each other, too. They always exchanged birthday greetings and they would call to keep in touch. I never saw any of them frown or become upset with the others. At reunions they would talk quietly and show their love for each other.
Reunions were in New Castle for many years at Jess and Ethel’s house. The oldest cousins remembered the house on Plum Street, but we younger ones started our memories on North 16th street. In our early years we were mostly interested in our other cousins, but as we matured I think we all took a greater interest in our aunts and uncles. I remember being in their presence at these gatherings. Maxine was very much like my own mother, kindly and down to earth. Marie was a little frightening to me at first because I didn’t know her as well. She had a more cavalier attitude that I came to appreciate later on. Wanda was a little intimidating to me, too. She would lower her head and look directly at me with those big eyes and a wry smile, sizing me up, it seemed. They were all delightful in their own ways.
By the time the middle cohort of cousins, including me, came along in the 1950s, the family had begun to scatter. Wanda went to Kokomo, then to Indianapolis. Marie went to Lansing, Michigan, and Maxine went to Roanoke, Virginia, and then to Omaha, Nebraska. We visited these places, but visiting Maxine and her family in Omaha really stuck in my memory. We only went on trips in the summer time because of school obligations.
Support Canada Free Press
That meant that we visited Omaha in June or July. In an era before air conditioning was common in homes, Nebraska in the summer was just plain hot. There was no air conditioning in their house, so fans had to do all the work to keep us cool day and night. They had three kids of their own, so visiting there made it even more crowded. Maxine was always delighted to see family members, and she never left any doubt that we were welcome and expected to come back soon. I had a great time there on every visit. My mother and I took a passenger train from Richmond, Indiana to Chicago’s Union Station, and then took the streamlined Denver Zephyr from Chicago to Omaha. Gliding across Illinois and Iowa to visit our cousins was an experience I have never forgotten. We drove the 714 miles to Omaha for a wedding on one occasion just before the interstate system came along. Nearly all of it was on US 36, a gruelling 18-hour marathon that left us all exhausted and sleepy when we finally arrived. Maxine welcomed us like her own kids each time. I went to their cabin at a Wisconsin lake for more memories and Aunt Maxine’s fried northern pike. I crossed Lake Michigan with them to go to another cousin’s wedding. Those times still glow in my memory.
There were long stretches, longer than they should have been, when we didn’t see the other sisters very much. Life intervened many times. In 1990 my cousin Julie, Maxine’s oldest, mentioned at a reunion that the family story was pretty interesting and that somebody should write it all down. I decided to do just that. I was still in grad school, but I began to accumulate the materials I would need to write up the family story. I began to visit them, talk to them on the phone, even interview them. For one occasion several cousins sat down with all four sisters and Ethel, too. It was quite the group interview, and we cousins learned a few new things. It was a golden memory for all of us who remain. There was a great deal of research which brought me to interviews with many of their school mates and friends from Plum Street. In all the background work for the book, I never heard anyone say an unkind thing about any of the four sisters. It’s a pretty remarkable record for lives that spanned 102 years. For those of us who knew them as our mothers and aunts, it came as no surprise. They were always the sweetest and most loving people you’d ever meet.
They came together at the Henry County Historical Society for the release of ‘The War Comes To Plum Street’’ in 2005, hardly believing that they were the focus of so much attention. There were long lines of people who wanted books signed. They had all said in modesty that they were just ordinary people in the depression and the war. In fact, however, it was their similarity to millions of their fellow citizens that made their story memorable. They were ordinary, but for the greatest generation, ordinary was loving and tough and patriotic and remarkable. We shall not see their like again.
Over the past few years they slowed and then didn’t go far from their homes in Michigan, Indiana, and Arizona. We visited them when we could, but never enough. They began to pass. Marie was first, then Gemma, then Wanda, and now Maxine is gone. They were a part of every day of the lives of the twelve cousins who were their kids.
Cousin Gary, Maxine’s middle son, wrote to me on Friday to tell me Maxine had passed away. He said it better than I could ever do. “What great moms we had! They are back together!”
View Comments
Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.