My name is Heather Lerner.
I was an only child and I really wanted siblings. As a kid I would go shopping with my mom and try to convince other kids to come home with me–especially if they seemed to be arguing with their siblings or parents. I’d tell them we have a nice family, nobody argues or cries, but none of the kids ever did come home with me.
In high school I became close friends with Althea and little did I know that in doing so I would also become part of a family I’d always dreamed of. It wasn’t long after I met Althea that she invited me over to the Babler household and in rapid succession I gained two brothers, two sisters and another set of parents. Throughout high school and summers and holidays during my college years I spent many hours at the Babler house, playing and cuddling with the kids, Michael, Maretta and Joe and talking with Margot. We went canoeing and ice skating together and to American Player’s Theatre and I reveled in my newfound family. After my own parents went to sleep I’d spend the evening hours with the Bablers, enjoying peaches and cream, cookies, and hot cocoa made by Margot. Margot helped me through the difficult and formative years of late high school and college. A time when I was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted in life. I was always amazed with how Margot knew when there was a universal right answer, like choosing the color eggshell or ecru rather than white for interior walls, and when there were many right answers but only one right answer for a given person. She also knew that the one right answer had to be discovered by the individual and was adept at helping me navigate my thoughts to find my own right answer.
I hope that some day I can be the kind of mother Margot was to me.
I just want to tell one story that Margot loved to tell and told often. I chose this story because it emphasizes how Margot’s warmth embraces so many people and I am not the only person she drew into her family effortlessly.
In college when I brought my then boyfriend, now husband, Michael, to Wisconsin for the first time, we spent his first day driving all over Wisconsin meeting family. He was really tolerant throughout the day, but it was a lot of people to meet and impress. After a whirlwind of a day it was late when we got back to my parents’ house and Michael was starting to take off his shoes and sigh in relief when I stopped him saying that we had one more place to go. But I promised it would be a good one. Michael looked at me and I could tell he was tired and thinking…”I thought I loved you….” So, at probably 10 p.m. we headed over to the Babler’s house for my nightly ritual of playing with the kids and talking to Margot about the great truths in life. Like, always add butter, sugar and/or cream to make a good recipe.
In 2001, Margot attended our engagement party where she met Michael’s grandpa Hahn and discovered that he and she are related. In her genealogical diggings she found that she and Michael are cousins, so in marrying Michael I actually married into the family that I had felt a part of for so long.
One night a year or two after meeting Margot, Michael and I were back in Wisconsin and had arrived at home after another whirlwind day of holiday festivities with family. As I started changing into my pajamas Michael was on the phone with Margot. After he hung up he looked at me climbing into bed and said, “well, I’m going over to Margot’s, you can go to bed or come with me.”