The Losli side of Orenco

Maria Losli

Doris didn't have a chance to have quite as much fun because the cousin closest to her age was Betty's sister cousin Snobby Patty, who didn't like to get dirty. Cousin Patty somewhere derived the standard that anyone worth spending time with had to live on Lake Oswego, belong to a private beach club, perform a perfect Australian crawl and own their own boat. Unfortunately Doris qualified for none of these and she didn't mind getting dirty.

To compensate for not having much in common with cousin Patty Doris spent much time with Grossmama, Dad's mother, who lived across two large pastures from the Head farm. Other than stuffing herself with Grossmama's delicious homemade bread, butter, and cherry jam there was not that much else to do there. The original farmhouse had burned and been replaced with a small house and the farm animals were all gone.

Grossmama lived alone, sitting all day by the window, her hands flying a mile a minute as she worked her shuttle that produced beautiful Swiss lace {ed note: Grossmama actually made Armenian knotted lace (also known as Mediterranean lace), which was made with a needle}. She was always so glad to see us coming from the farm across the fields just as Mother had more than a decade before. She always came smiling into the yard, wearing her long black dress and waving her long white apron up and down in greeting. She understood but spoke no English so our visits were limited if Dad was not there to translate.