Thoughts of My Mother on Mother's Day

There have been many blessed mothers throughout history.  But none can compare to my mother who is just with us now in our memories.  She was named Dolly by her parents, as she was just a wee, tiny baby.  At birth in her parents home, she was not crying - even breathing.  The doctor who delivered her just wrapped her in a newspaper and made no effort to get her breathing started.  But her father and grandma refused to give up on her survival, unwrapping her and gently tossing her back and forth between them.  And then, suddenly she caught her breath and began to cry.  Wow!  I guess if they had given up, my brother, sister and I would never have come into this world. 

Even though they named her Dolly at the time, she came to be known as Dorothy, and didn't discover her real name until she needed to find her birth records when she married my dad.  Her childhood years were not happy ones. When she was in the fourth grade at Fourth Street School in Salem, her mother became very ill and passed away.  Her father was quite a nature lover, so took her fishing and also on turtle-hunting expeditions where she held burlap bags to hold the snappers when he pulled them from their hiding places along the banks of the creeks. Turtles scrambled every direction, but she got them into her bag.   Turtle soup was enjoyed quite often along with fried potatoes from their old coal cooking stove.  These were happy days, but he would also take her on the trolley which ran along Route 62 into Salem, where he drank and she would have to find her way back home alone on the trolley.  When he did return home he would be uncontrollable, and broke her mother's dishes.  She was able to save her mother's most valued carnival glass bowl which was displayed in our china cabinet, and she cherished forever the above photo of her with her mother.  We have no other photos of her mother.

  Due to such episodes when her father drank, she lived with her older sister and her rather large family for awhile, then was taken in by a family who loved and cared for her like their own daughters.  She lived with them until she was married in their garden.  They had a greenhouse and had horses.  That's where she developed such a love for horses and flowers.  She never went beyond junior high since there was never enough money for books she would have to buy, but she was a good reader and one would never guess she was not highly educated. 

Life for her and my dad were no easy ones as they were married and had my brother and I during the recession years.  But she really knew how to make all kinds of soup, baked all our bread, made the most delicious pies, cream puffs, cookies and cakes, jams from berries we gathered, and through the years canned (and later froze) innumerable fruits and vegetables - even meat.  She didn't have a clothes dryer for many years, so hung things out to dry in our back yard.  They always smelled so fresh and good.  

She loved music, and had learned to play the piano (by ear).  She used to tell us how much she wanted to take piano lessons when she lived at her sister's house.  The girls there had a teacher who came to their house to teach them piano, but all she could do was listen to what they did, so she never learned to read music, but was able to play 'by ear'.  One of her favorite songs to play was 'When the Clouds Roll By'.  She was determined that her children would somehow get music lessons and, somehow, found the money to give me piano lessons which lasted from my first grade year through highschool.  My sister, Bonnie, took some piano lessons, but excelled in voice, so she started her on voice lessons.  My brother had drums, but gave that up - also played the 'jews harp', and loved to dance.  So, her love of music came into our lives and has remained with us.  

She nursed us with the best of care, and eventually cared for my father until he passed away.  At 71, she decided to join her church choir, still not able to read music very well, but it was such a joy for her.  

We never had a lot of money, but somehow, mother always had a little bit saved for buying that prom or special occasion dress.  For years  she sewed each of us an Easter outfit, often staying up all night the night before Easter to get the outfit for someone finished.  At Christmas time,  I probably had 2 dolls in all my childhood years, but she made such beautiful outfits for those 2 dolls as my Christmas gifts.  I still have the dolls, and the outfits she made for them.  One of them is entirely hand-stitched because she had had rheumatic fever and wasn't allowed out of bed, so, not being able to use her old treadle machine, she stitched it by hand. 

The memories go on and on, and I will probably add to this post as time goes on for my children and grandchildren so they will not forget her.  I will also add the poem I wrote for her funeral.