Minor Details of a Maid

[Elfin Yeti]

These photos are of Estelle, a woman who worked for my family for over 25 years (since I was 6 months old). She and I always wanted to collaborate on a book about her very interesting life; when I mentioned we needed a title, she excitedly blurted out in her full-bodied Southern accent, "We'll call it Minor Details of a Maid!" I took notes and photographs (these two prints are the lone survivors of a house fire in 1996). She died before we got very far but someday I will write something and call it "Minor Details of a Maid", just like we planned.

[Celebration]

1. And she looks

like she has lots of good stories to tell. So glad these survived the fire. Thanks for sharing. Have you read the novel "Help"? Pretty good.

[Elfin Yeti]

3. Yes, I read The Help!

I couldn't put it down! Just finished it the other day and it was the best book I've read in a long, long time. I don't usually read fiction but a friend suggested I read it.

[Mira]

4. I did not read yours before writing to not influence me,

and now I see that we both mentioned "The Help".
:)

[Mira]

2. Minor Details and Major Portraiture.

I'm impressed with seeing her right there in front of me. The pensive portrait, and the one infused with the aura of a story being told well, though with the detachment of some time having passed since it happened.

Surely you know about the runaway best seller this year "The Help".
Every time a woman friend had a birthday that is what she got from me if she did not already have it.

http://www.5minutesforbooks.com/866/the-help/

[Elfin Yeti]

5. You amaze me!

Your friends are very lucky! Just finished it -- one of those books you can't wait to finish but when you do you are left with a sense of loss to have come to the end! A blessing and a curse! Having grown up with Estelle coming every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the book felt very real to me. Stell was incredibly intelligent (grossly underemployed but what were her choices?), lively, funny, high-spirited, and just plain happy! She played "Mississippi jazz" on the piano and played the ponies at the track, laughed easily, worked hard, and had a joie de vivre I can only strive to attain!

[Sheepshank]

14. The pictures also made me think of "The Help"

the lifelong dedication and love for the family they take care of.

[HarveyDarkey]

6. Beautiful portraits of a strong woman

I was never privileged enough to have a maid in my home.
Tell me, what does a maid do on Monday, Wednesday & Friday?

What happened the other days of the week?

[Mira]

7. Oh, I smile at your question. It's a wide smile.

As Olympia Dukakis in "Moonstruck" would say: "What you don't know is a lot."
As a woman who has run a household, and would not mind doing it again for a steep fee I would say: Be grateful to all of those in your life (including yourself if you are and were healthy and willing) who did the grub and scrub work, and tell them you are as soon as possible.

[Elfin Yeti]

8. Here are some clues

We (my brothers and I) would often be on the receiving end of a sharp, "Get off my clean floor!" and "Lordy, lordy, lordy, you chillins got to learn to pick up them clothes!" Then there was the time she proudly declared (to my horrified mother, the antique dealer) how she'd managed to scrub all that paint off the lampshade (a previously valuable hand-painted victorian lamp)! A large woman, she could be a bit of a bull in a china shop, but our beds were made so tightly you could bounce a quarter, and she cared for us kids too; when my sister died at the age of eight, Stell cried as though it was her own child and, in fact, she was really.

One of my fondest memories as a child was coming home from school on wintry (IL) Friday afternoons to a roaring fire in the fireplace in the family room which was open to the kitchen where my mother was preparing dinner. Stell always liked to build the fire (and it was molten) just before she left to take the train back home. Sometimes I think of that when I read about latchkey kids and am grateful.

Oh, the other days of the week... we kids left our beds unmade when we could get away with it, dropped our clothes on the floor, and tracked mud on the clean floors!

[alfredo]

9. Beautiful images.

[Elfin Yeti]

10. Thank you Alfredo! n/t

[JeffR]

11. What a story of history and wisdom in that face!

You've kept her alive in these. Wonderful portraits.

[Elfin Yeti]

12. Thank you JeffR!

I can't believe it goes all the way back to '78!

[Juneboarder]

15. Hey, that pre-dates me!!

Beautiful story :)

[hippywife]

13. Wonderful photos.

They depict a woman who retained joy in the midst of hardship. What a beautiful lady. :hug: