Wanda opted for “Call Me By Your Name”

During Oscars week this year I asked the writers in my memoir classes to choose a title of one of the films nominated for best picture. “Use that title as the writing prompt for your next 500-word essay.”

No one chose Dunkirk. And just like at the Oscars, “The Shape of Water” won the most votes. Most writers came back the next week with essays about vacationing at lake houses, renovating old bathrooms, learning to swim, that sort of thing. Second-most-popular prompt? “Get Out.” Writers used the prompt to pen essays about escaping scary situations, leaving home, undesireable roommates, blind dates gone wrong.

Wanda, the 95-year-old matriarch of my memoir-writing classes, chose “Call Me By Your Name” and generously offered to let me share her delightful essay with you about how she and her husband came up with a name for their daughter.

Here’s a screen capture of the live feed screen from when Wanda and I were on WGN radio last summer. There’s Wanda in the upper left screen.

by Wanda Bridgeforth I

I was the oldest female of a dozen cousins. For almost seven years, I was the only girl. This age difference resulted in being the first to date, to marry, and to become a mother.

The family referred to my father and his brothers as “We Boys.” They had no sisters, so We Boys name their daughters after themselves. This resulted in Albertine, Claudette, Claudine, Earline, Fredricka, Haroldine, etc. That should give you some idea of our naming process.

We grew up in the age of fairy tales, True Romance magazine and and movies that ended with the hero winning the girl and riding off to live happily ever after. Curtis was in the army, and on New Year’s Eve he called me from a train station in downtown Chicago. He could not say which train station he was at, and he couldn’t leave the station because his outfit was on alert. They were being shipped out, destination unknown. He told me not to worry if I didn’t receive mail because all contact with family would cease until they reached their destination. I told him my pregnancy had been confirmed and we would be proud parents in early summer.

In the meantime, the girl cousins back home got busy compiling a list of names for the baby. My husband’s name was “Marvin Curtis,” mine, “Wanda Geneva,” so you can just imagine the suggestions. True to tradition, we had some doozies. For example: Wantis Curanda. Marvinia. Marvetta. The names go on from there. I guess because of their gender, boy’s names were limited to Marvin Curtis, Jr.

At last in mid-April I received a bag of V-mail from my soldier husband. Much of it was blotted out, but it did say the ship had been at sea for 56 days. In case all the mail didn’t reach me, he wrote his name suggestions in several letters. Only two names were on the letters, one mail, and one female. The boys name was his, and the girl’s name was mine.

I always signed my letters with Roman numeral I after my name, so when this baby girl arrived I gave her my name and added “Junior.” Although she changed her last name when she got married, and she’s been married over 40 years, our family and friends still call us “Senior” and “Junior.”