Page Four of The Women in My Family
During World War II, the B & S Motor Company (Bernier and Sullivan), business was not sufficient to support the growing Bernier family and Al found a job as superintendent of a local plant of the Cleveland Container Corporation while maintaining interest in the garage. He was rejected from serving in the Armed Forces due to age and family responsibilities but his oldest son, Joe, served in the Navy the last two years of the war. I recall the years of rationing of food stuffs and manufactured goods, especially butter, gasoline and shoes.
As I researched the history of the women, in my family, I began to see great contrasts in the lives of my grandmothers, while at the same time I could see tremendous similarities. Grandma Sullivan was raised on a farm, had an eighth grade education, married a farmer, worked and raised her children on the farm until she was widowed at the age of fifty-three when her youngest child was ten years old. Grandma Bernier was raised in a town, educated through seminary, married an educated man and moved constantly, raising her children as she went until she bought the home in Canton and was left a single parent through separation at the age of forty-five, her youngest ten years old.
The Sullivans were rooted in the land and in several generations of family. The Berniers moved from city to city, finally able to settle in Canton but without family nearby. Grandma Sullivan lived in her home in Canton, with her oldest daughter who remained single until her death at the age of ninety-one. She died, as her mother and grandmother before her, at home with her family around her, failing in health only at the very end of her long life. Grandma Bernier gave up her home when the youngest daughters had finished their education and were teaching, and she again took up the lifestyle she had experienced in the early years of marriage, moving from family to family with no home of her own. She died at age sixty-seven.
Grandma Bernier was active and involved in civic life, belonging to organizations, she read constantly and loved to go to the movies and play bridge. These she did several times a week during her later years. She loved to travel and would be quick to pack her suitcase or don her hat at the offer of a ride anywhere. She didn't like cooking and house cleaning too much.
Grandma Sullivan's life was filled with canning, cooking, baking bread, donuts, pancakes for breakfast, sewing all their clothing, lace petticoats and white dresses, nightgowns and mittens. She continued to knit mittens and socks for all the grandchildren until she died.
Grandma Sullivan was on the shy side while Grandma Bernier was outgoing. One story is told of Eleanor 'being rushed' by a fraternity in town; they invited her and Grandma Sullivan for dinner but Grandma, out of shyness, declined and older sister Marguerite, went in her place.
Both Grandmothers instilled in their children the sense of care-taking; the older brothers and sisters caring and working to sustain and educate younger ones; the younger ones growing up to care for their mothers as roles reversed themselves. Visiting was a value of both grandmothers; taking the time to be present to other people, talking and listening to them in the midst of struggle and hard work. In later years, Grandma Sullivan and her sister, Abby, would have tea and toast together every evening before they went to bed, visiting with each other as if they hadn't been living together for over twenty-five years. Grandma Bernier treated all the grandchildren as real people — not just little kids.
Though their lives were often very different from each other, both grandmothers were women of strength and courage, affiliation and loyalty. They were independent but nurturing; experienced by others as kind and loving, having deep affection for others. Their lives were very hard but their own attitudes and those they fostered in their children, were positive ones; neither was heard to complain about being left alone to bring up their families. There is a great sense of gentleness in the lives of these women, a gentleness rooted in strength. They valued education; providing and encouraging it for their daughters. Education was seen as good in itself, not as a steppingstone to a career necessarily, but as a kind of disaster insurance. Generally, jobs were something to have until one married; however some daughters pursued careers, others combining then with raising families or returning to careers in later life.
An examination of the lives of the descendants of Katherine Sullivan and Catherine Bernier reveals the continuing struggle of women to balance nurturing and caregiving, a focus on marriage and children with independence and self-development, a focus on career or lifework. Together the two women produced ten daughters, fourteen granddaughters that lived to adulthood and uncounted great-granddaughters besides all of their sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. In addition to giving life to all these children, these female descendants are nurses, teachers, business women, a dietician, medical doctor, psychotherapist, mathematician, computer specialist, theologian, artist, librarian, beautician, x-ray technician and more. Some have stayed single, others married and are widowed or divorced, some are separated from husbands and others remain married. They are combining work and families in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. As the family has evolved, the network of members has broadened, living further and further away from Casey's Corner and Canton, New York; as far distant as Florida, Arizona, even Hawaii.
Opportunities and options for women have also broadened over the years but the fabric of their lives continues to be woven of hard work, love, caring, nurturing and independence.
(1) The year of immigration is unclear. Some sources say she was sixteen years old, which would make it 1849, others say she crossed in 1857.
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Elizabeth, a retired psychotherapist, has downsized to an apartment in Bristol, RI. She raised six children in Scituate, MA as a single mother and now has seven grandchildren.
Elizabeth did some writing in graduate school when the children were young and returned to writing as a result of her RV trip to volunteer for Katrina disaster relief. At the age of seventy, she plans to continue her travels seeing the beauty of the US and Canada. You may email her at: ebernier6@verizon.net
