Family Tree

Write a short story with a character taking time to self-reflect in the season.

967 words.

A Family Tree

         Cathleen could hear the muffled voices two floors below. Another gathering, she stared into the oval mirror of her tri-fold vanity so pretty with all its delicate details, she loved the carved floral appliques at the top and bottom of the tall mirror. It had been given to her as part of a young ladies bedroom set, when she was 11 years old in April, in 1933. She shuddered, unsure if it was a chilling room temperature in the huge drafty mansion, or the idea that she was about to celebrate her 96th Christmas.

         The crowd down in the great hall was all family. From her still living sons and two daughters there were now multiple generations represented. This was all due to her helping Jeffery Hughes while she worked at the perfume counter of Selfridges Department Store on Oxford Street in London.

         Jeffrey was madly handsome and as he stood before her at 19 years of age, she could see he was well aware that he could turn a girls head. He was in an RAF uniform with the epilates indicating he was Flight lieutenant which meant he ranked above flying officer and below squadron leader.

         That was December 1941, in fact, December 7th, and the Wireless was shouting the news that the America had been attacked by the Imperial Government of Japan.

         “May I help you, Flight lieutenant?” Cathleen asked, greeting her customer within the proper thirty seconds that Miss Wardlow insisted was the timing a professional Selfridges Department Store counter girl should do.

         “Yes, how did you know my rank?” Jeffrey asked, and then blushed realizing he was wearing his shoulder insignia, even so, he was surprised a department store counter girl would be able to read his stipes and know his rank.

         It was her turn to blush and she said, “My father is the AVM (Air vice-marshal) at Air Group 11 under the head of Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding.”

         “I’m in the tenth, but I know of your father, AVM Mc Glocklin,” Jeffery said, now staring into her deep green eyes.

Miss Wardlow sent a stern look over at Cathleen, prompting her to buckle down to business and too soon she handed him his choice, the Dana Chantilly 2 PC Perfume Set.

         In 1943, they were married by Jeffery’s Air Group Chaplain, Both of their parents in attended in a makeshift chapel next to the aero plane hangar at Bicester/Harwell.

         Now just over 75 years later, she was the 96 year old Matriarch of a family with eight nationalities and probably as many faiths.
         Jeffery had been gone ten years now; Alzheimer’s had taken him away five years before he actually breathed his last breath in the winter of 2008.

         Those struggles and the pain of watching someone fade away before her eyes had made the Christmas season a poignant time for sure.

         Cathleen got up from the vanity, and reached for her cane. She chuckled to herself, there wasn’t much more she could have done with her appearance, at her age, you live with what’s left of your looks.

         Cathleen took the elevator down, she could still negotiate the 36 stairs down to the grand foyer, but anticipating the twenty out of the hundred plus family members who would lecture her about falls, she would make the preventative concession by using the elevator.

         As she entered the great hall, there was a burst of applause and then, “For she’s a jolly good fellow” was being sung.

         She received hugs and kisses galore which were sweet, but she was never one for so much attention. She motioned to her eldest son, Kerry, a 72 year old grandfather in his own right, and he came and brought her to one of the thirty, round tables that could seat six, all had wonderful center pieces each celebrating different Christmas Holiday themes, including Kwanza.

         She fell into the past again as she looked around the room and thought, “Jeffery just look at this room!” It seemed to her as if there was someone from every race and continent in this room.

         The Evans Family Christmas 2018 the banner on the portraits wall read, and again she shook her head.

         When WW II ended she and Jeffrey had a deep discussion about bringing children into the post war world. It could have gone either way. How many of these people would not exist had they not decided to go ahead and build a family.

         Jeffery started Evan’s Aircraft Engineering in 1946, tooling parts for the growing aviation industry, fueled by the Chicago Conference in 1944; the Allies drew up plans for postwar civil aviation. They established the "Five Freedoms of the Air," permitting reciprocal flyover and landing rights to international airlines, and created the International Civil Aviation Organization as part of the United Nations to regulate safety and set standards for international air travel.

         L. Welch Pogue, chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, played an instrumental role in drafting these agreements. He also helped shape the Bermuda Agreement of 1946, which detailed routes, rates, and air rights between the United States and Great Britain.
Cathleen was pregnant with Kerry when Jeffrey handed her the Incorporation papers for Evan’s Aircraft Engineering declaring that aircraft and civilian travel was the future of the world.


         In this hall, all because she met Jeffery across a perfume counter in Selfridges Department Store, there was someone from the Baby Boomer Generation (1946-1964), Generation X Baby Bust (1965-1979), Xennials (1975-1985) Millennials including Generation Y, Gen Next (1980-1994), iGen / Gen Z (1995-2012) and continuing into Gen Alpha which is (2013-2025)…she smiled and thought, “Thanks Jeffery, seems we have quite a family tree!”