Remembering Rena

Born in the segregated South, Rena Sanders worked for my grandmother and mother for most of her life. We considered her a member of our family.

In the mornings, she made me poached eggs in a copper-bottom Rivere Ware egg poacher on top of buttered rye toast; she also read me my daily horoscope. (To this day, I am a sucker for poached eggs on rye toast.) For lunch, Rena prepared tuna salad with carrot sticks, and for dinner, chicken fried in Crisco.

She taught me how to cook and shared family gossip—of which there was enough that “I could write a book about your family,” she always said. She imparted life lessons and family history to anyone who would listen, mainly my sister and me. 

She was both superstitious and religious, a proud congregant of her church. I would hear its gospel choir once, at her funeral in 1998. Unafraid of death, she was sure that heaven awaited her.

I could tell Rena things that I couldn’t say to my parents. She was patient and nonjudgmental, and I felt safe confiding in her. She just listened, calm and unflappable in the face of our family's stresses and dramas.

My mom always bought her a turkey on Thanksgiving. We celebrated Thanksgiving on the eve of the holiday so that Rena could prepare our meal and then spend the holiday with her own family.

Having known her since she was a girl, Rena called my mother "Merle" and not "Mrs. Vertes." Merle regularly helped Rena when she was short on cash, and Rena accompanied us on vacation to Florida to help Merle once or twice.

Rena in her later years

In Rena’s later years, my mom paid her to come to the house for a few hours. We treasured her presence. She might have made a bed or two, but due to the "artheritis" in her knees, the stairs had become her nemesis. 

Mostly, she hung out, cast shade on our in-laws (“They grew up where I did, and they were hillbillies,” she insisted), and maybe brought us one of her famous 7-Up cakes. She never learned to drive, and William, Rena's husband, would pick her up at 4 pm to drive her home to her other life and family. 

I visited Rena at her home on Cleveland's Ada Avenue just once. As she had done when she tended to us as kids, Rena kept all her shades drawn to discourage intruders. Her home was cozy, with lots of family photos.

Today, I guess cleaning services have replaced “help,” as we understood it in the '60s and '70s. I doubt anyone pays domestic workers anymore to hang out and read horoscopes.

I still think about Rena a lot. I was lucky to have her in my life. What I wouldn't give for her company and poached eggs with a side of Sagittarius.

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