Mom became a mother over 70 years ago on this day. She was 22 years old, living more than 2000 miles from her family in Ohio. There was family support from Dad’s side. One of his aunts came to stay with them for a couple of weeks after I was born to help out. Yes, it’s my birthday! Mom gave me a birthday card yesterday and wrote ‘To my first-born son’ on it. It’s an appellation I carry with pride.
Mom had had some ideas of a career, but she quit college to marry my father and follow him wherever he went. I don’t think it was ever an issue that she might be the one to lead. It was the tenor of the times. The real women’s movement didn’t get rolling for another 15 years.
Mom’s leadership has been more subtle. She did her duty and took care of 6 children while my father went off to work every day. But when I look at my values and where they came from, I find that many things I do now align closely with what I now see is her approach to life. Not to minimize Dad. But I’ve done several appreciations of him in this blog (here, here, and here) and not one of Mom.
So, I want to appreciate Mom. She pays attention to her surroundings and takes action based on what she sees. She doesn’t wait for a crisis to develop, she heads it off. It’s a trait that I’ve noticed in myself that has stood me in particularly good stead in a professional environment and it came from her.
I don’t remember asking her, but I think it’s likely that she learned to sew as a young child. She was a child of the Depression. Her family wasn’t poor, but they weren’t rich by any stretch. I’m sure she wore lots of hand-me-downs from her older sister. She didn’t have her own bedroom until she was in high school.
As I was growing up, I took for granted that she made all kinds of things from cloth: dresses, shirts, aprons, napkins, blankets, you name it! It wasn’t high style, but it was functional. And I don’t believe any of us were embarrassed to wear the clothes she made. I remember going to the store and looking through Simplicity patterns with her. That was her wheelhouse.
I think it was some time in the ’70s that she got a high end sewing machine that could do lots of fancy stitches and the like. Before that, it was just her trusty SInger.
She hasn’t done much sewing in the last decade or so. Nevertheless, her sewing room is still fully outfitted and ready to go. I’m sure it gets used regularly, but only for small projects and repairs now. I sneaked in there yesterday and took this picture:
The wall storage, work surfaces and shelves were all built by Dad to her specifications.
When Sepi and I meet people and we talk about our families, we are always proud to talk about Mom. How she’s in her 90s and in good health, and how independent she is. Come to think of it, we don’t say much about her sewing. Maybe it’s too subtle.
Thanks, Mom, for all the subtlety. You’ve been a quiet leader my whole life and I appreciate it!