From My Grandmother's Files: Lion Country
by Shirley A. Littleford Johnsen, edited by Kirsten Ellen Johnsen
During Dad's frequent and long absences, living was easy around our house. Mother was a dreamy housekeeper. She simply couldn't dust the piano without stopping to play it. I play the piano when I am thinking or disturbed. Mother needed only dusting. There were many "kaffee klatches" at our house, since my maternal grandmother stayed with us during those times. Any little inspiration would call all the five aunts together. Once, during one of these, my little brothers took hammers and knocked the edges off the corners of the cement porch—and no one heard or noticed. Where other mothers would exclaim, "Don't eat the daisies!" Mother's line would have been, "Don't knock the house down!" Mother had to call the cement contractor to replace and smooth the edges. You can bet my father had something to say about that!
I never knew my mother to worry. Although she seemed to rely so on Dad, she never panicked and sent telegrams asking for decisions. She just let everything float along until he came home, and by that time the problem had usually resolved itself.
The one decision Mother had to make on her own was to take the family to Africa to live with Dad in the mining fields of Rhodesia. In fact, she responded so fast that Dad received her answer before he even sent his query, due to the time differences in the country between California and Florida. Mother had six months to prepare for the trip. If her sister-in-law had not driven her, the shopping might have been put off until the last minute. During that time we held more Kaffee Klatches, because we would be away for three years.
We were to live in Northern Rhodesia where my father was working as a Mill Superintendent at the Roan Antelope Copper Mine, one of the many British-American owned and operated mines in the copper fields. It was 13 degrees below the equator and 13 miles from Elizabethville in the Congo. In addition to the trip and the excitement of living in what was called "Lion Country," it was also the first time we would spend three years as a family. It would prove to be the last time we would all be together.
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