A Tribute to Mother
When we were young parents, Pop, Robert’s grandfather, said, “You never truly appreciate your own parents until you have one of your own.”
There’s some truth to that. You can’t fully appreciate the sacrifice until you have to do it yourself. However, with the recent death of my mother and thinking back on her life, I don’t think I appreciated her enough even when I had four children. We live in a different time now. On the whole, we don’t know sacrifice like our parents did.
In the decades since my parents reared children, we’ve become softer and more self centered. I’d like to share a tribute to my mother, but it isn’t just to her, it’s to her mother and grandmother, and many other mothers of their era. It’s to the mothers who served, often without complaint. Mothers who were dedicated, committed, and faithful to lay down their lives as servants to their families.
On Wednesday, April 11, my mother peacefully moved into eternity, leaving her friends and family with memories and a legacy. I’m grateful for her life and her influence in my life. She was barely over 5 feet tall in her prime, but her impact on me has been huge.
My earliest memory of Mother is of sitting on the couch with her and 3 of my siblings as she read Bible stories before we went to bed. Yawns interrupted her reading. I cherished those times, but thought, “I’m not going to yawn when I read to my children.” . . . But I did—and I still do with my grandchildren.
It was during that period in my life—through the 4th grade—that mother made most of the clothes (all that weren’t handed down) for herself and her four daughters. Our dresses had gathered skirts, gathered sleeves, and sashes that tied in the back.
I can still see clothes hanging on the line behind the house. When they were dry, we brought them in, and Mother sprinkled the outer clothes with a coke bottle fitted with a sprinkler cap to dampen them for ironing. She then folded and wrapped them in a ball to distribute the moisture as they waited to be ironed. They were made out of cotton, so ironing was a must. Just one dress took a lot of work. I can only imagine the many hours Mother worked each week to keep a family of 8 decently dressed.
She made biscuits from scratch for nearly every meal and froze and canned food from the garden Daddy raised. With six children, eating out was extremely rare. Breakfasts were real meals, not quick cereal in a bowl or a sugary toaster treat as we went out the door. All meals were eaten with the family gathered around the table.
Mother could have been the “poster child” for the era of fixing things that were broken rather than throwing them away. If something worked, she used it until it could no longer be fixed. Furthermore, if the pennies didn’t stretch far enough for what she needed, she did without or found a way to bring in a little more. She worked hard to earn some of those pennies.
For example, when she had four children—newborn to 6-years-old—she milked cows, sterilized milk bottles, made chocolate milk and sold it the public to make ends meet. And she never had help with the kids or the cleaning, not even relatives nearby that could lend her a hand.
Later, with six children, ages 5 through 15, she spent her summer sewing ballerina costumes for a dance class. She said she’d never do that again. That fall, she taught 4th grade so Daddy could go to seminary—her first year of teaching. Today, college kids borrow their lives away rather than work while in school. Mother worked hard, doing what was needed to provide for a family of eight so her husband could go to school.
She expected work from us too. We were responsible for keeping our rooms clean, but also helped clean the house, and had a rotating schedule of kitchen duties.
Mother was the boss, and she expected us to obey. When punishment was needed, we had to go outside and pick our own switch. Trying to choose a switch that was acceptable to her, but was deemed pain-free by me, was more painful than the punishment. I dreaded choosing a switch.
Manners and character were also emphasized, including sitting still through church, even when young. We learned to say “Yes ma’m” and “No, ma’m” and please and thank you. We were corrected if we called her, “Mama.” Mother thought that was disrespectful. Consequently, she was always “Mother” to us. In addition, no four-letter bad words were allowed in our house—not even the mild variety. We knew what it was like to have our mouths washed out with soap.
But one day, while we were moving from a seminary apartment to a house nearby, Mother’s exasperation reached its limit, and her tongue let one slip. That particular day, Mother drove a small trailer load of boxes and took a couple of us along to unload it.
When we got to the house, she had to back the trailer in. A bridge was being repaired at the edge of our property, and the road was closed, so it didn’t matter if she blocked the road in her efforts. That was a good thing, because the trailer refused to obey like it did for Daddy.
Mother backed, and pulled forward repeatedly, without success. To make matters worse, her passengers (i.e. me) made suggestions the first couple of tries—before realizing that silence was much wiser. Mother backed, and pulled forward for 20 minutes, but never got the trailer to cooperate. It didn’t help that the men working on the bridge repair kept glancing our way to see how she was doing. Finally, she stopped, gritted her teeth, and spat, “Piddledy-Poo!” –then turned off the engine.
It was not a traditional exclamation, but was surely the most heart-felt “4-letter” word I’d ever heard. What struck me was that Mother didn’t say any words that were forbidden in the household. She followed her own rules, even when she had reached her limit.
Shortly after the move, we had friends over for supper. Their lifestyle was a bit higher than ours. As a teen, I was conscious that we didn’t quite measure up. For instance, we were eating around a table that Daddy had made by adding wrought iron legs to a hollow core door. It was sturdy, served well, and was covered by a nice table cloth—lace even—but I knew our company would never have a nice shiny table, not one like ours.
As we left the dining room, our guest said, “Your mother is so gracious.” I must have been speechless and probably looked shocked, because she added, “It was such a good time together. She made us feel right at home.”
I thought back on the meal. The time together had been fun. Warm laughter had filled the room in the midst of meaningful conversation. I’d never thought of Mother as gracious, but maybe the guest was right. I remembered that comment and checked it out for myself as the years rolled by.
Mother carried a lot of responsibility and didn’t have time or resources to put on elegant affairs. But when she entertained, she was indeed gracious. She had plenty of good food, and she made people feel at home when they sat around her table.
I think her secret was that she focused on the guests, not on the fuss. To her, they were what was important. She cared more about getting to know them better than she did about impressing them. And they felt it.
In fact, she was gracious away from the table too, because she cared about people and she showed it.
As a teen, the last thing I wanted was to be like my mother, but I’ve decided that’s not such a bad thing after all. She made the world a better place.
I miss you, Mother. Thank you for your love and care—and for your example.
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