The Moms in My Life

Happy Mother's Day to the moms, grandmas, stepmoms, step-grans and pet moms! Here are a few of my favorites.

One of my earliest photo shoots with Mom.

Missing Mom

April 21 is always a tough day for me. My mom died on that date, in 1977. You'd think I'd be over it by now. I am. And I'm not. I don't think we ever are.

I was one of the weird, lucky kids who had a great childhood. Two parents who loved each other and who loved me all the more. Financial security -- not wealthy, but comfortable. I was never spoiled but I was aware that we had all we needed and much of what we wanted. 

Mother Goose has Hatched -- And Other News

Here's some fun news for Mother's Day! Spring has kicked in "for real" these days. On Friday, I got a double whammy of it when I first visited the nursery center and later saw a "nursery" of a different kind -- that of our friend Mother Goose!

And guess what! There aren't four babies. And, as some of you thought, there aren't five.

Forever Young

The other day I was chatting in the yard with my neighbor, Rosie. She's a fabulous gardener -- her yard blooms from early spring to late fall and I am lucky to have a window view. She said she is trying to convert most of it to perennials because gardening is hard work and we aren't getting any younger!

Rosie's Garden

To the Moms and The Grans We May Never Have Known

Here's to my Mom.

She loved me as a baby...

...and she loved me till the day she died, with all the hopes and pride and worries that I think most moms probably have.

She adored her mother, too -- the grandmother I never knew. She died five months before I was born.

But I think of her as a beautiful bride, one who gave us not only my mom but three aunts I adored.

Here's to my great grandmother, the mother of the gran above. No, I didn't know her either. But I have learned so much of her story in my genealogy research, even visiting the church where she was christened in England.

Here's to my dad's mom. She was lovely, wasn't she?

And she was a terrific grandma, teaching me about life on the farm and giving me a passion for baking.
 

She loved to laugh. And I loved her.

Here's to all the moms, past and present, the ones we knew and the ones we didn't. And if you are a mom, Happy Mother's Day.

Mums and Grannies

I really never thought I'd be a grandmother because I was pretty darned sure I wouldn't be a mother. And that was OK with me. And then I met Rick who shared his two boys and time flew. Before I knew it, there were two Baby Grands to love!

I don't know how Molly does it. She has a very stressful and responsible job. She may well love what she does and be very good at it, but it can still eat your lunch. For the past two years, while Kevin was in grad school on weekends, working days and doing homework in the evenings, I think Molly did a good deal of the heavy lifting. (Especially the Little Little Guy!). I'm worn out after an afternoon!

It makes me think about my own mom and grandmothers. The other day, I saw Harry and Meghan introduce their little baby to the world at Windsor Castle, cameras clicking in the background. I suspect my mom had the same feeling showing me off when they returned home from the hospital!

After all, I was a pretty big deal in her life, all six pounds, four ounces of me. The war had made my mom and dad part of the group that was "older parents." She was 33, my dad 35 when I was born. These days that's more common but when I was in school, my parents were often the oldest in my class. In fact, my mother would have been 100 earlier this month, had she lived so long. Many of my friends still have both parents, well into their 80s, perhaps, but going strong. But age didn't stop her from being a "room mother" and Brownie troop leader or engaging in multiple volunteer activities. Her energy was indefatigable.

One thing I discovered as I was doing my family genealogy is that I come from a long line of working women. And I don't mean just working in the home as a mother. That's hard enough. But out working for pay, making their own way.

I know little about my great grandmother, Angeline, apart from the fact that her mother died when she was quite young and that she raised six children on a Mennonite farm in Michigan, dying when my grandfather was only five. That was farming in the 1880s when everything was by hand. Could I have done it? I guess you do what you have to do. But it wasn't easy.

I don't know what brought Elizabeth Grainger, my second great grandmother, from Wales to London in the 1800s but I do know that after she married and emigrated to the United States in 1855 with her husband, Stephen, she was listed on census documents as "huckster." I'm assuming that meant that she was a clerk or salesperson, although I'm not sure if that's the case (it wouldn't be now!). Nor do I know if her daughter, Bessie (also Elizabeth and my great grandmother) worked, since the city directories list only a working "Elizabeth" and it could be either.

But when Bessie married William Wood, after a number of years they moved from Buffalo to Michigan and Bessie was a big part of the grocery store and market the two owned together.

And I know that Bessie and William Wood's daughter, Minnie, did indeed have a job, working as a clerk in my grandfather's insurance agency, where they met. After they married In 1912, her clerking days were over as she raised four daughters, a son who died at age seven and two babies who died shortly after birth.

With a family like that, Minnie would probably tell you that her work never stopped; it just changed.

Minnie passed many gifts down to her daughters. My mother clearly received her crafting and art gene, which has most certainly come down to me. But like her mother and grandmother before her, Mom was also a working woman of the 1930s and '40s. She and her sisters were the first in the family who went to college. Mom was a teacher for many years (in fact, when I was in college I did an internship at the same school where she taught elementary thirty-something years before!) Then during the war she worked for Capitol Airlines. After, she managed a dress shop. I did not inherit the fashion gene from her.

Of my other grandmother, Ellen, I know little despite spending countless hours with her when I was a child.

She had been a teacher, that I knew, moving from her birthplace in Wisconsin to Montana (and how she met my grandfather, I have no idea!). After their marriage they had a bakery in the small town of Webberville for several years until it was destroyed by fire.

I spent many afternoons with her on the farm she and my grandfather had. There was plenty of corn, berry, bean and tomato picking to do. And when that was done, it was time to bake. Grandma always made her own bread (I didn't get that gene, either -- but fortunately, Rick makes up for that!). And she made wonderful peanut butter cookies. Molasses, too. Pies that couldn't quit. I still remember the root cellar under their farmhouse, dark and dank with a large cistern. Jars of jam, pickles, and fruits and veggies, carefully but efficiently canned on hot summer days lined the walls.
 

She loved her garden and flowers, too. Enormous peony and bleeding heart bushes. When I see bleeding hearts, I think first of Grandma.

I haven't often thought back on that "working girl" part of my lineage. Instead, I've thought of kind, lovely women who clearly adored their families and those I knew certainly loved me to bits. But I never thought of the struggles.

The struggle of leaving your homeland and family and making the journey to America as an immigrant in the mid-1800s; of being in the cramped quarters of steerage with three small children.

Source: Norway Heritage.com

I didn't think about learning to live in a new land, probably under-employed, hoping for a better life for your daughter.

I didn't think about what it would be like for a woman in turn-of-the-century Michigan to have a job in an insurance office, walking the eight or so blocks to her office, rain or shine, four seasons, in a long dress, coat and hat, long hair piled high.

Nor had I thought about what it would be like to be a young married couple who started a new business and then saw that business burn to the ground. How do you start over in 1919? I wish I knew. You just do.

Though I spent a good deal of time at the farm, I never thought about what it would be like to be working that farm in all seasons, canning the produce, planting, weeding. It wasn't a working farm in that only small amounts of things were sold, usually berries, sometimes corn. But there was still a lot of land to manage. And the food they grew helped sustain them during the winter and especially during the Depression. How did she do it?

The struggles, the era, the conveniences that make our lives easier -- these weren't part of my grandparents or great grandparents' lives. I can connect to my mother's story because in many ways it wasn't all that different than mine.  But then again, I can only try to understand what it would be like to know you were dying when your daughter wasn't even quite 25 yet. So much life to live you'd never see.

I know that I will never have the status of "official" grandmother that Molly's and Kevin's mothers have. But I do know that I plan to give this little guy...

...and this one...

...all the love they deserve and as many experiences as we can.

And to all moms and grans -- especially this beautiful and pretty remarkable woman who has her hands full every single day and never ceases to amaze me -- I say it with extra feeling.

Happy Mother's Day.

Sharing with:    Let's Keep in Touch     /    Pink Saturday    

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day. It comes around once a year and it can be the hardest day of the year, bringing with it sweet memories and sadness, too. Sometimes I miss my mom so much I can't begin to pull it together. And really, it's been 41 years. I should be over this by now. (I know. You don't get over it. You just learn to work with it.)

I've been going through old files, scrapbooks, dusty boxes and anything else that might have family memorabilia in it for my genealogy project and I came across this poem.

OK. It's not art. It won't win any poetry prizes.

But I'm pretty sure my mom loved it.

We learn a lot of things from our moms and from mine I developed a love of all things creative -- art, theatre, music, crafty things; I learned to love cooking and improvising in the kitchen; I learned laughter and joy, love of family, the lake and the importance of friendships. She stressed how important it was to give back to your community, to others. I hope I also learned how to die. We'll find out someday -- hopefully not soon. Courage, strength, humor, love, grace under pressure.

Or, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, "You don't know what you got till it's gone."

To all you moms out there, young and old, Happy Mother's Day. What you do matters.

Missing Mom

I hope you're not tired of reading Mother's Day posts. I'm not. I've read so many beautiful tributes by bloggers about their moms, alive and past. And I realize one reason why I appreciate this community of bloggers is that so many share so freely from the heart about someone who mattered deeply.

I wish I had a photo of mom doing her crafty thing. I probably do -- in the scan pile. But when people who knew her say to me "You are so much like your mom," they have it nailed.

I suspect, when I get my scanning project well under way, I will find a photo of my mom doing her thing -- making her gingermen at Christmas, cutting out wee bits of a Holly Hobbie or Anton Piek print and making dimensional collages, cooking up something tasty or using plaster sheets to make a doll over a soda bottle. 

I remember her doing needlepoint and when I was younger (like five) teaching me how to knit. I'd crawl in bed between them early in the morning, bring my knitting and drop stitches left and right. But that was OK.

When I was kid in Scouts, mom was a leader and I remember her doing crafty projects with and for us. I think my attempt at Valentine boxes probably drove her crazy but I learned! And after she tried to explain to me -- ever so gently -- that I may not be a natural born artist like my younger cousin Patty, whom I suspect was born with a pencil in her hand and that I had other gifts, like writing, and I refused to believe her, she did all she could to help me. She bought drawing books and art supplies and drew with me. And I got better!

Mom loved to cook. But when I was 18 and on one diet or another, she made me a fabulous birthday cake -- three layers! -- out of styrofoam, beautifully frosted. With candles. The nicest cake ever but no one could eat it. She'd done every diet known to humankind and knew my struggle and she would do what she could to help and not derail things -- but give me the ultimate gorgeous cake. (That photo has to get scanned too!)

 

I went to my first auction when I was in second or third grade (with a book). She was always collecting something -- antique furniture, glass, dishes. Yes, I got the dish gene from her, too. When she was dying she said, "Please don't get rid of my cut glass till you are 40. If you don't like it by then, you never will and then do what you want." I didn't get rid of it. To this day. And I use it often. (And I do have a fondness for all things vintage!)

Mom loved Christmas. Everything about Christmas was special to her, from shopping to baking to wrapping. One of the times I made her cry was at the ripe old age of early elementary. She had slaved making those candy cane cookies with two kinds of dough. I've made them and they take forever. But I didn't know that for another three decades until I tried them myself. And I didn't understand why she broke into tears when I asked her when we'd have store-bought cookies again.

She cried when she turned 40 too. So, I didn't get it and I went to show and tell and told. That didn't go over well either!

My parents were photographers with a dark room and lights. One reason I have so many photos from my childhood is that I was an only child -- and their only convenient model! But I remember my first camera when I was about nine. A Brownie, of course. So I could take my own photos. And as you know, I still do.

As one of the more shy and nervous people about appearing in public, theatre wasn't a normal activity for someone like me. When I auditioned for my first play and had a horrible audition experience, she cried with me. And told me not to give up. I got a little part. That, and her support, helped build confidence and a passion. Lots more parts came later. She and Dad were my biggest fans coming to everything I did -- usually more than once. In high school they'd host cast parties. She was always a part of "what was happening." My friends seemed to love her, too. Always a plus.

And she loved the theatre. She took me to my first play when I was probably five and made sure I saw plenty of live theatre at a young age. She fully supported voice lessons and was a tough but constructive critic when I'd practice singing to Barbra Streisand and Mary Martin (because teenager who thinks they are Barbra Streisand or Mary Martin is a little too cocky!) Kind but honest.

She and dad didn't really want me to be a theatre major -- not without a teaching certificate. So I complied till my senior year. And when I backed out, graduated, started and dropped out of grad school the first time and ended up with exciting jobs (working at a drug store and being a bookkeeper, which really is a job never to be given to a math-phobe) she never said "I told you so."

My mother was the one who instigated our move from my first real childhood home and elementary school when I was in sixth grade. It was a very homogenous neighborhood and she felt I was becoming pretty blase and unimpressed by things -- a bad quality in one who is ten. And, she knew, probably in large part because of her experiences teaching elementary school in a pretty rough end of town at the time, that I would have a lifetime of being with people from all backgrounds, religions and races. And I'd better get used to that. So we moved to a district where I would be in a highly integrated high school. It was the best thing they ever could have done for me and taught me that my friends could be of any race, religion or socioeconomic status. If they were good kids, that was good enough.

My mother loved to party and to play. I remember her getting dressed up for some function. She loved it! 

And she adored the lake where she had grown up as a child each summer and instilled that love in me. I have loads of memories of my mom and aunts at the lake, sitting on the porch, laughing for hours. My love of family comes from her in great part as well.

 

Family. Oh yes, when you got the sisters together it was always talk-talk-talk, non-stop. And if one did or got something, the others had to do it, too.

With her sister Grace, my uncle Martin and Dad

With her older sister, Iris

Of course the family that she loved most was my dad and me. They were so unalike when they met. She was from a fairly well to do background, pillar of the community family. Dad was from a farm who struggled during the Depression.

But this short, shrimpy little woman and the big tall guy were wonderfully compatible. The only quarrel I can ever remember hearing them have was on picking the restaurant where to eat dinner. To this day I'm generally pretty happy to let someone else make that decision.

 

She loved to travel and one of the best experiences of my life was visiting a place we both felt close to -- England. The two of us went when i graduated from college. I didn't realize at the time her cancer had started. Neither did she. I just thought she was a tired, old person. (And, a younger one than I am now!) We hit Stratford and Cambridge, did brass rubbings and saw seven plays. Most of

all, we laughed a lot. 

And she volunteered. Her two big things were Junior League and hospital auxiliary, along with church activities. When she volunteered at the resale shop, I'd go along. I have a great fondness for resale shops. And a string of volunteer tasks in my past and present.

My mother grew up and lived in the same city all her life, apart from college and a teaching stint out of town. She taught me city history when we planted flowers at the cemeteries for my grandparents. When I go through town I see the place she was born and raised, the spot I first called home as an infant (well, I didn't know it then!), the houses we lived in later years, the hospital where she died. My roots here run deep. Very deep.

I make her sound like a saint. She could have her snotty moments, too! Especially when she and her sisters got together. But she was really pretty mellow, caring and outgoing and compassionate. She knew how to live and live well. And by that, I mean "live good." (And do I get the snotty gene sometimes? Who me? Oh NO! Not ever!) Right.

And she knew how to die well. I've said before, probably here, that this may well have been her greatest lesson to me. Courage in the face of pain. Joy and a smile whenever possible. Upbeat attitude. A cute dressing gown, wig in place. And Hope. Always hope. Teaching me how to live while dying.

The last photo of Mom before she died in 1977

Which might have been why I really didn't think she would die. I was 25. And I knew. Yes, I knew. But I didn't want to believe it. And I sure wasn't ready to grieve it. Not for another six or seven years. I've learned a lot since then.

She left before I landed in the right career with the right man by my side and two great little boys who are now young men. She would have reveled in Greg's art, adored Rick's classical guitar and baking skills (and freaked out with me when he goes on his long cycling excursions) and loved being with Kevin, Molly and our Baby Grand. She wouldn't freak out about changing him like I do. (I'll get over it.)

That makes me really sad and Mother's Day is probably my hardest day of the year. Harder than her birthday or even the anniversary of her death. Her gifts were great ones, though. Gifts I see and live with each and every day of the year. The things I inherited from her are all wonderful -- the cut glass, the dishes, the jewelry, a thousand photos (I think!) -- those are all good. 

But they aren't the real gifts. I live the real gift when I pick up a paintbrush, write a blog post, support a cause that makes a difference, make some new dish in the kitchen, watch the sunset on the beach up north, arrange flowers, take a photo or sit in a dark auditorium and wait for the curtain to rise.

When I visit Southern Exposure and see women my age there with their moms, I get a pang of envy. She would love that so much. But I'd like to think she knows all about it. And road trips to the lake, visits with the cousins, the happiness I feel with my family and friends.

Because really, she's sort of there. I may not be able to see her. But I like to think she's still there.