December 20,2021- “My Mom!”
When I was a little girl, I didn’t realize what I had in my Mom. Then I learned she was born on the 4th of July 1907. Later, I read what Grandma Suderman wrote about the day Mom was born. The custom then was to ring the party line on the phone and announce the birth of every new baby. The problem was that the telephone operator did not work on July the 4th. So the announcement came one day later. I have always been pleased as to how her birthday is always celebrated with parades, fireworks, and picnics.
I always said Mom is a firecracker of a Mother! I realized it was even more so as the years went by. I watched how she concentrated on being a Mom. She made all our clothes, even from chicken feed sacks. If there was a hole, she made it a thing of beauty by embroidering a flower on the hole or placing a pocket there.
Then I needed a bed. Mom didn’t go to a store to shop. No, she built a bed, a dresser, and a beautiful desk. I enjoyed sleeping in that bed for years. What a joy. It pained me to leave the desk on the curb as we moved in 2012 to Illinois.
Mom was a great cook. When Mom made bread pudding, a meringue chocolate pie, or cinnamon rolls, they were superb. We never went hungry. Even leftovers – called hash, tasted great.
When I was six years old, she began teaching me piano lessons on the old upright piano. She was a stickler for rhythm and playing notes as written. I played for church services until I was 83 years old. I learned to play chords and even ad-libbed, once in a while.
Meanwhile, Mom played for church services, either piano or the organ. Then she became a choir director. She played for funerals and weddings. But she didn’t stop there. She was a Bible Student and when I was twelve, she taught our VBS class, and we built a replica of the temple to scale. Pillars, curtains, and all.
She cut my Dad’s hair, my brothers’ hair, and mine as well. There was no end to her accomplishments and the things she was able to do. When my brother Jim was in an elementary school play, they needed a prop. An airplane that would roll across the stage. Nothing was too difficult for Mom. She constructed it.
Mom taught Bible Studies and classes in the Rogers Museum, participated in Watonga OK Music Club, and taught how to bake bread. Once when I was a young girl, I watched her tend her flower garden and check them. “Mom, why do you like flowers so much?” I asked. Her answer changed my view of the things around me. Genesis 1:1 had new meaning.
“Because God created the flowers!” She visited the ‘old people’ and brought them flowers or loaves of bread she baked until she was over 80 years old.
She made me a recital formal for my senior year in college, and not long afterward,
leading singing in a revival in the Grenola KS Christian Church, I met the love of my life. When I came home and told Mom about the wedding in 3 months, she didn’t hesitate. She pulled her 1928 wedding dress from the cedar chest, removing the seed pearls. Then she made my wedding dress, transferring the seed pearl beads from her wedding dress to the 1952 wedding dress. The recital dress I wore in the College Recital fit the maid of honor.
Then in 1977, my daughter Anna was married. She wore my wedding dress. I know it pleased Mom to see Anna wearing the same dress she made for me. A three-generation wedding dress. Just as the beads moved from dress to dress, so it is that God’s Word is taught from generation to generation.
Mom believed in God, and she taught others, her Faith in God was visible in her life. Her legacy to me is her faith in God in all she did. Listening to her singing the Doxology, praising God for the little things in life. As she drew her last breaths on earth in 1998, I read to her from her favorite Psalm.
Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices! Refrain from anger and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. Psalm 37:3-8.
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