Remembering

Remembering Mother  

 January 19, 1918 - July 15, 1977

 

Mother married my dad at the age of 19.  She never worked away from home, but was a farm wife until they retired and sold the farm.  Mother was an excellent cook, for she had plenty of practice preparing 3 meals a day 7 days a week.  Dad often had someone helping him with farming until my brothers were old enough to help, so she often fed extra people.  She also was an excellent seamstress and made a lot of my clothes as well as many of her own.  She made the coat she is wearing in the first photo above.  In the second photo is my mother, dad and her sister.  The third photo shows Mother in the kitchen at the farm and the last photo is a four generation photo of my grandmother, mother, yours truly and my daughter. 

Another four generation photo on the left, I am on the far left.  The middle photo is my mother and her 3 children, my older brother on the left and younger brother on the right.  The third photo is my mother examining a new purse that she got for Christmas.  My aunt, her sister, is looking on.

There are many stories I could tell about my mother.  She was a good person who rarely ever said an unkind word about anyone.  I'm not so sure she loved living on the farm, but I do know she loved her children.  This is a hard story to write, even after all these years, because my mother died at the age of 59 of Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS.  I was 31 years old and had a 5 year old daughter and a 2 week old son at her passing.  She loved her granddaughter to pieces and lived long enough to be able to hold her grandson.  She would have loved him, too, and I know she would have attended all of his ball games as she loved sports.  

Mother also loved Christmas and delighted in surprising us kids with the tree all decorated and the lights on when we got off the school bus and walked up the lane.  She always had a big Christmas dinner on Christmas eve.  My grandmother would have the Thanksgiving dinner at her house.  I always looked forward to both these holidays because we were with all of our family including my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin. 

Many of you already know this, but for my new readers I will mention that I also lost both of my brothers to this same horrible disease.  They both passed away before they turned 50.    

Life goes on and I had my children to raise and love.  I missed my mother so much over the years and, of course, my brothers.  I take comfort in knowing that I will see them again some day.  My dad passed away nearly 8 years ago, so the only family I have left besides my hubby and children is my aunt who has been a wonderful friend to me.  My aunt is 8 years younger than my mother and has a lot of stories to share about their childhood.  One of the stories my dad used to tell was when he was dating my mother he often picked her up on horseback.  They went to barn dances where I've heard they were both quite the dancers.  I know my mother loved music and always had the radio on or would often sit down at the piano and play and sing.  

There is so much more that I could tell about Mother.  But, I better stop now and save some stories for another time.  For those of you who still have your mother, give her a big hug when her birthday comes around and let her know how much you love her.  Or better yet, don't wait for that special day...let her know now.  

Until next time...