My mother’s romance with her second husband did not seem promising at first due to the language barrier. She was from Wisconsin and only spoke English. She was from Colombia and spoke only Spanish.
However, in 1986, shortly before I turned 11, they got married. Overnight, Glenn Hovde, a carefree bachelor who enjoyed playing golf, became the father of five girls, ages 4 to 19. Only my two older sisters spoke English, because each had spent a year in the United States with our aunt. It was while visiting her sister that my mother met my future father.
Adriana Mateus
From the beginning, Mom and Glenn relied on sign language and a dictionary to communicate. My sisters and I helped each other connect with our new father, translating and using non-verbal cues as we adjusted to a new home and culture in Madison. But Glenn’s caring personality, giving us the support and protection we craved, quickly won us over.
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So did our new liberation. Colombia in the 1980s was challenging and at times violent. Glenn, dressed casually and walking around in Birkenstocks, encouraged us to ride bikes, swim in the lake near our house, and play tennis in the park.
During that first year, Glenn did most of the cooking. New scents and aromas became familiar, including the lightly spiced sloppy coffees that frequently appeared on our dining room table. Another item had an unusual taste. “They’re just potatoes,” I suspect Glenn told us when we asked. Colombia has a variety of potatoes, including those used in many traditional dishes. While he was no potato expert, he was disappointed to learn that they came from a Betty Crocker box.
Glenn Hovde, center, is surrounded by his large family in 2006. They include, back row from left: Lucia Mateus, Andrew Hovde and Elizabeth Guzman. In the middle row, from left to right, are Adrian Mateus, Myriam Hovde, Hovde and Constanza Mateus. In front is Cristina Daza.
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When our maternal grandmother, whom we called Lita (from Abuelita), joined us after her immigration papers were complete, we had a good grasp of English, although we still spoke Spanish with Mom and, of course, Lita. She and Glenn also used nonverbal language as they bonded over cooking and eating, taking care of the family, and laughing at funny mistakes, like when Glenn bought the wrong ingredients that Lita had tried to tell him she needed.
In 1995, a few years after our little brother was born, and when we outgrew the gray family van, Glenn bought a bus. He converted it into a motor home and painted it army green. One of our first destinations was the Black Hills of South Dakota to visit the historic Mount Rushmore.
Glenn Hovde sits behind the wheel of the “Patagonia,” a bus named after the place his mother-in-law threatened to move her large family to and which became too much to handle.
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Mom initially opposed buying the bus, but Glenn insisted it was the only way they could travel comfortably as a family. We called the bus “Patagonia,” a name inspired by the place Lita threatened to move to if we were too much to handle. We had the time of our lives on those bus trips, which is no small feat given that my sisters and I were neat, feminine, and not outdoorsy.
Not that Glenn didn’t try to change that. He insisted that we take golf lessons and go hunting. And he refused to give in to our apprehension about creepy things. Once when I saw a bug in my room and asked for help, Glenn came to the rescue. He hit the insect with a newspaper, making it bounce. Then he put it in his mouth and said, “It tastes pretty good.” I screamed in horror and remained angry at him for days after learning that he had put a sunflower seed on the carpet simply to scare me.
After a worm landed on Lita’s plate of eggs and bacon during a bus trip to upper Michigan, our camping days were over. But not our family time. We often gathered around the piano that had belonged to Glenn’s mother or played board games. When we performed modeling and dance shows in the living room, our dad was always an enthusiastic audience, cheering and applauding.
Glenn always faced our challenges with calm and courage. I came to the US as a talkative fifth grader who loved to tell stories, but I became much quieter due to my limited English. The first school my younger sister and I attended did not have an English as a Second Language program. But thanks to the support of a family friend, we were quickly transferred to a school with an excellent program.
It was heartwarming when I won my school’s spelling bee less than a year after we arrived and then competed in the Madison All-City Bee. Thanks to my mom’s influence, I was an avid reader but, of course, mainly in Spanish. Even after being elected high school class president for four years or being accepted into my dream journalism school, nothing seemed to matter as much to Glenn as that spelling bee.
I think it was because he wanted us to feel at home. Glenn’s brothers and other relatives visited us frequently while we were children. We, five enthusiastic girls, always welcomed them with joy and open arms, which Glenn’s less expressive Norwegian family happily embraced. Glenn’s father, Grandpa Inky, lived nearby and resided with us briefly, telling us stories about fishing, hunting, and some of his near-death experiences.
For years, Glenn referred to himself as the family chauffeur, taking us to different schools and extracurricular activities. When we became citizens and were old enough to vote, he insisted that we do so and stay up to date on local news. For years, our family volunteered at community 4th of July events and fireworks events near our home.
My father will turn 80 this July 4th and he no longer believes, as his father told him when he was little, that fireworks are for celebrating. I am grateful to live close enough to visit him and Mom frequently in Madison. They continue to enjoy the love and laughter of a larger family with spouses and grandchildren sitting around the dining room table sharing stories in English, Spanish or Spanglish.
Of the many gifts my siblings and I have received from our father, I am most grateful for his sense of humor and how he uses it to teach us important life lessons. Additionally, I am grateful for his kindness and patience as he helped integrate our families and cultures, welcoming cousins who lived with us for months so they too could learn English. It never ceases to amaze me how our blended bicultural family came together and how Glenn has never stopped being the reliable, selfless father we can count on in times of joy and need.
Mateus is a writer who lives in Fitchburg.
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