Batavia woman writes memoirs for her family

I wish you could have known Molly and May.

The adorable little girls were full of the dickens, getting into trouble on a daily basis, but always managing to learn from their nasty deeds. For many years, I delighted in hearing about their escapades.

They were my grandmother's best friends. They walked to school with her every day. They didn't live on a nearby farm. They lived in her imagination.

When my grandmother would baby-sit my sister and me, she would tell us a bedtime story about Molly and May. We looked forward to hearing the stories so much that we didn't even fight to stay up late.

Sadly, the Molly and May stories died when my grandmother passed away. We never made an attempt to record them or write them down. My grandmother's words were lost forever.

Fourteen years ago, Batavia writer Ruth Johnsen took pen in hand and began preserving her life stories.

"For those who used wire recorders there isn't even any equipment to play those back," Johnsen said. "Even tape recorders aren't as available as they once were. Nothing replaces writing it down and making a hard copy of the story."

Johnsen did just that. She started writing her life story in 1994, calling it "Small Portions of a Delicious Life." The book is divided into appetizers, which are small snippets of life stories; the main courses, which chronicle major events; and desserts, additional stories that are icing on the cake.

"I wanted my children to know their past," Johnsen said. "Actually, I wanted to tell them about lots of pasts."

Slice of life

The book is filled with "slice of life" stories, from pet rats to first airplane rides, and each one is told in a delightfully entertaining manner.

"My mother went on a tour of Walgreens and they offered lab rats to the tour participants," Johnsen said. "She brought three home for my sisters and me. They were in a small cardboard carton and on the street car they were nibbling at the box, which made her very nervous. When she got home, my dad made a home for them in a dry aquarium with a metal mesh top. They were so smart that they figured out how to push the top off with their noses."

The rats were the only pets the three sisters had so they were very attached to them. One night while their parents were at choir practice, the three girls decided to take the rats out of the aquarium.

"We sat down on the sofa to pet them and one sneaked into the side of the sofa where all the lost change goes," Johnsen said. "We couldn't get the rat out so I, being the oldest (10), went and got a pair of scissors and cut a big hole in the back of the sofa to try and reach in and get the rat."

Did the three little girls have to face the "rat catcher" when their parents got home?

"My dad turned the sofa on its side and the rat fell out," she added. "We didn't get into trouble. I think he was sympathetic with his three little girls all bawling on the couch. In fact, my dad would often tell the rat story to his friends and show them the big hole in the back of the sofa."

Sharing stories

The "Main Course" of the book covers topics such as the beginning of World War II, Michigan summers and the end of the war.

For Johnsen, the book also give an opportunity to tell younger people about things that they don't know about.

"I wrote about the lamp lighter coming out to light the gas street lamps," said Johnsen. "Kids don't know about those things."

Johnsen began the book by writing little chapters and then putting them all together. The result is a book that everyone in the family appreciated. Some even requested additional copies.

"I was so happy that they all enjoyed the stories," said Johnsen.

It is no wonder. The accomplished writer spent many years writing about Batavia for a local paper and has written for other publications as well.

You don't have to be a professional writer to write about your life. You just have to have a willingness to write down the stories that you have enjoyed telling over the years, whether they were bedtime stories or stories about your first date, going off to war, your honeymoon etc.

If my grandmother had written her stories down, Molly and May wouldn't be a lost memory. They would have been stories that my children and their children could have enjoyed forever.