Unusual names abound in my family.? My grandmother’s full name was Fanna-Fi-Lena.? Try that nomen on for size.? I’m not even sure how to spell it.? Called Fanny during her young years, after her marriage, she became Lena Bowen Donley, using Lena B. Donley as her legal signature.? Grandma Donley rings truest in my mind when I think of her.
My oldest brother, because of a yunger brother who couldn’t say Harold, became Hike.? For a ling time, I din’t know he had another name.
Gene, the younger brother was “Little Gene” for a lot of years, because of Uncle Gene, my Dad’s brother known as “Big Gene.”? Later his dignity required we drop the “Little.”
“My full name is Ernest None Hodson,” my Dad used to tell me, when conversations would somtimes turn to our various names.? When I learned to red and spell, I realized that the None meant no middle name.? How he laughed when I presented him with this evidence.
My mother’s name, Lylah Emaline, was no so unusual, but rather stately, I thought.? I learned very young to spell her complete name correctly, and in particular to mind the y and the h in Lylan.
The Lena part of my name came from my grandmother.? Where the Marie came from, I’m not sure, but would like to believe from and Aunt, who at 94 still had a certain classy grace about her person.
My family and relatives call me by my full name, Lena Marie.? I didn’t became just Lena until I went to school.? That’s when the fun began.? I can readiy imagine what my Grandmother went through with Fanna-Fi-Lena, for I became “Leaping Lena” or Leaping Lizards, there goes Lena.”? Remember Little Orphan Annie?? Then ther was “Hi Leenie” and on occasion “Leanna or Lana”.? The last two I wished for more often.
The teachers were my only relief.? They stuck to Lena except for my fourth grade teacher Mr. Miller.? He delighted in calling me Curly, because of the curls mom insisted on putting in my hair, which he knew I tried to shake out all the way to school.
When I add the diverse and sundry names the railroad men, who stayed at Grandma’s hotel, gave to te, it would seem something about me demanded various misnomers.
As I go older and further along in school, the teasing became less, but on occasion, and usually when I least expected it, it was revived.? I never said much, but some of those little gibes about my name stung deep.
When I graduated from high school and lefte home, I dropped the Lena and became Lee.? My mother was not too happy about this, but she had no idea what a difference that name change made.? I remember feeling a subtle personality change, a kind of freedom from the burden of having to cope with all the non-sense, and an easiness with the short name of Lee.? I’ve been Lee for many years now, except for legal purposes, in which case I am Lena M. Clark.? Shades of Grandma Donley.
Since I never returned to live in Othello, as the years roll by, wherever I am, if I hear Lena, I know it’s someone from home, or someone who knows someone from home.? However, when I hear Lena Marie – it’s family.
I don’t mis the Lena at all.? I like being Lee, but I do miss hearing Lena Marie, now and then.? Each family member and relative had a different inflection, giving a certain lilt and tone to that name when they spoke it.
For many years, I have heard, in my mind the sound of my name in my father’s voice, and later, the voices of other family members who are no longer here.? There are not too many left who call me Lena Marie.? Never thought, until now of possisbly losing that name.? Perhaps I won’t, but if I do, I shall miss it.