When Vi and Velm heard they had a new little sister, they were very excited because they had been wanting a girl to play with. And play they did! They dressed me up, played with my hair, taught me nursery rhymes, and took me along with them to the ice cream shop, friends' homes, the drug store that had a soft drink counter, and more. They coaxed me into reciting poems and paraded me in front of visitors. In short, they taught me to love receiving attention and feel comfortable speaking in front of others.
The only problem I had was I never liked the name they gave me. I was named "Irma" after a female organist my parents liked to listen to on the radio, Irma Glenn. They added "Rose" which was after my mother, Rosa. She had been called "Rosie" all her life. They wanted me to use both names, "Irma Rose" and proceeded to call me that. "Go sit down by Irma Rose," they would tell my Alaskan Spitz puppy, and she would.
Then I went to school. I noticed that all my classmates had only one name like Carol, Carolyn, Shirley, Sally, Pat, Donna. So I told my teacher to call me "Irma" only and drop the "Rose." My parents were upset; they wanted me called both names. Now as a clinical therapist, I think I did it as a step towards independence, a way of keeping my "self" separate from my mother. I didn't want the teachers to think that was my mother sitting in their first-grade classroom. Then someone called me "Wormy Irmie" and I realized I hated, hated, hated being called the single name"Irma" more than ever.
So for over 40 years I lived with a name I detested! Why couldn't l I have been called "Bunny" or "April"? "Irma" sounds as German as sauerkraut. And we, as Americans in the 1940's, were at war with Germany! Admittedly, due to my Dad having been born in Germany, he was a citizen now. So that made me a second generation German immigrant; but I felt as American as apple pie!
In middle age, when I was expecting my first grandchild, I was leafing through a book, Choose the Right Name For Your Baby, with my daughter-in-law who was eight months pregnant. Just for the heck of it, I turned to the definition for "Irma." "Irma," I read "means strength, power, regal, Queen." Wow, I thought, and my imagination began galloping across the northern European landscape. Maybe I had had an ancestor named "Irma" who was powerful, royal, a Queen. I could picture her in my mind--a female Viking with brass breast plate, a helmet with horns over two blond braids, a sword in one hand, and a battle ax in the other! Queen Irma the Wagnerian Visigoth!!!
Then my daughter-in-law asked me what I wanted to be called by this new little person who was coming into the world. In truth, I was to become a step-grandmother and I thought the two biological grandmothers should have first choice. They had chosen, my daughter-in-law said. I began remembering that I had wanted to change my name for a long time. Here was my chance. I would choose a name that could be used in non-grandmotherly situations, too. I had just started storytelling and wanted to develop a persona with a different name from "Irma." I remembered I had recently heard a grandchild call her grandmother "Mimi" and I knew that Puccini had found it a fine name for his Bohemian heroine. Daughter-in-law liked it, and the decision was made.
And that's how one of the biggest April fools made a wise decision, because "Mimi" fits me and has served me well both as a grandmother and a storyteller.
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| Irma Diederich performing a monolog (storytelling) in high school. |
"Irma" performing a monolog (storytelling)in high school.
