A Tribute to Mother

Today- Feb. 20, 2009 Mother would have been 94 today.
It does not seem possible that it has been almost 32 years that Mother went home to be with Jesus.

The other day I was thinking about all the things Mother taught us in our life time.
And there being 9 of us I'm sure the others learned things I did not learn.

However, here are a few things I am grateful that Mother taught me.

1. How to use a sewing machine and sew. (Even tho she laughed at me when I put a collar on upside down).

2. Quilting - including how to put it in frame, take it out and bind it.

3. How to put a binding on and how to make the bias tape be one continuous piece.

4. Patience---even when all the sewing I was doing was carpet rags. Do them correctly the first time.

5. Embroidery by hand, (I never really ask her to teach me how she did it on the sewing machine. Now I wish I had.

6. How to bake cake and cookies. (But you never taught me how to make pies). Therefore, I buy my pies I don't bake them.

7. How to iron even if I didn't really like doing it. ---- ya for not having to do all those bushels and bushels of pants and shirts that we used to have to do. (Sorry Brothers - I really never liked to iron that much after doing all your work clothes). Thank goodness for knits and no iron now.

8. To never be angry at someone and go to bed angry at them.

9. If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing correctly the first time.

10. She taught me how to pick strawberries, and prepare things for the freezer, so we would have food in the winter months.

11. How to make vegetable soup from scratch and freeze it.

12. How to butch a chicken and not cut the green gall- so the meat would not be wasted. (She always cut their heads off tho.) I would really have to put my whole heart into doing all of it alone.

13. How to make grape juice and tomato juice and can it.

14. She taught me how to do bead work, tho I never tackled the horse and buggy that she made.

15. It is more blessed to give then to receive.


So today, I want to Say- Happy Birthday Mom, thank you for all you did for me in the first 28 years of my life and all that you were able to teach me. A lot I am sure I don't remember as I sit trying to think of things. I'll probably remember them one by one later.

You and Elizabeth Hill (who worked at our eye doctor's for years) were born the same day and the same year. Elizabeth and her daughter, Sharon (Who I stayed with when I first came to town) are both gone now too. Hope You and Elizabeth are celebrating up there together again.