The Wild Child

Oh no!  Not this cute little child on the photographer's pony!  This picture was taken in Ohio, before the family moved to Texas.

That's my Mom, who was born 98 years ago, on February 15, 1913.  She's been gone for eight years now and sometimes, I still catch myself thinking that I need to ask Mom this, or that.

Mom was the eighth of nine children, born eight years after my Aunt Marie, and six years before my Aunt Dottie.  Named a very demure Marjorie Anna, she, apparently, didn't live up to that demure name at first.  Aunt Dottie told me stories, oh my!

  Like the time she got on the school bus and bopped all the boys, who had been bullying her younger nephew, on the head with a good, thick school book.  And, then, threatened them with much worse if they ever bothered him again.  Years and years later, when that nephew went back to visit the town in Texas where it happened, the men were still talking about "that spitfire Margie."

Or the fact that Aunt Dottie, whose bedroom was right next to my Grandparents, would often hear them talking, late at night, about what they were going to do about Margie and her escapades.  She, apparently, was quite hot stuff, and the boys knew it.

 But, it turned out, they should not have worried.  Because Mom had a core of steel, and, when the need arose, while she was still in high school, she stepped up and did what needed to be done.

Grandmother was diagnosed with cancer at that time, and, as she got sicker and sicker, Mom took over more and more of the responsibilities of the house.  Her Father and one of her older brothers were living there at that time, along with her young sister, a niece and a nephew, children of one of her older sisters, who was divorced and forced to be away trying to find work.  The wild child was now wild no more.  She had a family to care for, and no time for such nonsense.  I think that this is probably a picture of her when she graduated from high school.

Of the six girls in my Mother's family, five went to college.  Mom did not.  She graduated from high school just as the depression hit and there was no money to send her.  So, she stayed home and took care of the family until the farm was lost to foreclosure and the family was broken up.  Mom ended up, after a couple of years, in Rochester.  She came here because her older sister was living here at the time, and there were jobs to be had.

Mom was busy working during hard times.  She didn't make much money, lived at the YWCA, and struggled to support herself.  She didn't do much else, except go to the movies, which she loved, and, occasionally, went to a dance that was held every Saturday at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio.  It was there, when she was in her late '20's that she met my Father.  He was ten years older than Mom, and everyone had thought that he was a confirmed bachelor, but, Mom changed his ideas about marriage, apparently.

They were married in 1943, when she was 30, and Dad was 40.  This is her wedding picture.  Mom is in the middle with her best friend Gertrude on the left and Gertrude's Mother on the right.  No fancy white dress for Mom, she chose something more practical, that she could wear again.

They honeymooned in Niagara Falls.

Dad was drafted shortly thereafter and served a short stint in the Army.  In New Orleans no less.  But, because he was older, and because his company asked if he could be discharged because they needed him to support their war effort manufacturing, he soon came home.  They settled in with my Father's Mother and, in 1948 became a three generation in one house family, when I was born.

From then on, life was good for Mom.  She loved this house where I still live.  She relished being home and taking care of me, and Grandmother.  Her life revolved around her family.  She and my Dad were happily married, until he died in 1990, almost 50 years.

So, the child who had been such a worry to her parents all those years ago, became a model of propriety, a well loved wife and mother.  She died February 14, 2003, just hours before her 90th birthday, a spitfire to the end, but a very proper one. 

A good life, well lived.

Happy Birthday, Mom!