Bean
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, so people all over the world are writing blog posts about women in technology that have inspired them. Ever since I read the first announcement of this, I have been thinking of all the wonderful women I have enjoying reading and reading about, some that I have even have the pleasure of knowing personally, who have inspired and encouraged me. I am very fortunate to know so many talented and knowledgeable women, who share my interest in technology and share skills and insights too. For our family blog, however, it occurred to me that it might be appropriate to write about the first woman who encouraged me to be interested in taking things apart and understanding how they work: Bean.
My grandmother, Bernice Burke Derieg (1903 – 1995), was always just called Bean. When I was little, I sometimes felt disadvantaged, because I didn't have a real story-book grandmother, just Bean. She was never that kind of ideal grandmother – the way my own mother has been for all her grandchildren. Maybe Bean didn't actually like small children, and it may be that the feeling was mutual. As a teenager, though, I had many, many reasons to appreciate her, as willful, obstinate and uncooperative as she was all her life.
By the time I was about nine or ten, Bean decreed that I had to be able to disassemble my own sewing machine and put it back together again. I became quite keen on taking all kinds of things apart and understanding how they worked then, something that I still enjoy very much. As a teenager I spent much of what free time I had at Bean's apartment, crawling around on the floor with her trying to figure out how to cut pieces out of fabric without wasting any, but blithely ignoring instructions that came with sewing patterns. We used all of Bean's tableware to hold down the paper pattern pieces on the fabric, so that we could shift them more easily. It was much more satisfying to figure out better ways to put together whatever we were working on, than to simply follow instructions, although of course I first had to learn to understand the instructions before I could disregard them. Bean taught me how to do that.
Along the way I learned a number of important things from Bean: I learned that I didn't need to be pretty, that I didn't need to learn to cook, that I didn't need to find a boyfriend, but along with being able to disassemble and reassemble my sewing machine, I absolutely needed to learn to use a screwdriver and a hammer and a power drill. And I learned to look forward to the day when I would be an old lady myself, so that I could swear uninhibitedly and not care what other people think (yes, I'm working on that).
Instead of a story-book grandmother, in retrospect I'm glad I had Bean.
My grandmother, Bernice Burke Derieg (1903 – 1995), was always just called Bean. When I was little, I sometimes felt disadvantaged, because I didn't have a real story-book grandmother, just Bean. She was never that kind of ideal grandmother – the way my own mother has been for all her grandchildren. Maybe Bean didn't actually like small children, and it may be that the feeling was mutual. As a teenager, though, I had many, many reasons to appreciate her, as willful, obstinate and uncooperative as she was all her life.
By the time I was about nine or ten, Bean decreed that I had to be able to disassemble my own sewing machine and put it back together again. I became quite keen on taking all kinds of things apart and understanding how they worked then, something that I still enjoy very much. As a teenager I spent much of what free time I had at Bean's apartment, crawling around on the floor with her trying to figure out how to cut pieces out of fabric without wasting any, but blithely ignoring instructions that came with sewing patterns. We used all of Bean's tableware to hold down the paper pattern pieces on the fabric, so that we could shift them more easily. It was much more satisfying to figure out better ways to put together whatever we were working on, than to simply follow instructions, although of course I first had to learn to understand the instructions before I could disregard them. Bean taught me how to do that.
Along the way I learned a number of important things from Bean: I learned that I didn't need to be pretty, that I didn't need to learn to cook, that I didn't need to find a boyfriend, but along with being able to disassemble and reassemble my sewing machine, I absolutely needed to learn to use a screwdriver and a hammer and a power drill. And I learned to look forward to the day when I would be an old lady myself, so that I could swear uninhibitedly and not care what other people think (yes, I'm working on that).
Instead of a story-book grandmother, in retrospect I'm glad I had Bean.
posted by Aileen at Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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