My Sister

It's hard for me to think about Connie without tears. It has been just thirty years since she died, but I still miss her terribly. She was my role model, my ideal.

She was 17 when I was born. She graduated from high school a month after my birth, and went off to Alfred University (the school of Ceramic Design) that fall. She was a bit overwhelmed at Alfred, and thought she didn't have the talent needed to compete with the more sophisticated students from NY city (she was wrong).

The summer after her freshman year, she took some courses at Cornell, and transferred to what was then Buffalo State Teachers' College. (The University of Buffalo was private then and had not yet become part of SUNY, and there was a separate state school just for teachers.) She majored in Home Economics.

She put herself through school by working as what we'd now call an au pair, living with dentist's family in Buffalo. She graduated in 1950.

That fall, she started teaching, and just taught home economics for one year. She and Bob married in August of 1951. Bob had started school at Cornell before the war and had finished up his degree in Agricultural Engineering in 1948 once the war was over. I believe he served in the European theater, I think with General Patton's tank corps.

Once they married, they moved into the big house on the farm that Bob had just bought. I remember when they first moved in that the place was a disaster. It had been lived in by some bachelor hired men, and was a real mess.

Milli arrived about 11 months after the wedding, and the boys arrived at regular intervals after that. Connie was pretty busy being a mother and helping to keep the books for the farm and keep Bob and the hired men fed. When Grant, the fifth and youngest, was about three, our mother, who had retired, came to the farm to help out, and Connie went back to teaching, this time teaching art. She didn't have the proper credentials, but she took classes at RIT in Rochester at night and got the certification she needed.


Outside of the farm and the kids and teaching, she was a force to be reckoned with. She sang in the choir at church, and got lots of laughs as a member of a ridiculous vocal group called "The Lee Sisters." They were Ug-lee, Ghast-lee, and Beast-lee. The accompanist was Marian Dud-lee.

I remember the first time I saw them perform. I was home from college and went to a fireman's show at the school, with local talent doing silly things (it was a replacement for the politically incorrect minstrel shows that they had done for many years). I had no idea that they even had a group, much less that they were coming on stage. Out came three women in fright wigs and strange makeup, singing songs about being pregnant and about udder supports for cows. They were hilarious. They sang at events all over the county, much like my high school trio had done -- farm bureau banquets and the like.

Apparently she sang in high school and I think was in her senior play. Of course, I wasn't around, so I only have memories from long ago of things I heard as a child. She played a little piano, although not as much as mom and I did. She played cornet in the high school band, too, I think.

Connie was very active in the county Farm Bureau. She was also instrumental in getting zoning laws for the Town -- they hadn't existed before. She pretty much steamrolled that into happening.

I don't know how she managed it all, trying to raise five kids and being so involved in the community. Somehow, she managed, despite the frustrations of not being able to be perfect at everything. She was not the greatest housekeeper (it runs in the family -- my house is always a disaster, too -- but she had five kids; I have no excuse). She would, like me, start projects that somehow didn't always get finished, and there were always too many books around (same here).

She also had the family photography and gadget bug -- with good cameras being proud possessions. I think that, had she lived, she would have been as crazy about computer technology and the assorted related gadgets as I am. We both inherited that from our father's side of the family -- the more gadgets the better.

She was a great cook (so was our mother). She also had some health-food obsessions. I used to hate eating breakfast at her house, because I was forced to drink mass quantities of brewer's yeast in a tall glass of orange juice. I still gag at the memory of how awful it was.

I think that she decided (like me) that an interesting life, raising your children well, improving your mind, pursuing your bliss and surrounding yourself with worthwhile people were more important that a clean house and a tidy life.

Before she died, she said something that I've tried to keep as my mantra. "This isn't fair. But nobody said life was fair. As I look back on my life, I can say that I loved every single minute of it." I want to be able to say that when my time comes.

She lived life to the fullest. She was a fascinating woman with an excellent mind, many talents and unlimited energies. She produced five fabulous children from the happiest marriage I've ever seen. I am proud to be her sister.