MOM is seeming to stand for Memories of Mom this week as our family prepares to say our final good-bye to our mom. She passed away last week at 93 years of age, after a brief stay in Maple Lawn. Our prayer for this fiesty and spunky mom of ours was to not have to suffer long when her end of life came. God is good, and He answered that prayer for her as well as us.
My memories began in the little village of Bigelow where I spent all of my childhood except for the first six months when I lived with my parents in the GI houses on the edge of Worthington where I was born. My dad had returned from WWII, worked at Scafer’s Meat Market, and we resided there until he bought his own grocery store and butchering business in Bigelow.
We lived in a house across from the Methodist Church which my grandmother owned. I remember mom pushing the handle in the old rectangular sink up and down many times to get fresh water for cooking and bathing. Our bathroom was outside, and she made many trips out there with me so I wouldn’t be scared. We would sit outside on the old wooden steps many afternoons as my mom loved the sunshine and fresh air. She would watch me play or join in with my doll, a ball or our old wagon. Soon my brother Tom joined the family, and I remember him sleeping in the buggy outside too.
When I was about five, we moved just one block to the north. Our family’s first house that they bought. Mom was overjoyed with an inside bathroom! I remember all the cooking she did there, and as two more brothers, Jeff and Bruce, joined our family she didn’t have much time for herself. She still loved the outdoors though, and we spent many days out in the sun. Our yard included an old shed which mom helped us “furnish” for our playhouse. I remember her kindness when the railroad bums would find their way to our door for something to eat. She would ask me to help her make sandwiches and we would give them some homemade cookies and fresh water to drink.
About age eleven we again loaded up a hay wagon and moved just one more block, this time toward the east. We would fondly call this “the big house”, as our family had outgrown the much smaller one down the street. Now we had an upstairs and TWO bathrooms, with plenty of bedrooms and space for everyone. My bedroom had an outside door leading to a little flat roof. Mom allowed me and my friends to lay out there and try to get a suntan! Mom was a lover of the sun all of her life. She passed on her love of the outdoors, birds, traveling, and just enjoying what each day would bring to all of us six “kids”. Her adventures became ours through different stages of our lives.
It was in this house that I finally welcomed home a sister! My parents let me help choose her name, Julie. I was twelve by this time, and I remember mom teaching me a lot about caring for a baby. My mom hated mice, and one time when she one in the kitchen, she shut the “swinging” door between it and dining room. Then she gave me the job to go back in there and get a bottle ready for my sister. I did it, but I think I learned my hatred for those small furry creatures from her!
It was in that same kitchen that my mom would dance the Charleston or the Jitterbug for me and my friends when we would finish a project she would have for us to do. We loved it! Mom would welcome any neighborhood friend into our home, and we could make a place at the table for them if mealtime came around. Many days in the summer mom would fill our old red station wagon with us and our friends and haul us to Sibley, Iowa, to the nearest swimming pool. She would lay out on her towel in the sun while we spashed away.
I remember mom teaching me to wash clothes in the wringer washer in the basement of that big house. She tought me how to be careful not to get my fingers squished in those tight rollers as they squeezed out the water from the washer into the rinse tubs. Then once more from the rinse to the baskets that we drug outside. There we would hang the socks, shirts and pants onto the clothesline between the old trees in our yard. I remember us hanging things on a drying rack when the weather turned cold, or bringing frozen items back into the house to unthaw. Eventually we got a clothes dryer which we all loved, but I’m sure no one loved it more than mom!
As my high school years came, mom was still there every day after school with some kind of lunch for us to share. She was always interested in our stories, and we sat around the big dining room table chomping away while we spilled out our day’s happenings. She never seemed too much in a hurry not to listen or to give us some advice if we needed it. She allowed me to have friends over night often, and I especially remember how much fun she made my 8th grade slumber party.
A couple days ago I received a wonderful email from a childhood friend of my oldest brother, Tom. He was an “only” child, and loved the chaos and craziness of our house. He lived next door, across an empty lot where sometimes we kept our horse! (Right in the middle of town…) Lynn shared a whole letter of memories, which included his time with my parents as they stopped to see him and his family in his adult years. I love the following paragraph which totally describes our mom:
“ Through all of this, the frosting on the cake of these treasured memories is the vocal presence of your mom as she would sound out charges and orders to all within earshot – ordering all to behave and cut down the dang racket! While your dad toiled long hours at the general store, June was the one commissioned to keep order on the home front- from the basement to the attic and all around the memorable grounds- including the great open porch, to the white fenced vegetable garden in the rear. Now, thinking back, I do recall that her AOR (area of responsibility) also included much of the empty lot next door and the line of apple trees that stood at attention along the street (remember our streets had no names back then) just north of the alley that ran east-west behind our homes.”
As I finished high school and attended two years of college in Worthington, my mom was always there pushing me to do my best, asking questions when she thought something could be wrong, and again listening to my problems or dreams. She was encouraging and supportive, and when I first brought Dan home with me for a Sunday dinner, she welcomed him warmly. He often talks about her roasts, chicken and fresh pies that he enjoyed with our family. She did love to cook, and I love that she not only taught me that skill, but allowed me to make messes in the kitchen while I was learning. Just as long as i cleaned it all up!
In the spring of my second year of college, my mom called me one afternoon to meet her at the Worthington Hospital. Though she believed she was pregnant at this appointment, the doctor mistakingly thought she had a tumor. After further investigation, it was determined that she was indeed going to have a baby. Later that summer my parents sold their store, moved to Iowa, and I left for Winona, MN, to finish my college years. In the fall of my junior year, there was much excitement on my dorm floor as my parents called to tell me of the birth of my youngest brother, Kent.
Dan and I were engaged ONE DAY LATER, and when I called to tell my mom she was excited for us, but still tired and in the hospital at forty-two with a new baby!
My memories with mom from then on were many times through letters and phone calls. She loved to write notes and post cards, and sent me many cheery ones while I was a college student far away. She was very supportive to Dan and I as we made our life together and I began teaching at the same time. We also lived in a big old farm house for the first year and a half near Brewster, and mom and dad loved to come visit. BUT she sure didn’t like it when she saw a mouse there, and we had plenty.
Memories of mom with our four children are many, and she was so generous to take them on several road trips with her. They traveled in a little red car, with tents and food. Mom loved to get out on the road and GO…and she loved to share her love of travel with them. They have numerous recollections of putting up tents, and then finding grandma sleeping in the car with her gloves on in the middle of summer because she got cold. Or camping in Georgia in the rain and red mud. Spam sandwiches and fighting over grandma’s binoculars! Even a trip to Disneyworld and seeing the ocean for the first time.
After thirty of years of traveling together, my parents lived out the remainder of their years living between our home and my sister’s in Logan, Iowa. After our dad died in 2016, mom continued to drive her sturdy white van, going on her own little adventures to sit by the lake, enjoy breakfast or lunch “out”, visit old friends, spend an afternoon at the library, or browse around a store somewhere. She loved music, plays, and especially movies. And to read…she gave each of us six kids the love of reading.
Even though mom would get upset with me sometimes as we lived under one roof in these later years, I will always know she loved me…as I will always love and cherish all the memories. As my sister and I cleaned out her bedroom last week, we found a little yellow scrap of paper stuck to the side of her TV. This might be her advice to us all:
Five Simple Rules To Be Happy:
Free your heart from hatred
Free your mind from worries
Live Simply
Give More
Expect less
And it ended with this quote: “Old age is like a bank account, you withdraw from what you’ve put in.”
lbeerman68@gmail.com
