[Leica] My mother is gone...

[scoutfinch at chartermi.net (Susan Ryan)]

Peter,

I am so sorry to hear about your mother. There is a unique pain in  
losing one's mother. Even though it's been years since my own mom  
died, reading about your mom brings the memory back. I feel for you.

Sue


On Jan 10, 2009, at 4:41 PM, Peter Klein wrote:

> LUGgers:  My mother, Emilie Klein, is gone.  She passed away at dawn  
> on Thursday morning.  Her younger sister and I were with her  
> throughout the final night.
>
> Emilie's years (1921-2009) spanned the Jazz Age, the Great  
> Depression, WWII, the 50s, the Age of Aquarius, the Space Age and  
> the digital revolution.  She was a courageous woman whose mobility  
> was impaired by polio when she was just a year old.  Through most of  
> her life, she could walk, but one leg was shorter than the other and  
> she wore lifts on one shoe.  The last couple of years, she was  
> mostly in a motorized wheelchair.
>
> Though she never got a college degree, she took courses at the New  
> School in New York, was an avid reader, and became a self-taught  
> librarian. She created the library at Temple Isaiah in Lexington,  
> Mass. and ran it for about 30 years.  She was a "people person" who  
> became friend, confidant and surrogate mother to many.
>
> My mother's influence formed the humanities half of my makeup, as my  
> father's formed the scientific/technical.  It was her example that  
> sparked my interest in photography.  On all our trips and family  
> outings, she would carry her Bolsey B2 rangefinder and Gossen Pilot  
> light meter.  She shot only Kodachrome. I have a heritage of  
> hundreds of slides, dating from about 1950. And she was a Leica  
> user--after I got my M2 about 1970, she bought a IIIf and brightline  
> viewfinder, which she used until she couldn't see well enough to  
> focus.  She didn't know much about photographic technique, but she  
> did fine.
>
> Here are the three pictures that will stand with her memorial candle  
> at our house this week:
>
> From 1951-52, with my Dad (Kodachrome, slightly overexposed):
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/family/Misc1950s/19EmMilt52.jpg.html
>
> October 2007, my favorite recent picture of her (B&W, of course):
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/family/SuzyOct07/L1002138EmBW-w.jpg.html
>
> May 2008, at the Tulip Festival near Mt. Vernon, WA:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/family/tulips08/L1003317-prf.jpg.html
>
> --Peter
>
>
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