Weave the Web
Recording Family Legends for Generations to Come
How has your relationship with your siblings
changed over the years? by Carol Tarlow
Click HERE to return to Carol's homepage.
I love this question and the opportunity it affords to talk about my three younger siblings, Nancy, Janet and Larry.
Larry was the baby and the only boy. He was born in November, 1950, two months before my ninth birthday. I should be able to remember specific details about the day he came home, but I can’t and I have few memories of him as a child.
I have a recollection of two nightmare scenarios, both occurring on my watch as oldest sister babysitter for baby Larry: Once, he fell down the cellar stairs and got a severe concussion and another time he almost drowned in the bathtub. I don’t think he ever held either of these incidents against me. He was and is a forgiving, happy-go-lucky person and he can make people laugh, sometimes at his own expense.
As kids, the four of us ate at a rectangular table in a small pantry area off the kitchen. There was a window at one end which, as I may have mentioned, we would open to throw out the eggplant, asparagus, broccoli and other unwanted veggies on our plates, to the delight of the trees and shrubs outside which grew, like a miracle, to be twice the size of their neighbors! We were having dinner one night as usual at this table in the small pantry. Larry was about six and just learning to read. The water glasses Mum had given us that night had “I’m Only Human” inscribed on them. We three girls decided it would be fun to see if Larry could read this. We gave him a glass and laughed our superior heads off as he struggled to sound out the letters. “I……m……. ooooonnnnnllllllyyyyyy…….”. And then at the top of his lungs, he proudly shouted, “HERMAN.” We are still laughing about this some fifty-four years later and, given the sort of person he is, I have a feeling no one is laughing harder than Larry himself. We are not close, I think mostly because of the nearly nine year age difference between us, but we talk on the phone on his birthday and Xmas, and even in this topsy turvy world of Covid, fires and Trump, he can still make me laugh.
Nancy was born when I was almost two and a half. She and I share common traits - we are both overachievers, competitive and we strive to please.
I remember that as a child Nance loved to collect bugs and worms, wounded birds, frogs, almost any live creature from outdoors. I did not share this passion but sort of admired it from a distance.
​
From the time we were quite young, we both loved to sing. I don’t think we were very good but our Dad did. Whenever there were guests at the house, they were subjected to our rendering of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, our theme song. Nancy had a true talent for harmonizing and she would go off on a thrilling descant, while I tried desperately to hold the melody. Of course, we always got a
rousing applause from the captive audience. Nancy has kept her voice and her love of singing and before Covid 19 was a part of at least one San Francisco singing group, and she and younger sister Janet are popular at Karaoke bars whenever Janet comes for a visit. For some reason, I can barely carry a tune these days but from time to time I will belt out a song on a walk with Max when no one is within hearing distance. Growing up, I would not say Nancy and I were particularly close. We each had our own friends and did our own thing. After Allan and I moved to California, in 1983, I encouraged Nance to move here as well. When she did, we became closer. Today, there is no one I respect more than my sister Nancy. She has a moral compass that never swerves off course and an enthusiasm for life that is contagious. We talk several times a week and if I need advice on anything at all, I pick up the phone and call Nance.
I also call my “baby” sister, Janet, who was born in 1947, five years after me. She climbed out of her crib at nine months and has been tumbling through life ever since. She could stand on her head and walk on her hands and twist her body into almost any shape at all.
I asked her recently if she could still do this and she said, “I can stand on my head forever, easy-peasy, but I don’t walk on my hands anymore, I’m afraid I might hurt something.” She is 73!
These gymnastic talents came in handy when as a teenager she slipped through her bedroom window over the garage and onto the motorcycle of her “racy” boyfriend, something she coerced me to deny under the stern glare of “Daddy” as she still calls him. Nancy and I never called our strict, authoritarian father Daddy. He was either Dad or Father to us. But it was almost a tale of two families. Janet and Larry had a loving, fun father who let them get away with almost anything. To me, this person is unrecognizable.
Janet and I were not close as children but later, we began to discover how much we have in common. We are both, for example, fierce protectors of our children and unwavering in our unconditional love for them. We are “fixers” and will go to great lengths to smooth over family problems or solve conundrums for our kids. We both love dogs and the Kentucky Derby. Over the years I have come to respect and depend on Janet’s common sense and practicality. She is in many ways much wiser than her oldest sister.
In a nutshell: my sisters and I had our own, individual, happy childhoods. Somewhere in adulthood we became linked, almost as one: CarolNancyJanet, an inseparable trio, cheering each other on, consoling, advising, loving. What gifts you are, dear sisters.​
The Three Webster sisters
A rare photograph of the Four Webster Siblings
