One hundred and ten years ago today, my mother, blue-eyed, red-haired Mary was born, seven months after her dad died of pneumonia. She, her mother, and older brother and sister lived with her maternal grandparents until she was nine years old, when her mother remarried. They became what today we call a ‘blended family.’ His, hers, and then two more children which were theirs. When they were a little older, she and her older sister took turns looking after their grandparents’ household due to the frail health of their grandmother. Their grandmother died in the 1918 influenza epidemic while Mother was living with them. Pa was there, and Mother went racing across the fields to get her mother when her grandmother seemed in distress. As she said, she was scared to death.
While Mother and her family lived with their grandparents, one of Grandma’s older sisters, who didn’t marry until she was about 40 years old, was still living at home. So they had a mother, grandparents and an aunt telling them what to do on a daily basis, plus other relatives when they were at hand. As Mother put it, “Everyone told them what to do,” and she made up her mind that when she had children, no one was going to boss them around except her, and their dad, of course.
As I said, from what I was told, Dad was full of mischief when he was growing up. And from what Mother told me about herself, she apparently was quite willful. She said Aunt Lee told her she was a misery to herself and everyone around her. And they said “Pa,” her grandfather, spoiled her. I suppose he did, because she said when she got in trouble, she knew that if she could get to Pa, no one could touch her. And apparently the temper that we were well aware of as children made itself known early on. She told me of a time when she made a pan of cornbread. I don’t know what went wrong, but she was not pleased with the results. She said she threw the pan upside down in the floor and then stomped on it. Mother’s younger half-sister told me that their Mother had a very quick temper too.
I only knew my mother as a parent. What I know of her as a child is what she told me. And what I know of Dad as a child is what Mother and his cousins told me.
Relating what I’ve been told is not meant as a put down of them. Just giving you a look at their lives as it was told to me. They were not perfect as we are not; just real people.
Their lives were not easy growing up. They worked hard; but it was the norm, except that Mother never had a chance to know her dad. And as adults, they both worked hard to raise their children. So, smile Mother and Happy Birthday. There are no tempers in Heaven - or reasons for one.
