When I was a kid we went to a Presbyterian church on Sunday. On Mother’s Day someone was at the door with flowers (carnations) for each person. If your Mother was living you took a colored flower, (usually red) if she was deceased you took a white flower.
I don’t remember how I learned this. Probably my Mother told me.
We wore gloves to church back then. Today you can go to church in jeans.
She told us bits of things that didn’t seem relevant to us at the time but which stuck somewhere in our minds.
She was originally a school teacher. She taught in a one room school in the 1930’s. One year she was paid with room and board. That involved staying at the students’ homes for equal time shared out among the students. One place had bedbugs.
She said sometimes she slept with the students. Sometimes the Mother of that home would say she had already eaten her supper. Mom doubted that, there just wasn’t enough food so the Mother didn’t eat. Admitting you didn’t have enough was unheard of.
Some of the students would bring a sweet potato to school for their lunch. They laid them near the pot bellied stove and by noon they were cooked. No aluminum foil then.
Some students brought a metal lard bucket with a lid and carefully hid what was in it for their lunch, eating with their face over the top of the bucket. Mom’s guess was that it was cornbread or corn mush.
Those people valued education. Times were hard.
My parents married in 1935 but kept it secret for a year. My Mother would have lost her job as a teacher if they knew she was married. Those jobs were for single women or married men.
She needed the extra year to pay off the car she was buying, a model A Ford. The car was to give to her parents. They had paid for her college education and she felt guilty for wanting to get married and not be a teacher after they had sacrificed for her education.
I rode in that car a few times. All I really remember is Grandpa cranking it in front to start it and the smell of wet wood and leather.
She always said she was not superstitious, then would explain what it meant when your hand itched (you would receive money)or foot itched (you would walk on new ground) or if you dropped a fork or spoon (fork - a woman will visit, spoon – a child, knife – a man).
I was assured I could wear my Grandmother’s thimble, since I wasn’t superstitious. It was bad luck to wear a deceased person’s thimble. It must have been my Dad’s Mother’s thimble. She died when I was four years old.
I could go on forever talking about my Mother.
When my kids were young Mother’s Day involved breakfast in bed. Usually a mess but happily done and gratefully accepted. Hand made cards were the best.
When teen years came some of them rebelled. So I rebelled right back (tough love approach). No birthday gifts from me for kids who didn’t acknowledge me. That didn’t last long. I sure am glad my kids are grown people now and seem like friends as well as family.
Today Motherhood is a choice. I respect and honor the women who choose to have an inconvenient baby.
So God Bless all Mothers, past, present, and future.
Later….
