Recently I moved from the house I had lived in for over 30 years. I was now 56 years old, retired, recently separated and with no idea as to what direction I wanted to head in for the rest of my life. The separation and what I figured was a pending divorce had made it necessary to sell the house and split the proceeds, but in actual fact the darned place was too big for me anyway.
Lisa, my ex, and her friend Sheila had come by to remove any of the things that Lisa wanted to keep, and I had to load the balance of the contents into a U Haul truck that I had rented. Towing my car on a dolly behind me, I left the city where I had spent most of my life, heading for a warmer spot in the American Southwest. I didn’t know where I wanted to end up, but I thought that my first stop would be somewhere around Kingman, Arizona.
When I arrived in the Kingman area I searched for and found a house to purchase. I really hadn’t wanted to buy a home, but the rentals I found were all too close to the main rail line that cuts through Kingman, and I just happened to find a home for sale that was in an area well away from the tracks. The price was within my means; I made an offer on it and ended up with a home to move into. If I didn’t care for living here I could always sell it again.
I knew when I loaded the truck that there would be a few “What the heck did I bring that stuff for” boxes but for right now all I had to do was unload the truck and then I could return it and get my deposit back. I hired a couple of day laborers and we managed to place the furniture in the house, and I piled most of the boxes in the garage to sort and unpack later. Finally the truck was empty and I paid off the two helpers before I returned the truck and the car dolly to the local depot for the rental company,
Over the next couple of weeks I opened boxes and sorted through stuff. Lisa and I had been childless, but there were a few pictures of the two of us that I placed around the house and she had left me a few of the pictures that had hung in our other home, so by the end of the two week period the house looked a little more lived in and I felt I could call it home. There was still a couple of boxes in the garage that I had left until everything else was put away. My mom had passed away 4 years earlier, and my brother and I and my 2 sisters had packed up everything and had either given the stuff away, or had kept it. But as hard as I tried to remember what was in the boxes with my name on them I couldn’t.
I cut the tape on the first box, and there were a lot of my childhood pictures and school memorabilia. I thought the stuff was pretty cool to have, but I could have lived without it. Then I opened the other box. There was a bunch of my mom’s stuff from her younger days, and as I went through the box I came across some old glasses cases. I wondered what was up with that, as my mom had never worn glasses in her life. Even when we were kids she made us all do eye exercises almost daily, and I can sort of remember her being terribly upset when my sister, who is 2 years older than I am, had to get her first glasses when she was almost 6. I guess the eye exercises didn’t work for her, but they must have worked for the rest of us, as neither my younger sister nor my brother needed any more than reading glasses now.
I opened the glasses case that appeared to be the oldest. Inside was an oval shaped pair of gold wire frames that had extremely thick and powerful looking lenses in them. The earpieces were wire, and one was broken off right around the point where the one on the other side had started a curve that would have gone around the back of a person’s ear. There were no nosepieces that would have rested on a person’s nose to make the glasses more comfortable to wear, but instead the band that ran between the two lenses was designed to rest right on the nose. I tried to put these glasses on, but the power of the lenses prevented me from seeing anything but a blur. I looked carefully at the lenses and they seemed to be dished in about the same amount on both the front and the rear. These glasses were old, but I had no idea how old they were, or why my mom had kept them.
Then I opened another case. It was a silver metal box, without hinges. Inside was another pair of glasses. The shape of the lenses was still oval, and a little larger than the first pair, but they were rimless. The nose part was almost identical to the type that the first pair of glasses had and they had no nose pads. Again, the earpieces were gold and were the type that circled around a person’s ears and held the glasses on tightly. They looked like little cables, and I remember one time hearing the term cable temples, so I figured that this might be what they were called. The lenses were a little strange though, because all around the outer part of the lens was an area that was about an eighth of an inch wide that was beveled slightly, as if the lenses had been ground down to make them thinner. I looked through these lenses, as I had with the other ones, and again I found them to be very strong, however I could tell that they were a bit weaker than the first pair I had tried on. The lenses were fairly loose and I thought for a moment that I should tighten up the screws, but it looked as though they had chipped a little around where the screw holes had been drilled so I decided I would leave well enough alone.
Then I opened another old clamshell case. Inside this case was a beautifully crafted pair that had circles in the middle of the lens where the prescription was. The circle was surrounded by an area that seemed to have some sort of a prescription in it, but it was only done this way to make the lens thinner. These glasses were again rimless and the lens was an octagon shape. The top and the bottom of the eight sides were a longer length than the piece at the nose and the outer side, which were as long the other 4 sides of the octagon. These lenses were held together by a nosepiece that was fastened through the glass by little screws with nuts, and then the earpieces were held to the opposite side the same way. The earpieces were the same twisted metal that came around behind the wearer’s ears. These glasses were strong, even stronger than the original pair, and I again could see almost nothing through them. The earpieces hurt my ears, and the ivory looking nose pads dug into my nose, so the head of the wearer had been much smaller than mine was
The next case I opened revealed another pair of glasses that had lenses with little circles in the middle of them. The circles were rather small and I knew that the wearer of these glasses would have had very limited peripheral vision. I was almost afraid to lift these glasses out of the clamshell case because the front of the frame was clear plastic that had gone all yellow around the bridge and down where the molded nose pads were. But I took a big chance and I opened the temples and slid the glasses onto my nose. They did not break so after looking around for a minute or two and deciding that these glasses were about as strong as the last pair I had tried on I took them off and returned them to the case. The temples were metal with a silvery effect, and there were metal pieces from the temple to the bridge of the nose that were fastened to the plastic with some sort of rivets. As I looked at these glasses I thought that I could vaguely remember my mom’s older sister, my Aunt Jane, wearing these glasses many years ago.
Then I opened a leather case with a top that folded over and snapped closed. Inside was a pair of gold metal and plastic framed men’s glasses. The lenses were glass, had flat fronts and also had bifocal segments in each lens. I could sort of make my eyes see through these glasses, but they really pulled at my eyes. I knew these glasses. They were the ones my Uncle Chuck, who was a couple of years younger than Aunt Jane, used to wear when I was a kid.
I put Uncle Chuck’s old glasses away and I picked up another case, a pretty flowered blue one and I opened it. All there was inside was a pair of lenses and a piece of paper. On the paper was written -6.75 x -1.75 x 170 and -7.00 x -1.50 x 170. I wondered what had happened to the frame, but I put everything back in the case and went on to the next pair. They were in a similar case, but this case was white. As soon as I opened it I saw that these glasses were in sad shape. The whole bridge area was so dark a brown it was almost black, and as soon as I tried to pick them from the case the really dark plastic crumbled and fell to the cement floor. But I recognized the glasses as the first pair of many that my sister Joanne had worn. The front frame was clear plastic, and the earpieces were pink metal with silver flowers engraved into them. Similar to the pair of my Aunt Jane’s, the front top of the frame had pieces of pink metal with pretty engravings etched into them and the metal was riveted into the plastic. My sister got these glasses in 1961, just before she turned 6 and started grade 1. As I looked closely at the glasses more of the plastic opened up and before I could do anything the right lens had fallen into my hand. Then I saw that the left lens was on its way out as well, so I removed it. Tucked into the back of the case was a piece of paper like they use for business cards, and written on it was my sister’s name. Below her name was the letters OD and beside that was written -5.50 x -1.50 x 170. Then there were the letters OS with -5.25 x -1.25 x 172 written there. Now I knew that both of these cases contained the first two prescriptions that my sister Joanne had worn. The lenses that were in the blue flowered case had been in a clear plastic frame with blue temples and blue pieces over the eyebrow area. I had always liked seeing Joanne wearing these glasses and I was a little envious over the fact that Joanne wore glasses.
Thinking of Joanne took me back to the days when mom used to make us all stand and do eye exercises she called palming and swinging. She also used to make us bring our eyes right to the top, to the bottom and to each side to exercise the eye muscles. And we also had to spend time outside looking at the sun. In later years I discovered that all this stuff was written about in a book by some eye doctor called Bates. No matter how much mom made us do this stuff it didn’t seem to help Joanne, who kept needing stronger and stronger glasses until she was in her mid 20’s. But maybe it had helped me, and my other sister Sally and my brother Jack, because, as I previously mentioned, we all had good eyesight.
I had 5 more cases containing glasses to open. The next case I chose was a red clam shell case, and when I opened it I found it to contain a pair of black plastic frames containing very thick plano fronted plastic lenses. I had never seen anyone in my family wearing these glasses and for the life of me I could not figure out who they could have belonged to. And what was even stranger was the question of how and why did my mother have these glasses in her possession?
Then it was on to another pair, and when I opened this case I knew who had worn theses glasses. They were my grandmother’s. They were fairly strong, because they had flat fronts with the telltale bifocal segments in each lens. My grandmother didn’t wear glasses except for reading until she was in her late 50’s or early 60’s, and she developed a fairly high prescription in a short period of time. I think I remember mom saying that Granny was somewhere around a -10D when she died, but at the time I had no idea what this meant. And really, other than knowing the numbers, I still didn’t know what that meant in how well a person could see things.
Three more cases remained and I chose to open a red soft case that was held shut with Velcro. I pulled out a pair of glasses with perhaps the thickest, heaviest lenses I had ever seen. They were glass and the front of the lens was dished in substantially. The rear curve was fairly steep, and the edge of the bowl didn’t quite reach the edges of the lens, leaving a partial band around the lens that had no prescription. The frame was a cheap plastic frame that looked like it could be a man’s frame, but the lenses didn’t look as if they were made for this frame as it almost looked like they didn’t quite fit. The shape of the lenses were more along the shape that looked like they came from a ladies frame, and I sort of surmised that these lenses might have come from a pair of ladies glasses that had broken and they just put the lenses into whatever frame they could find that they would fit into.. These glasses would have been heavier than lead for anyone who had to put them on their nose and wear them all day and again I wondered why mom had them.
There was another soft case, and I opened it. Inside was a pair of young girl’s glasses. They were in a plastic frame, and the upper portion was a mottled soft blue. The blue disappeared into the clear plastic that went around the bottom of the lenses. I didn’t remember the lenses, but the frame was reminiscent of a frame I had seen on my sister Sally’s oldest daughter Alesha back about 15 years ago. But these lenses were rather strange. They had what appeared to be a myodisc circle, but the circle was indistinct, more like the myodisc part was blended into the part where the prescription was. Maybe they were the frames from a pair of Alesha’s old glasses that had once had the lenses replaced with stronger ones. I vaguely remembered that when mom had fallen and broke some ribs Alesha had stayed with her for a while. Maybe these glasses as well as the really thick black oval ones had both been Alesha’s old glasses. Alesha now wore contact lenses all the time, so I had no idea how strong the glasses that she wore at this time were.
The last case contained a pair of glasses that I had known well. They were the ones my sister Joanne had been wearing when she was almost 16. They were sort of translucent golden brown plastic frame. This frame style had been all the rage in the late 60’s when glasses had moved away from the cat’s eye style of the late 50’s and early 60’s and the eye size was much larger than the older glasses had. The lenses were plastic and the front surface on both lenses was dished in a bit. When I ran my fingers along the back curve of the lenses I liked the fact that the curve felt fairly steep. I remembered these glasses well, because in 1971, just before Joanne turned 16, our whole family went to Chicago in our car. I remember driving along through different areas and trying to point out some of the things I was seeing to Joanne. Joanne wouldn’t even look up from the book she was sitting there reading and she would just say that there was no sense looking because she likely wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. And I knew that to be true, because whenever Joanne and I went anywhere I was the one who had to look for the numbers on the bus so that we could get the right one. She really couldn’t see very well. There was a piece of paper in this case as well, and written on it in ball point ink were the numbers -13.50 x -3.00 x 165 and -12.75 x -3.50 x 173. I guess that was pretty strong, but even so it wasn’t strong enough for Joanne. Joanne ended up getting contact lenses and another pair of new glasses soon after our trip to Chicago, and I can’t remember seeing Jo in glasses since then.
I had figured out who some of the old glasses belonged to. But the really old ones were still a mystery to me. We had a lot of old family pictures, but even though there were always some of our ancestors that wore glasses there were very few pictures that showed anyone wearing them. It seemed to me as if all of those people who needed glasses very badly had a definite aversion to appearing in pictures wearing them. Vanity is a strange beast.
I set out on my quest to determine who the wearers of those old glasses might be. The one pair of octagon shaped rimless myodiscs appeared to have come from sometime in the 30’s. The only person who was in that age bracket that could have worn them was likely my grandmother’s sister Annie. Their brother Robert wouldn’t have worn ladies glasses, and my grandmother supposedly didn’t wear glasses until she was almost in her 60’s.
The oval rimless glasses were older. I was sure that they were from around the turn of the century, so that meant that they were likely owned by my great grandmother Mildred Stone. That meant that the oldest pair of glasses, the oval biconcave lensed ones with the broken temple piece, must have belonged to her father, Walter Wilbur Watson, who was my great, great grandfather. Walter W. Watson had owned a bank and had made quite a lot of money in his day.
At the beginning we had Walter Wilbur Watson, who I am pretty sure wore the oldest pair of glasses. I only knew of his daughter Mildred, who had married James Stone, although I believe that she had 2 brothers. Then James and Mildred had 3 children, Robert, Mollie and Annie. Mollie, my grandmother was represented by the one pair of glasses that I recognized, although they were not as strong as the pair that I felt could only have belonged to Annie. Annie had no children and had died at a fairly young age. Robert had a daughter by his first wife, and a son with his second, as his first wife also died young. I didn’t know any of their offspring and had lost touch with that branch of the family. My grandparents, Mollie and her husband Frank Hales, had 3 children. Jane was the oldest, followed by Charles and my mother Jessica was the youngest. I had recognized the glasses that Uncle Chuck wore when he was younger, and I vaguely remembered seeing the myodiscs on my Aunt Jane. Uncle Chuck had 2 kids, a boy and a girl, and I really do not remember either of them wearing glasses. Aunt Jane had an older daughter by her first husband Don, and Edith was a good 13 years older than me. I knew her slightly when I was a young boy, as after her parents split up she lived with Gran for a couple of years and baby sat the 4 of us sometimes. I do not remember Edith wearing glasses, and I have lost contact with her as she went to live with her dad after Aunt Jane married again. Jane and her second husband Edward had 2 children. David was the oldest and was a couple of years older than my sister Joanne. Grace, his sister was a year older than I was and I do remember that Grace wore glasses, but I am pretty sure they were a lot weaker than Joanne’s were. After grandmother died Jane got sick herself and we didn’t have any contact with Ed and Jane anymore so I don’t know where my cousins David and Grace ended up.
As I mentioned my mom didn’t wear glasses. My sister Joanne got her first glasses when she was around 6, and then within a year she needed stronger ones. I know she had a few more pairs before she was wearing the pair that she wore on our trip to Chicago. Once she turned 16 she got hard contact lenses, and after she moved out of the house and married Bill Johnson I had never seen her wearing glasses again. But I was really curious about who had owned the heavy pair of glasses with the really thick glass myodisc lenses. I had not called any of my family since I had bought my house, so none of them had my new address or phone number and I decided I would give Joanne a call to update her.
I had a pleasant chat with Joanne. I gave her my new address and phone number, and when she asked me if I wanted her to pass it on to Sally and Jack I asked her not to because I wanted to call and chat with them myself. I did tell Joanne that I had found a number of pairs of old glasses in a box that mom had marked my name on and I told her that I thought I had done a pretty good job of figuring out who had worn most of the glasses. She confirmed that my guesses were correct. Apparently Sally’s daughter Alesha had been staying with mom when Alesha got her first pair of contact lenses. The mottled blue and clear plastic frames indeed contained blended myodiscs, and the black oval frames were the glasses that Alesha had gotten to wear around the house when she took her contacts out. Alesha had hated those glasses because they were so thick, and she must have left both pairs at moms after mom recovered enough to be on her own again. I asked Joanne about the last pair of glasses I couldn’t figure out the ownership of. Joanne went silent for a minute, and then she told me they were hers. I knew better than to say anything about not realizing how bad her eyes were, or how thick the glasses were, but I did ask her how she could possibly have worn glasses that were that heavy. She simply told me that she only wore them when she absolutely had to because her contacts had to come out for some reason or another. She also confirmed that she had broken them and the lenses had been inserted in the first frame they would fit into that would put the lenses in the proper position in front of her eyes.
“I could likely still wear them.” Joanne said.
“I’ll send them back to you if you want me to.” I replied.
“I hated them then and only wore them in an emergency. And thank goodness there were not too many emergencies. But I don’t need them and I wouldn’t wear them because I have 2 or 3 other pairs that I would wear first.” Joanne replied.
“Do you know how strong they might be?” I queried casually.
“My current prescription is -23.00 x -3.50 x 168 and – 23.00 x -4.00 x 175 so I guess they would be somewhere around that.” Joanne answered.
“That is pretty strong. I doubt that any of the other glasses from the past are anywhere near as strong.” I answered.
“No, I doubt that they are. But Alesha is in my prescription bracket now. She is somewhere around -26D according to Sally. And her daughter Violet is very nearsighted as well. So there is something in our family that causes some of us to have high myopia.” Joanne told me.
After Joanne and I finished talking I called both Sally and Jack and gave them my new address and phone number. I didn’t say anything to them about the old glasses I had found, but Joanne saying that she thought that there was something in our family that caused high myopia made me do some thinking. I had gone out with a young lady when I was in my 20’s, and I had seriously thought of marrying her. Her glasses, while on the thick side were not as strong as the ones Joanne had needed, and I rather liked the fact that she was almost helpless without them. I fantasized about me cleaning them and placing them gently on her face when she woke up every morning, and I rather liked that thought. But my mom had taken what seemed to be an intense dislike to Marilyn, and eventually I dropped her. Now I felt I knew that the reason mom had disliked Marilyn so much had been because she was afraid that by bringing another high myope into the family the chance of there being more high myopes would have been increased. I wouldn’t have minded. I would rather have had a few myopic children running around along with a highly myopic wife rather than being childless and now living by myself. I was happy though that all those glasses from the past had finally brought the truth to me. But I still wondered why, if mom hated glasses so much, had she kept all those old glasses?
Specs4ever Jan 2016