Family Story - What's In a Name? Or a Poem?

My parents named me Dianna Lorraine when I was born - the first girl in what would soon grow into a world of boys.

I have a total of five brothers and one sister, who didn't feel the need to show up until I'd had to battle through living surrounded by brothers for ten years - and then she turned out to be a tomboy and my hopes of living with some other estrogen in the family were largely shot.

Still, I took comfort in the diva girlishness of my name. The spelling was weird with the extra 'n', and required that I either correct everyone in the world, all the time, or just give in and let them think my name was 'Diana' when it wasn't.

My mother told me the name 'Dianna' was from the goddess Diana of Roman mythology. She was a huntress, and was the goddess of the moon. This really took hold of me, and I read everything I could find on gods and goddesses from a very young age.

Not to mention that, whenever there was a full moon, I wasn't some little hardscrabble kid who moved all the time and battled lots of dumb brothers. I was secretly a goddess and the moon called out to me to come away with it and go to the woods and live the life I was meant to live.

I had a quiet, wild heart and an imagination that wouldn't quit.

The name 'Lorraine' came from my grandmother Lora Delores Stockwell, who was herself wild at heart, and the matriarchal head of our home when I was a child. She was also a writer herself, as her father was before her, and my mother after her. Poetry flowed from them all, and became me and my four burgeoning writers after me. :-)

Lora's father, Clinton Harvard Stockwell, worked in the factories in Washington State, having had to leave the farm in Nebraska to make a living. After he came home, he would make himself some hot chocolate and read the Bible to his daughter in the evenings, or write poems.

My mother and I still have some examples of his poems, such as this one whose title I added. When I read it, I feel as though I can almost hear his voice:

Can't Anyone Sleep - A Poem by Clinton Harvard Stockwell (1888-1961)

When all the lights are out at night

And there’s no moon outside,

And I awake and hear a noise,

My eyes pop open wide.

I listen, and beneath my bed

Hear sounds of scampering feet –

And I know then, they’re only mice

In search of more to eat.

I move a bit – they hear the sound

And oh, how still they keep!

Then I forget, and close my eyes,

And soon am fast asleep.