Descriptive Essay On My Name Sylvia Eulene

While I haven’t known many Annas in my life, my surname has always seemed crucial in identifying me. Apparently, pairing “Anna” with “Rader” has a nice ring to it, yet it lacks an overtone integral to my identity. Inserted between my palindromic first name and a term associated with Indiana Jones and a lost ark (as if my name wasn’t nerdy enough), my middle name Maisen is an acronym. As a composition of my grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ initials, this acrostic shoulders the most meaning and insight in its presence, spelling out my genealogy and character. The origin of my mother’s father and my middle initial, Dolores Marie Cecilia Thebeau lost nearly everything, including her mother, in the Great Depression but held onto her bright

As an Oklahoma farm woman, my father’s grandmother was equipped to confront any issue that blew her way, combating ruinous vermin and soil ruin alike. Joyce Annabel scrutinized details through a perfectionist's magnifying glass, and every nickel she saved seem to burnish her steely

Caretaker to her mother, husband, and children through sickness and solitude, Sylvia Eulene wore stamina and devotion like armor. Her arms reached nearly as long as her kitchen table, which often cradled an extensive Southern buffet, swaying to the lullaby of sizzlin’ bacon and mouthwaterin’ biscuits, complete with grits to match her own.

Providing the far boundary of my middle name, Norma Sue Rader is a woman with boundless intellect and ability who outpours her scholarship without reserve. As a missionary in Zambia, Norma freely gave much of her knowledge or “kennis,” as the natives called it, through music and basic schooling. As a mother in Zambia, Norma sustained her five towheaded, pre-adolescent sons (including my dad) through 6th grade, teaching times tables in arithmetic and how to stay away from snakes in playgrounds.

These lines of matriarchy contribute to my identity in countless ways beyond a family tree cipher. Through their contrasting quirks and complexions, I have gained so many dimensions: the symphony of joy echoed by the silence of perfectionism; the kodachrome of Tutti Frutti Pink nail polish whimsically spilled over months of leather-bound calendaring; the sharp smell of ink and intellect poring over textbooks mingled with the aroma of sweetness wafting from the kitchen. Though the labels Anna and Rader command my attention most often, Maisen, nestled in between, completes