I was eight days
old and Mom still had not named me. Mother’s younger sister Bertha Jane,
sixteen at the time, came into the hospital with a plan. So shy she couldn’t
lift her head to talk to her own sister, she stared at her feet and asked,
“Could I please name her?”
Thus,
I became Brenda Jane. The Jane portion carried a long history from aunt to
niece in our family and came with a spectacular hand-cut diamond cluster ring
which originated with my Great-aunt Jane, who worked for her sister, who was a
professional madam. The Brenda portion came from Aunt BJ’s pen pal in England .
Always grateful I escaped the Bertha part of her name; I learned years later
she hated “Bertha” herself. So after the original Bertha’s death (my
grandma/her mother), she changed Bertha Jane to BJ.
This act of naming
created a tether reaching across continents in our later lives. Aunt BJ lived
elsewhere much of my childhood—away at college, graduate school, seminary and
then twenty years as a Baptist missionary—but she provided the only model on
Mother’s side of the family for how to pursue a college education. I claimed
this inspiration for better or worse. When she came home for visits, I knew she
represented a world beyond what I experienced with my mom and stepdad and I
wanted to know such a world. While on furlough from Japan ,
Aunt BJ stopped to visit us in California .
Two memories left etchings in my brain from that visit. She had a suitcase full
of Japanese silk for souvenirs and to exhibit at the many speeches she would
give. As Aunt BJ searched through the suitcase for something, she screamed as
though frightened. A big black crusty cockroach dared to cross the boundary
between our pitiful existence and Aunt BJ’s world-beyond-our-family, that
Maginot Line between my family of origin and the future I saw for myself. On
the same visit she declared, “I don’t know why I go halfway around the world to
teach the English language when my own family doesn’t speak it.” These memories
were etched with a quill of shame.
During my senior year
of high school, I applied only to three Baptist colleges, was admitted to all
and chose Georgetown College in Georgetown ,
Kentucky because of its proximity to Evansville , Indiana
Southern Baptists
had called me to mission work, and I didn’t think I had permission to consider
other careers. I never acknowledged the possibility of a link between my call
to mission work and my adoration of Aunt BJ—but she was the only college
educated member of my family and she was in mission work. I was twenty-one
years old before I had psychic permission to be anything except a Southern Baptist missionary. The Baptist church revered
missionaries in those days. When any missionary came to speak in a local
congregation, the church introduced her as a “real live missionary.” I don’t
know whether the assumption was dead ones could talk or missionaries didn’t
return home alive.
Aunt BJ served ten
years in Japan (1957-1967)
and ten years on the Gaza Strip in Israel (1967-1977). Her service in
Israel coincided with the Six Day War and upon her return she looked like a
prisoner of war—sallow complexion, glazed over eyes and a constant
hyper-vigilance. This heroine and role model satisfied my childhood yearning to
believe in life beyond the disarray of my family. In spite of my change of
plans about becoming a Baptist missionary, Aunt BJ’s influence on my life laid
a foundation with bricks called education, faith and service. One role model in
the family, even if extended family, spoke volumes when I searched for how
someone from our blood line could flourish. While Aunt BJ’s childhood varied
from mine, she modeled for me that a member of our family could get a college
education and live a purposeful life. It could be done. It had been done. Aunt
BJ was solid proof.
