MY MOTHER’S NOTE BOOK: What Were We Thinking?
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| MY MOTHER'S NOTE BOOK |
With Mother’s day just around the corner, I am reminded of a mother I really did not know very well.
As I sort through old photos, read parts of journals, and recall past events I have come to realize what an amazing mother I really had. She was truly a “Laborers Together” along side of my father. (A theme from their wedding day.)
I have often wondered what was going on in her mind when they boarded that train from Oregon to Texas with three steamer trunks, all their worldly possessions, on their missionary journey that summer of 1948. What was she thinking? I am sure had she known what she was getting into she may have voiced second thoughts.
She not only sacrificed ease of living but often found that living by faith was foreign to her. She was a CITY GIRL, and dad was a country boy.
Correspondence from the mission was, “Come to Mexico as soon as possible. We will trust with you for your support.”
What she did not know was what it would be like to serve in one of the most primitive and dangerous areas of the State of Puebla and Veracruz.
Upon there arrival at the mission headquarters in Tamazunchale, it was hot and rainy. There was very little electricity at night.
She cooked on a two-burner kerosene stove.
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| Cooking |
She washed the clothes by hand in cold water and sat under the lines while they dried, otherwise the clothes would be stolen right outside the door. (especially the underwear)
She used the pressure cooker every day. In her journal, she recounts eating lots of bread, eggs, beans and bananas as they gradually learned to eat tortillas and chile in moderation.
She and Dad spent concentrated time learning the Spanish language. They worked together as a team. Dad’s strong points were speaking and hers was hearing and understanding. They learned very quickly. Eventually they even adopted the accent.
Well, my eventual expected arrival disrupted their language studies, however, they had a good grasp on the language and proceeded to Puebla City to await my arrival.
So I was the first one in our family to make my mother a mother.
She used the pressure cooker every day. In her journal, she recounts eating lots of bread, eggs, beans and bananas as they gradually learned to eat tortillas and chile in moderation.
She and Dad spent concentrated time learning the Spanish language. They worked together as a team. Dad’s strong points were speaking and hers was hearing and understanding. They learned very quickly. Eventually they even adopted the accent.
Well, my eventual expected arrival disrupted their language studies, however, they had a good grasp on the language and proceeded to Puebla City to await my arrival.
So I was the first one in our family to make my mother a mother.
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| Motherhood |
My mother was also a gifted musician and could play various instruments. She taught organ lessons on a squeaky pump organ and the accordion. Something that I found very difficult and quickly abandoned the lessons.
A quote from a letter she wrote to my grandparents, August 1,1948:
“We had rather an interesting experience last night. I got out my accordion to play a few songs to Loren. Immediately there appeared at our window many of the people who live in the six other apartments. One married lady and a young girl came in…they knew many of the hymns…My accordion was only the second that had been in this town of 2,000 people. The people are very fond of music but hardly any of them play instruments.”
Another quote from the same letter stated, “I surely enjoy my pressure cooker down here. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without it…I have a concrete sink and drainboard…”
The whole time I lived in Mexico, we did not own a refrigerator.
I later heard after I left that my mother finally got a refrigerator in her kitchen after living in Mexico about 15 yrs. No one in the village had ever seen a refrigerator and asked it it was a coffin when they saw it laying on its back in the Land Rover.
This blog is getting to be to long and so many memories but I will end with this as it has come to my mind.
My mother was quite a disciplinarian while my father on the lenient side. She would require me to go out to find a stick from the wood pile for a thrashing. I soon learned that the switches or thin ones gave the most pain.
On one occasion, no stick was at hand and she used her hand and broke many blood vessels on her hand.
She also was a “no nonsense” kind of mother and would rather we direct our energies to more useful pursuits. When I was putting my energies into making doll clothes, she would have none of that and sent me to the seamstress up the hill for sewing lesson for me clothes. I then made myself aprons, skirts, dresses, pajamas and dreamed of hitting the jackpot in winning bolts of cloth, while sewing with the cast offs of those chicken feed sacks sent from the States from my great grandmothers chicken farm.
Mother’s day is to remind us how much our mothers have sacrificed for us at any given moment.
A quote from a letter she wrote to my grandparents, August 1,1948:
“We had rather an interesting experience last night. I got out my accordion to play a few songs to Loren. Immediately there appeared at our window many of the people who live in the six other apartments. One married lady and a young girl came in…they knew many of the hymns…My accordion was only the second that had been in this town of 2,000 people. The people are very fond of music but hardly any of them play instruments.”
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| Organ and Accordion Lessons |
The whole time I lived in Mexico, we did not own a refrigerator.
I later heard after I left that my mother finally got a refrigerator in her kitchen after living in Mexico about 15 yrs. No one in the village had ever seen a refrigerator and asked it it was a coffin when they saw it laying on its back in the Land Rover.
This blog is getting to be to long and so many memories but I will end with this as it has come to my mind.
My mother was quite a disciplinarian while my father on the lenient side. She would require me to go out to find a stick from the wood pile for a thrashing. I soon learned that the switches or thin ones gave the most pain.
On one occasion, no stick was at hand and she used her hand and broke many blood vessels on her hand.
Mother’s day is to remind us how much our mothers have sacrificed for us at any given moment.
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| Saturday Night Bible Class With both Casas Hogar in The Ediger Living Room, Dad and Mother in the doorway and Tommy in foreground front |
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| Mother top far right, Tommy up front |
Above was an article that my mother wrote for the Mexican Indian Mission newsletter.
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