Family

Happy Birthday Mother

One Special Lady

My Mother's Graduation Picture

Proverbs 17:22 “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”

She is the mother of 6 children. One is deceased. Five are still living. Born in the early 1900s and the oldest in a family of 7 children.
She and her husband bought a farm in their early married years but were not able to keep it as it was hard work and hard times.
Her husband worked as a farmhand most of their married life in the states of  South Dakota and Nebraska. Long hours and barely scraping by.
It must have been hard to feed such a large family and keep a vehicle running. Housing and some farm food was provided by the farmer/landowner. Milk and beef. Chickens were raised for eggs and meat.

The Family

The Expanded Family
We're all Grown Up

I am the oldest of those 5 living children. I remember homemade bread, desserts and food cooked and canning done by my mother. She always raised a vegetable  and flower garden. I do not ever remember going hungry The girls in the family were taught to cook . I learned to sew, cook, and can because of necessity
I remember being very poor but we were a family. I also learned to be thankful for everything given to me and learned to take care of things that I had.
We used to complain about being expected to keep the potato beetles off the plants and when the potatoes were stored in the cellar we had to keep the sprouts from taking over the potato to rot or shrivel.
My father has been gone for many years. My mother is living in an apartment in a senior citizens community. She will celebrate her 93rd birthday Sunday, March 11, 2012.
Her family these days keep in contact with her and she always asks about the family and grandchildren. She worries about her children, grandchildren , great-grandchildren and her remaining living siblings. Life was simpler when she was raising her children.
She enjoys flowers and pretties. In an apartment she cannot have a garden but has gotten flowers to plant in pots around the apartment house.
What an example she has been to me, her oldest daughter. She laughs a lot and talks about family, going to church, and getting a ride to her ladies group meetings at church. For years she was the lady who sent cards out to members of the congregation.  To this day going to a store and walking by the card aisle prompts her to increase her already flowing supply at home, which she has forgotten she has.
I can remember always going to church as a child. My father worked on Sunday, so he didn’t come. He usually had to get up early to milk cows and do chores.
I’ve always made an effort to go to Sunday services all through my years as a teen and adult. My mother’s faith has been an example for me.
She loves to travel and see sights. Her children take care that she does not have to walk a lot, but gets a wheel chair for her to ride.  As she rides, whether it is for a car ride or in the wheel chair she giggles and laughs about what she sees. Even in a phone conversation there is giggling and laughing as she asks about how you are doing  and how the children are. When we ask about how she is feeling she’s always feeling fine.
With this post I would like to honor her for her example as a mother, wife, and as a woman of faith.  She was a stay-at-home mom.
My sister and I have talked about what has been the reason she has lived to 93 years old.  We have decided it must be her attitude and her love for flowers, pretty things, and singing. She enjoys music. She had lost quite a bit of weight several years ago so her heart and joints are not overburdened with the extra weight also.

Mother and Maggie Her Companion

The Latest Picture of Her

Proverbs 31:10-31

An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.
She looks for wool and flax, and works with her hands in delight. She is like merchant ships; she brings her food from afar. She rises also while it is still night, and gives food to her household, and portions to her maidens.
She considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong.
She senses that her gain is good; her lamp does not go out at night.
She stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hands grasp the spindle.
She extends her hand to the poor; and she stretches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of the snow for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She makes coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies belts to the tradesmen.
Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of the household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also, and he praises her, saying “Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.”
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

Happy Birthday Mother.