Mom

 

            I know a lot more about mom’s childhood than Dad’s. Dad didn’t talk that much about maturing into the man he was; whereas my mother told me many stories about growing up, both good and bad.

My mother was the second child of seven and the first girl. I think mom understood responsibility from a very young age. Not that she did that much at her home, she wasn’t allowed to, rather mom was the “go-to” person in the family.

My grandmother had to have things just perfect and mom could never please her. Thus, mom had two jobs: washing dishes and holding her younger siblings. When she got married, my mother could not cook and taught herself how to clean house.

Mom was something of a tomboy. She loved playing ball with her friends at school. Since she grew up with boys, (Hazel was eight years younger.) she always felt more comfortable around men. 

Reading was a passion of my mother’s. As a girl, she read a great deal and when she retired, she read copiously. Mom had to drop out of high school and go to work at sixteen. Mom needed extra money for typing, and her mother said no. Mom was devastated. She wanted to be a teacher, but couldn’t find the courage to ask her father for the extra money. Mom felt like if she had, he would have given it to her.

My grandmother was just doing what she learned as a child. She raised the family and worked also. And she went to work at age twelve in a cotton mill. It was an extremely difficult life then. My grandfather was a truck driver and would be gone for a week at a time. Sometimes, the kids wouldn’t even see him; he got in late and left early. He spent a year in New York building a bridge during the depression.

With her first check, my mother bought three winter coats; one for Hazel, one for my grandmother, and one for herself.

 I think we all have things that shape us into who we are today. That’s why I wanted to explain some of Mom’s past.

My mother was not perfect, she would tell you that, but she was the perfect person for what was to come her way.