Since today is Mother's Day I have been thinking about all of the wonderful, strong women I have had in my life. People say you don't appreciate what you have until you don't, and I agree. I've been very lucky. I actually knew and remember not one, but three great-grandmothers. I suppose I always believed the women in my family would live forever. But the generations behind me are winding down, and the future belongs to my children and (hopefully, eventually?) grandchildren. But what examples those children have and must live up to.
I still think of the family reunions at the old farm in Western Kentucky. We would go way back in the boonies to see Great-Grandma and Grandpa Franklin and all the rest of the clan. My sister and I were not too fond of going. There never seemed to be much of anything to do. It never entered our minds how much there was to do BEFORE we got there. All the ladies of that generation cooked and cleaned for days just to welcome us. We ate food grown right there on that farm, not ordered and picked up from Honeybaked Ham. Funny, it was too expensive for my family to do things like that, but now I understand how much better the home cooking really was.
There were roses around the farmhouse and fireflies in the evenings. But when you're 10, you just don't care about those things. You have no idea how much Great-Grandmas harvest, cook, and clean just to have a chance to pinch your cheeks.
Now, we did enjoy Great Aunt Lee who lived next door to her parents. Another strong woman, she had a Lincoln collection we loved to hear all about when we were little. When we were older, she began to share her genealogy hobby. Yes, she was two generations behind me, but she always knew how to speak my language.
On my grandmother's side of the family there was Great-Grandma Page. She was really a hoot. She never really grew up, just grew older. I can remember on one visit, she wrapped her head in a towel and became a gypsy fortune teller, telling stories to all the kids in the neighborhood. She was the perfect lady for the "I shall Wear Purple" poem, and is probably the warped member of the family where my sense of humor was cultured.
Great-Grandma Page (front), Grandma Franklin, Daddy, and me
My other great-grandmother still alive while I was a child was Grandma Loften. My sister and I really didn't want to go there when we were little. It was an old house, complete with an outhouse, and smelled like tobacco. I really regret not talking with her more, finding out what she remembered from her childhood. But that just wasn't important when you are living your own childhood. She gave my dad an old muzzle-loader once. Said it was used for Indian fighting or something. He cleaned that gun with great care and prepared to take it out and fire it. He only shot it once. Kicked him back so hard he landed on his rear.
Her daughter was my Grandmother Ritchie. I adored Grandma. She always gave me a dollar and let me drink coffee (with lots of milk and sugar). She and her best friend Wanda used to babysit me sometimes. That's how I learned to play Hearts - sometimes they needed a 4th player. Both of them were married to river boat captains and were alone every other month. Legend has it that on babysitting nights they would take me with them to honky-tonks and let me dance on the tables. That ended one Sunday morning when I boogied down the church aisle in apparent imitation of the night before.
But she also taught me to quilt and embroider. I think my creative side came from her. As she aged, sometimes it was hard to remember how she was when I was small. I had spent so much time with her for so long but began to dread going to see her in the nursing home. I know now that was selfish of me. Trying to keep my memories intact, I robbed both of us from making new ones.
My dad's mom was Grandma Franklin. She was married to a railroad man and had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood. She inherited the family dinners and reunions after the generation before her all passed. It seemed like she could do anything. She could cook, sew, garden, and worked in a department store. When I was little, I think I annoyed Grandma. We'd go to her house and I would go to a quiet room and read. I think she thought I was odd. (Maybe she should have seen my moves in the honky-tonks.) As I got older, I liked going out there. My Aunt Kat and Aunt Sis were there and they were just a couple of years older than I was. Mom didn't like to leave me out there to be babysat. She never knew what Grandma and my aunts would do. One time they cut and permed my hair. I was like a big doll for them, but at least it kept me out of the bars.
Grandma thought we were oblivious to the fact that she drank a little wine now and then. It was pretty funny when we would stumble on her stash. Once it was in the trash can in the formal living room (which, of course, was never used except on a holiday) and when daddy pushed the wrapping paper down, he hit paydirt, pulling up a bottle of Mogan David. Another time, daddy was working on her washer, pulled it out from the wall, and guess what was sitting under the cold water pipe? Yep, a nip of the grape.
I was also privileged to be daughter-in-law to an awesome woman, Joanne Effler, otherwise known as Momis. She was an Army wife who raised four sons. She kept hearth and home together during some very lean years but never lost her sense of humor or her love for her boys. I wish I was more like her, she never spoke ill of anyone. But she could tell some truthful stories on her kids. Like when they would tie up babysitters so they could go out and play. Or like when they washed and dried the cat. In the washer and dryer. That one made the papers. I don't think the cat made it long enough to read it though.
And that brings us to my own mother, a smart, sassy female and the last of my heritage still with me. She married young and promptly became a Navy wife, trying to make ends meet while living far from home. She's not afraid of much, just airplanes and traffic. I get the airplane part: it has to do with a monster storm while she was on her way to join my dad on base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I still am not sure about why traffic gives her the willies. But that woman will drive five miles out of her way to avoid certain streets at rush hour. And that's just in small town Paducah, Kentucky. She won't even come here to Texas anymore because of the traffic. I've always thought the perfect Mother's Day gift for her would be a brake pedal in the floor of the passenger seat of the car. She's got the move down already.
Dad and Mom
She can cook like you wouldn't believe. She took a cake decorating class when I was five or six, and I can remember hanging close, hoping she would mess up her icing roses so I could eat them. She's still the one everyone calls when they want desserts. I've lost count of how many Blue Ribbons she's won at the fair. Even the newspaper just assumes that mom will win each year, and announced her ribbons last year as usual. Only problem is, she didn't enter. Doesn't matter, she would have won if she had entered so just go on and give them to her.
My most prevalent memories of mom are of her sitting in a chair, on the phone, with a gold loafer hanging from her big toe, shaking it for all she was worth. That phone would ring starting around six am, no alarm clock needed.
Notice that nowhere in this trip down memory lane did I mention that these women held any high paying jobs, or had college degrees, or were known outside their circle of family and friends. They didn't and weren't. They were all good God-loving Southern women who took care of their loved ones and did the best they could. They formed the base for my life and no amount of fame or fortune could have raised me better. Each generation pushed the next one up and along, sacrificing so the young'uns would have a better life. Through them I learned everything I needed to know, and got pushed along to learn a little more. My sister and I live pretty great lives, but we won't cease to nudge our little chicks even further.
I see the next generation rolling their eyes at us, cutting our apron strings, and flying away. I hope one day they too look back at who came before, and stop to appreciate us before we're gone for good.
Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's I've loved before.
