Today is my mother's birthday. (I know--I wrote about my parents two days ago and should have waited until today to write about my mom. But I figure she deserves at least two postings.)
My mother was born November 6, 1921. She was born at home, in a tiny house without central heat, without indoor plumbing, pretty much without anything at all. But she survived and she thrived. Three years later, a set of twins was delivered, and a few years after that, another girl.
My mother, the oldest of the four children, had responsibilities at an early age. She worked hard because not to work wasn't an option. She attended a little country school, earned prizes for her penmanship, and attended Sunday School.
It sounds like something out of the Waltons, doesn't it? Life in that small slice of Tennessee during the Great Depression wasn't easy. But it instilled within her the desire for more education, more knowledge, more awareness of the world outside.
Eventually, she traveled to Washington, DC. There, she worked as a secretary, sending money home to her widowed mother and siblings. It was there, too, that she met the man who would become my father.
My mother never had much in the way of material goods. Even when she no longer needed to, she lived frugally. Her money, what she had, was rarely spent on herself. I don't believe she knew how to spend money on herself and would have been puzzled by the idea of it.
So, for today, and for every day, I am grateful for my mother.
What a touching tribute! Thank you for sharing it with us.
ReplyDeleteI love this post in particular today. Thank you for it. Think you hit the nail on the head with this sentence: "She worked hard because not to work wasn't an option." It made me pause and I re-read it and then read on. Looked for it in the post when I finished because I wanted to remember just how you said it - thank you for writing it just so! It makes me think.
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