Tag: motherhood

A Life Story

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

One week before Christmas!

Yesterday, at the department store where I work, a woman was purchasing a gift for her mom and told me that her mom is 103 years old. Her mom also is fully cognizant. I stepped away from the cash register, asking if she had some extra moments to tell me more about her mom. The customer seemed pleased.

Her mom was born in 1920 in South Dakota, where she lived until she graduated from high school. In those days, her best bet for self-supporting was to become a secretary. As a young adult, she went to Los Angeles and attended a “secretarial school.” Instead of working long as a secretary, she joined the Military. She became a career WAC, earning both rank and technical skills. On retiring, she returned to SD, married a local farmer, and gave birth to five children. My customer, approximately in her forties, was the youngest of those siblings.

I asked my customer what it was like to grow up with a focused, high-achieving mom in years when women were less outwardly aspirational. She believes her childhood was terrific, and her mom was an expert guide. My customer added that she followed in her mom’s footsteps by marrying and having a child later in life.

She said that until last year, her mom continued to live independently in her South Dakota home, doing all the housework and outside chores. Finally, her failing hearing and eyesight forced her into assisted living. The mom remains amazingly independent and fully aware but benefits from having help. The customer added that, from her mom’s perspective, although she’s relatively healthy, she’s lived for too long.

My customer pointed me to the “feel” of a sleepwear item she was purchasing because her mom’s failing eyesight had turned her into “a toucher” and her way of deciding if she does or doesn’t like an item. The customer and I agreed that the PJ set had a pleasingly lightweight, silky feel and seemed perfect for her mom.

Dear Friends: Most special moments–sharing, learning, and connection. Diana

“Magical Mom”

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

My mom’s birthday is today, on a date she selected. I never asked why she self-selected the date, and much later, after she was gone, wished to know. By then, I wanted to know more about her early life and realized that many other questions never got asked. I’m always a little sad about my knowledge gaps.

Especially these days when the war in Ukraine raises questions about my maternal family’s life in that part of the world. Back in the very late 1800s, fearing Russia’s recurring violence toward Ukrainian Jews, they sailed to America, winding up in O’Fallon, IL, where my mom and her siblings grew up.

They lived in the most dire poverty. To survive, my grandmother made ice cream and my grandfather traveled into neighborhoods to sell scoops from an ice cart. My mom described her sheer unhappiness while a little girl, for having to go regularly to the local welfare office and request family existence money. When she was very young, her father passed away from TB.

Afterward, her mother found a job as a kosher cook in Oklahoma City and had to move there. She put her small children into an orphanage. Before long, her eldest child, Ruby, got married and became qualified to remove the children from that orphanage. Later in their lives, every single one spoke of Ruby as “a saint.” While still very young, Ruby, too, succumbed to TB.

That family history captured my attention many years ago when a Ph.D. candidate from New York phoned to ask me about the family during its O’Fallon time. While researching its Jewish immigrant community, she discovered in O’Fallon’s newspaper a contemporary article quoting my grandfather’s description of Ukraine’s dire anti-Jewish situation. The researcher sent me a copy of the article. It recreated the reality of my mom’s family in those times touching and blowing me away.

By then, my mom and her siblings were gone, and sadly, no one to question remained. Fortunately, I’m close to my cousin, Mary (her dad was my mom’s brother), and we often speculate on our family’s history, trying to fill in gaps with our combined knowledge.

So, Happy Birthday, Mom. If you could return, you’d find that your known world has evolved into a nearly unrecognizable social and political environment. Plus, these days, you’d not button up and avoid recalling an unhappy past; instead. like most of us, you’d be spilling the beans.

Dear Friends: Our moms–mostly intelligent and capable beyond what their times allowed. Diana