Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve

Jersey Belle was the cow who lived at Balbern Farm longer than any other cow.

I was called Sunshine at home and Phyllis at school when I was living in Maryland. The photo above is of my Grandfather Bernie and Jersey Belle our cow, with me as a pre-teen in what now could be considered terribly old fashioned shorts. Violet took this photo in the summer of 1943 before she left Maryland to live in California. By the time I was in seventh grade the next school year, Violet and Jersey Belle were both gone from our farm. I saw Violet again after I graduated from high school and I joined her in California, but that was the last summer I ever saw Jersey Belle. I remember her beautiful big brown cow eyes with the long eyelashes. I considered Jersey Belle one of my friends when I was a child. Even boys were my friends at school, every year until my seventh grade. From the time I started school in first grade until I met my first husband at age eighteen, seventh grade was the only school year I did not know boys who were my friends, or have a crush on some boy I would be too shy to speak with directly. It was the age of innocence for me. It seems it is different for children today who are exposed to so much more information at a much earlier age. (Harmonic Eve, December 2004, looking back to a much earlier time)

We had lots of pine trees on our small farm, but most were being used as wind breaks and we did not want to cut them. We purchased our Christmas trees from a neighbor.

When I was a child, our Christmas trees were usually tall enough to reach from floor to ceiling. Now my only Christmas tree at home is a beautiful candle with snow sparkles and a small star decoration I attached to the top. The color is an unexplained pink and the height is eleven inches. The wick has never touched a flame.

I can remember so many Christmas times, from my early childhood to now, the year 2004. The photo with my grandfather and our cow was my last entry to this site before I fell asleep in the middle of the night after a marathon of site creation. I had been selecting photos, scanning them, cropping them, and writing extended captions in a whirlwind attempt to finish before Christmas. I had big plans for many more photos, but when I awoke to the light of day, Christmas Eve 2004, I could see that I was ready to stop looking back to make sense of everything. I saw there was no need to add any more photos. I decided instead to add links to my other web sites. (Some of the links below are to sites created after the above was written.)

So Who Is Violet? (by Harmonic Eve, January 7, 2005) Violet is my mother. When I was a child living with my grandmother and step-grandfather, and having the benefits of being an only child, I was expected to call my own mother by her first name. She was with me at times, and away from me at other times. I suspected, and now know from Violet's papers, my grandmother actively tried to keep us apart many times. For a while at least, Bebe believed that our situation was like an adoption of those times, when the birth parents were not supposed to be in any part of an adopted child's life. Actually my grandmother Bebe wanted me to forget my mother Violet, until she realized that was impossible. I had already known my mother's love before I even met my stern grandmother Bebe. Both Bebe and Violet contributed much to my life which I now value highly. If you have read any of my huge fifty-seven-page web site, "Harmony of Life," you surely have realized by now that I adored my mother. I feel quite fortunate to have been born to her. There were times I can remember when Bebe would suggest to me that she and Bernie could legally adopt me, and after I was twelve, old enough for them to need my consent, I kept hoping she would forget that. I dared not cross her, but I never agreed to an adoption either. Knowing I had a mother I loved, even when I could not be with her, made it easier to accept the good parts of my childhood without feeling the severe loss I had felt in my early childhood when Violet had left me. I did not understand it was the result of major disagreements between my mother and my grandmother. When I was pre-school age, Violet took a trip to Florida. When she returned, I remember joyfully calling out to her on the lawn at Balbern as she approached, "You look like my mother." She decided, unfortunately for my child's brain, to test me to see if I really remembered her. She was hoping that what she considered Bebe's brainwashing tactics had not touched me. She answered, "But I'm NOT, AM I?" I never would dare to contradict my elders at that stage of my life. I was also too young to realize that your mother is always your mother. I thought it was normal for it to change, so if she thought she was not my mother any more, I believed it must be so; I believed that she was not allowing me to be her child any more. That was a very sad turn of events for me. I have since read of this very incident from Violet's point of view in her diary entries. She was happy that Bebe was allowing her to come home, and happy that I recognized her. We never discussed this incident. I was able to read Violet's diary notes while I was making my "Harmony of Life" web site. Now when I am the oldest living adult in my family, I am able to get the whole picture, her perception combined with mine. Bebe had warned her by letter that I had missed her so terribly and cried so much because she went away, that it would not be advisable to rekindle my feelings for her for fear of upsetting me when she would need to leave again. I know now how very sad the total situation was, and how hurt I actually was that she had not come back to be my mother. After this event, Violet did stay around for a while, even telling me a bedtime story which I have written out in my "Harmony of Life" web site. I copied it into my web site directly from the booklet she made for me when I was Sunshine. She used to go up to her room in the attic and type the story after she put me to bed for the night. I remember that when she gave me the booklet, and I realized she had left out parts that she had told me on other nights, she said she thought that was enough to write down. This story is so precious to me because it reassured me of my mother's love at a time I was still being called "Sunshine" and was too young to understand the full relationship between my mother Violet and her mother Bebe, and how it affected me. That wonderful saint of a man, Bernie, allowed the three of us to work out our ways of relating to each other in a calm, secure environment. Sunshine, a.k.a. Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve, January 7, 2005.

Violet as a child, age 10. This photo was taken August 12, 1914.

Can you blame me for thinking she was beautiful? There was another beautiful child next to her in the larger photo from which I cropped this of Violet. However, I never met Violet's cousin Anna Harper, so I admit to showing favoritism.

Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve

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