Wild Women
The Wild Women Who Made Me Who I Am!
This I want to deducate to some of the women who have made me who I am today. These women touched my life in a variety of ways to mold me and my character. Some I have been lucky enough to have with me all my life, other were but a passing ship in the night. I do not have family pics scanned in yet so temporarily you will have to make do with pics of my daughter and granddaughters because they are the inheriters of the family legacy.
Mother
What can make a woman strong? Lots of things but most of those things can usually be traced directly back to the hands of a man. This is the case of my mother. She grew up with so many strikes against her it's a wonder she survived at all. She was born towards the end of a large family in 1935. The only sister she had was born second in the family ten years older than her so it wasn't like her sister, Lois, had a lot to do with her. But she did idolize her nonetheless. Due to a childhood inner ear birth defect, which ran and stank, my mother was ostrasized by the others in her family and forced to spend much of her time as a child in a room alone. This one decision by my grandmother to keep her from the complaining other children had so much of an impact on my mother's personality. Then when she was 14 her beloved sister who had long since married and begun a family was mistreated by her husband. When he made in inappropriate gesture at my mother she threatened his with a heavy wooden hairbrush and others in the family had to intervene to keep her from attacking him. This event changed my mother forever. Never would a man beat her or starve her like she had seen her sister treated. Not only did this decision impact her life but she made sure it impacted mine as well.
My Daughter & Granddaughters
My beautiful daughter was born on February 17 just after Valentine's Day and to me she will always be my sweetheart. Of course no baby was ever prettier or sweetier. But upon reflection, no baby was ever more stubborn either. If that baby didn't want to eat strained carrots than no force on earth could make her eat strained carrots! I should have seen the warning signs then. But I was too in love with my new baby girl to look. It took until she was a teenager and I got blind-sided for me to see that my little girl was stubborn!! She always got her way in the end. When she was small I would give her Flintstone Vitamins for her health. I thought she took them everyday. Until one day after she grew up and moved out of the house and I was rearranging some furniture when lo and behold, I moved a China Cabinet and behind it was a mountain of old stale Flintstone Vitamins!! They had formed a rock hard ball fused by the spit of a five year old. That is just the beginning. The biggest lesson she taught me was patience. And laughter. I have had some of the best laughs in my life with her. My daughter is one of the funniest people I know. Her gift for imitation is unparralled. She has an artistic flair about her and an eye for decor and beauty. You fall in love with your children the minute you see them after birth and you stay in love with your children as long as you live. Sometimes when I sit alone and think of her I still see my little baby in my mind. So even though Suzanne is grown with nearly grown children of her own, in my mind and heart the child she once was lives on. I can still see the four year old tugging at my skirt and say "up, mamma, up" because she was tired of walking and wanted to be carried.
The Grandmothers
What can one say about two grandmothers who raised families during the Depression! Talk about strong. To say I come from pioneer stock is quite the understatement. My mother's family was more English, my father's family was more German. One may think this would make them very different but not really, both were blunt, outspoken, and emotionally distant. Just what every girl wants in a grandmother! Cold brutal honesty! Old World stern. I was born on my father's mother's birthday and you may think that having a granddaughter share your birthday would be special. Right? But wrong! Never did I ever get a present, card, or phone call. Thanks Grandma! Can you feel the love in this family? I never once in my life got any presents for anything, i.e. Christmas, birthday, from either grandparent. No cards wishing me a Happy Birthday, or a phone call even acknowleding they even know it was my birthday. Neither did my brothers. Some of the grandkids did, just not us. This fact alone made me determined to be a better grandmother to my own grandchildren.
Aunt Sharon
My Aunt sharon is exactly ten years older than I am. We were never that close when I was growing up but we are now. I adore the living daylights out of her. She is full of all the great family stories and history. She know the good, bad and ugly of the family. Lots of ugly! I don't mean physically, I mean historically. Aunt Sharon was your typically pretty blonde blue eyed germanic girl. What can one say? With so much natural blondes in the family I think we must have some nordic somewhere. It was not until this generation that there was finally some brown eyes born into the family. Nothing but blue had been the order de jour before. My Aunt sharon was the only girl in a family of 7 borthers. And she was next to last. Luckily her older brothers all adored their little sister. They treated her as if a living doll had come to live with them. But here is another woman made strong my life. Aunt Sharon caught polio and became crippled in childhood. She had to endure years of wearing those tortureous metal leg braces and the humiliation that went with it. She was in an Iron Lung for several months as a child. After a lifetime of raising boys her mother was ill-equiped to handle a girl. The boy born right after her was born with heart trouble and he as brutal towards her. The doctor had told her mother to not go easy on her, make her wear her braces or she will never walk. So grandma was cold and demanding with her and her brother teased and tormented her daily. Is my aunt strong? Lord, you bet she is! She grew up crippled, walking with iron leg braces, being teased every day of her life, living in a emotionally cold home with a mother who never said "I love you". I absolutely adore my aunt. She has had to beat odds I can not imagine and she is a better person for it. Her faith in God is strong and she has morals rarely seen in today's world. The hours we have spent talking have made me a better person. I thank God for her in my life every day.
