This little girl grew up to be a mother of eight kids. Why this didn't unhinge her (more) I don't know. One child changed my life and how I see the world. Imagine eight!
She tried and mastered every sort of needlecraft. Her sewing skills kept us all in charming dresses and she began making wonderful "soft sculpture" dolls and toys at one point.
Although mom would not admit to being a good cook, she could work wonders with almost no ingredients, which is usually what she had at hand.
Mom took up painting at mid-life and did landscapes and portraits and she loved re-creating on large canvases the work of The Masters. She dreamed of having a gallery in her house of her work.
Unlike me, she was good at math. Why, why she couldn't pass a bit of that on, I don't know.
Apparently her father insisted that the kids learn how to do every single thing they could. So, she could do carpentry and plumbing and electrical work. A new room or a porch could be created by her in the space of a day. I know she didn't go to the library for books on how to do things, so she must have sketched out what she wanted to do and the dimensions of the project in some near blueprint way, and off to the hardware store or lumberyard she went and she'd come back with what she needed. She never had a truck so she'd have boards in the back seat sticking out the windows.
She had a long illness at the end of her life but she payed no attention to it and always thought she'd get better.
If you were sad or down you could sit on the floor by her tiny little self, listening to the puff puff of her oxygen tank while she brushed the hair back from your face and told you everything would be alright.
To all the moms who are everything in the world to their kids as she was to us, Happy Mother's Day, and give that lady a big hug if you're lucky enough to still have her.
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