Yep, Elena was heavy on my mind and in my heart this weekend. She was remembered with many of my other Pisces friends @ the 15th Annual Pisces Birthday Bash held this weekend at my friends’ place near Llano, Tx
As Elena grew up in Texas, where we moved from Bogota in 1949, it turned out that each year just about in time for her birthday on March 2nd, the daffodils would be in full bloom. So, "Daffydowndilies" became her birthday flower. In these last years, when her birthday was coming up, and she had the resources to buy whatever she needed, when she was asked what she wanted for her birthday, it would be daffodils. Sometimes here in the Northeast they would be hard to find, if winter had been long and cold. But, most of the time we could find some daffodils somewhere for her birthday. This year, as the green shoots spring up out of the ground and reach for the early Spring sun, I know that my garden is going to be full of daffodils like it was last year, when I could just go outside and cut a whole new bouquet for days and days all around her birthday. This year I will cut flowers again in her memory and miss her with an aching heart. And I will remember with pleasure how thrilled she was to be able to walk around my garden hunting up the different varieties that seemed to find their ways to different patches of ground--yellow on yellow, white on yellow, yellow on white with a touch of orange, multiple ruffles, or a simple single trumpet face. My garden will always have daffodils blooming in the Spring for Elena.
The 50th Wedding Anniversary of Jack and Elena Brineman was held on June 21, 1990 at Ox Hollow Haven and the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Kerrville, TX. When we went hunting for pictures for this website, we realized that the last time that just about all the family was together was at that celebration. So, this story is documenting that time. Jack Brineman had one sister, Margaret, who married Leo Ness. They had both passed on, but their son, Stephen Ness was there. Elena Lockwood Brineman had 3 brothers, Fred, Scott and John. Fred Lockwood and his wife Arlene had both passed on, but their daughter Kay Lockwood Doerr and son Fred were there. Kay and Jim Doerr had 3 sons, Jimmy, Jeff, and Bobby; Jimmy and Bobby were there. Fred Lockwood married Maren and she was there. John Lockwood had married Betty Lou, who died early, and then married Eleanor. Both John and Eleanor were there, as were John's sons from his first marriage, Richard and Donald. Elena and Jack had 4 children, Anne Anderson, Elena, John, and Scott, who were all there. Anne had married Dick Anderson and had 3 children: Laurie, Geoff and Kelley, who were there. John had married Marcia, who had 2 children from a former marriage that John adopted, and they also had one son: Keeley, Chuck, and Robin, who were there. Scott married Kathy and she was also there, although without her 3 children from a former marriage, Tammy, Bobby and Tina. The pictures connected with this story are of these folks, for the record, and are in the gallery marked 50th Anniversary family.
Then there was the time that Elena and I went backpacking on the Appalachian Trail along the Shenandoah Mountains. We had a great time--saw a black bear shuffling off, caught whiffs of skunk as we hiked, picked a few wild blue berries from the low-bush blueberry bushes, exulted in the views as we hiked along, and very efficiently and properly set up camp well off the trail and well before sunset in a lovely glade--cool and fresh because there was a delightful trickling stream right near by. We made dinner and set up our two-person pup tent--all shipshape. We talked about how great it was to be out in the wilderness, off the beaten path, and enjoyed the quiet and bird song as the sun went down. Eventually, it was time for bed, so we extinguished our candle lanterns and climbed into our pup tent...only to realize that the trickling stream, so lovely while there was light to see our surroundings, was now a white noise problem because we could not hear anything approaching until it would be right on top of us--bears, skunks, raccoons, two-legged animals out to make mischief, etc. So, it ended up that neither of us could sleep. We tried to take turns...no dice. Finally, we ended up lighting our candle lanterns again, figuring that the lights would keep wild animals away and we would take the chance on two-leggeds. Still didn't sleep much. For years, when we remembered that trip, we would just look at each other and shake our heads and laugh. Life lesson: Don't park yourself by white noise in the dark in the wilderness!
Back in 1986, when I was 15 years old, I followed in my sister and brother's footsteps and was given a trip to visit my Aunt Elena in Guatemala City, Guatemala. It was an eye opening trip during which I drank warm coconut water from fresh coconuts drilled by street vendors and actually figured out how to tell a joke in Spanish and scrambled all over Mayan ruins.
I didn't know exactly how much that trip changed me until I got home. That Christmas Elena came to our house, as usual, and we were in the kitchen preparing one of the special meals around that time - maybe it was the special tamales wrapped in banana leaves that she would bring back for us to have on New Years Eve. I still have a craving for tamales on New Years Eve because of that tradition she started. Anyway, I remember she and my mom, Anne, were talking in the kitchen about some conversation Elena had earlier that day with a well-meaning, but mis-guided person who had suggested a possible solution to the desperate poverty in Guatemala. The solution was to get the women of the villages in the countryside to partner with door-to-door cosmetics companies and have them sell cosmetics door to door in their communities. The person who had suggested this solution thought it would be a good idea because the women of Guatemala would be their own boss and would be able to have flexible hours while making money. Elena and Anne shook their heads at the ridiculous notion.
I thought for a moment - why was that a ridiculous notion? I thought back to my trip to Guatemala. I remembered driving with Elena into those villages. We drove through the barely paved roads into the small town "squares." We were met by a gaggle of village children clamoring to be picked as the one to guard our car. Elena would select one of them to do the guarding. Then we would walk into the church and see that main gathering place of the village. Then we would walk by the small houses out to the terraced farming plots - I still have pictures of those fields of crops. On our way back to the car, Elena would take out a few coins and she said to me, "Now, as we go back to the car, look at which kid is actually guarding our car and remember which kid we asked to guard our car. We will give one coin to the kid we asked to guard our car and one coin to the kid or kids who actually did the work." Sure enough, we saw sitting on a stump next to our car a little girl and a boy watching our car, not the same boy who we asked to guard the car. When they saw us walking back to the car, all the kids came running back to show that they had been guarding the car the whole time. Elena gave a coin to the boy we had asked to guard the car and to the girl and boy who had actually guarded the car and we drove on to the next town. I asked Elena what they were going to do with the money. She said they would give it to their parents so that the family would be able to buy food and clothes and it would be part of the family's income. I thought about what I would do with coins that I was given by my parents and how I would go to the corner store and buy candy.
I thought back on that experience and realized that the women I saw struggling for survival in Guatemala would not be able to sell cosmetics door-to-door in their villages. Who would they sell it to? Who was there in those villages who would afford to spend any money on luxuries like make-up? There were no corner stores to go buy candy or even a gallon of milk, much less houses to knock on to sell make-up to. It was a completely different world and those who thought that selling make-up door-to-door was a viable solution did not understand what a different culture it was. But because I had that experience, I got it. I understood why that was not a viable solution. And I will be forever grateful for my Aunt Elena for opening my mind.
My name is Joanie de Coup-Crank Deibert and unlike everyone else, I’ve known the Brineman family since my birth in 1941. Jack and Elena were my god parents but the relationship goes even further back to Havana, Cuba with our grandmothers. My memories of the Brineman children are many and special, especially ‘little Elena’. Call it envy, call it jealousy or both, you see, she lived her younger years living my dream. I digress, our families met up again in Venezduring years of 1940’s because of our father’s professions. It was several years until meeting up again in Dallas. At an early ageTia Elena had taught her children advantages of healthy eating, to enjoy nature, do what you can to preserve the world, and help others do the same. Remember ‘little’Elena talking about oral contraceptives with my mum, such an intense conversation between to very strong willed, smart, loving women. Over many years our paths crossed when she was on home leave and once when she was posted in Dominican Republic. On that visit she reminded me that wheat germ really was good for us as children. Elena was her father’s s daughter, smart, loving, somewhat of a dry sense of humor, loved teaching children or anyone interested about nutrition and nature. My heart is heavy, tears are falling while writing, we will miss her infectious smiles and laughs but know she is without pain laughing with her parents, brothers and others who went before her. Thank you Elena for making such a difference to so many around the world. You will be missed by so many.
Elena,
When you were here for Scott's Celebration of Life we all went to the wildlife refuge and it has stuck with me ever since. It was remarkable watching you and Anne Joyfully search the trees for various birds and even more remarkable that Anne was noting it in her Audubon book. But what really made it special was the fact that there were nesting owls; WOW, even I was excited about that! I have since shared this story with people I work with and even strangers when the topic of birds come up. I fondly refer to it as the 'bird watching with the Aunts' moment. More importantly, since that day I have found myself watching birds; some I know, some I don't. After speaking with Anne a little over a week ago I was working and doing my security check around the school. The day was mild with a light breeze and it felt good to be out and cooling off a bit. I came around a corner and saw a bunch of birds skittering about in the grass and wondered what they were, I thought to myself "Elena and Anne would know". I'm currently looking for mom and Scott's Audubon book; Thank You for that, and you too Anne. I no longer see birds in the same way because of our little adventure at the wildlife refuge.
My sister Elena called me one day shortly after moving to the DC area to serve as Regional Food and Nutrition Adviser for the LAC Bureau and she opened with that question: "Is this how policy is made?!?" She was caught up in all the serendipity that was required that led to the day's events.
She told me that as she was leaving the office the previous evening she was told that the President would be making a decision the next day on how best to help El Salvador recover from a recent natural disaster (probably a hurricane). The question was, should the USA send bread or wheat? What did she think? So, she thought about it on the way home and realized that if the USA sent bread, it would put the millers and the bread and tortilla makers out of business. It would cut the rug out from under all the bicycle delivery people who delivered freshly made bread and tortillas, whose income was essential to the well-being of their families, etc., etc., etc. But how to provide the appropriate data? So, over dinner she remembered that she had heard about an academic study just completed of the economic processes of the food system in El Salvador and she called the researcher--fortunately he was in a different time zone and still available. He had raw data, but they worked with what he had, and she wrote out in long-hand at her dining room table some rough estimates of how devastating sending finished bread would be to the long-term economic health of El Salvador, and how sending wheat would keep the system going--from millers to bakers to bicycle delivery guys to poor families all over El Salvador. She hurried in early the next morning to give her hand-written notes to the USAID Administrator who was packing his brief case to go to the meeting at the White House. He thanked her, stuffed them in without looking at them and left.
Several hours later she heard that the President had decided to send wheat!
