[originally posted June 5 2011, 5:18 AM]
She's been known as "The Cookie Lady", Toots, Mom, and her given name Iris.
The Toots nickname might have originated from Barney Deckert, a welder who owned a shop along 3rd street. The heavy wooden sliding door on his workplace was always half open, revealing a dark and ominous deep room. We'd walk by there often, and I'd peer in to only see deep black. One day I was startled by Barney suddenly emerging in his other-worldly oiled overalls and mask flipped up on his head. That darkness was where I learned to be afraid of the unseeable. It's an archetypal image in my brain even now.
She was always good at baking things. Yeast rolls or cinnamon rolls were left to rise atop the heater duct in the utility room just off the kitchen. Warmth and patience were the lesson. In later years, she became reknowned for her delicious chocolate chip cookies. No duels, but some ferocious auction bids for her cookies, for which she sometimes bartered for services. Mostly though, she gave them away freely to the kids at school sporting events or to church events. Cookie Lady.
She kept the house tidy. She was so efficient that if I put something on the kitchen counter, and then ran to the bathroom, I'd find it was already put away when I came out. It used to irritate me. Now I'm the one tidying her house. I find that my compulsive efforts sometimes cross over the line, too.