50+ Lifestyles

PUBLISHER’S CORNER

By Eloise Graham

Remembering my Mom and Dad

Both Mother’s Day 2020 and Father’s Day 2020 have come and gone with little fanfare. However, sheltering-in-place for three plus months does allow plenty of time for reminiscing. I would now like to pay homage to my parents with some of my precious memories.

My mother was a college graduate with a degree in education/home economics. Just by her being her, she taught me the value of books. We had an entire wall that was a bookcase, floor to ceiling except for the built-in desk area in the center. The three shelves directly above the desk were encyclopedias. I was taught to look things up and read about them. She also taught me to appreciate textiles, the many different textures that fabric can have.

She taught me to sew. If it was a plaid fabric she showed me how to lay out the pattern, making sure the plaids or stripes matched. I always had a new back-to-school outfit which I made, even in first grade. Granted, she directed me every step of the way, but she bragged to her friends that I had made my dress. She made all of my clothes, even my winter coats. As a twelve-year-old, I begged and pleaded for a store-bought coat like all of my friends had. Well, she bought me one of my choices. But in the dead of winter, I found out the store-bought coat was not near as warm or comfortable as the coats she made for me.

She also taught me cooking, making things from scratch and not wasting any food. With a major in home-ec and a minor in chemistry, she knew certain shortcuts that could be taken, like sprinkling a little sugar over yeast to make it activate sooner. She taught me substitutions and conversions for recipes.
She taught me independence, creativity and nurturing my imagination. She was quite active in a ladies group at our church that was in charge of church dinners or breakfasts or pancake suppers. The children of the other ladies were either school age or grown. I was the only little tyke. I would gather up two or three of my dolls and go with Mom to do the meal preparation. While the women worked, I tucked my dolls on one of the wheeled serving carts, covered them with a couple of the dish towels and took them all over the church basement, entertaining them and myself. I loved it that I had a double-decker baby carriage.

Those are just a few of the early childhood memories of her. Oh, I have so many more of my teen years, my becoming a young wife and then a mother. I love and miss her. I spent Mother’s Day paying tribute to her by going down memory lane.

My father was also a college graduate, probably in business and/or manufacturing. His dad and uncles started a manufacturing plant making wrought iron fence products, some steel farm equipment, small one-cylinder engine farm equipment, lumbering saws, post hole diggers and barbed fencing. Dad worked with an uncle at a factory that had a foundry in it. On Saturday mornings, he would sometimes take me to the factory with him and we would go to the foundry. There was a pop machine there that was stocked with Dr. Pepper. I had never seen it anywhere else, so I assumed my daddy’s factory was the only place one could get this drink.

He liked black jelly beans. I remember going downtown, the three of us, Mom, Dad and me to do some shopping, probably at Montgomery Wards and then the fabric shop. Daddy had his jacket pocket full of jelly beans, and I could sneak my hand in there and get some. I am pretty sure my mom was aware of what I was doing, but at the time I felt like it was Daddy’s and my secret.

He loved the sky, stars, moon, clouds and rain storms. We had a screened in back porch, and I remember standing by him watching the lightning, cloud formations and rain. I felt safe with him there beside me. He also rented a telescope one summer so we could star gaze. I don’t know if something special was happening then or not. But I knew he was all excited. I probably did not react as enthusiastic as he had hoped.

He did handy work and grew a small vegetable garden, always including me in his projects. He taught me how to drive a nail, use a screw driver, a hand saw, plant a garden, weed, cultivate and pick the produce.

We had a flag pole in our front yard and on those special days when we flew the flag such as Memorial Day, Flag Day, Fourth of July and so forth, we would go out to the pole and raise the flag first thing in the morning. I took it upon myself to run back in the house and play George M. Cohan’s 78 record of “You’re a Grand Old Flag” on our phonograph player.

My dad died when I was eleven, so I only have early childhood memories of him. But in my mind, he was a giant of a man who could do no wrong. I spent Father’s Day reliving my time with him.