“A mother holds her children’s hands for a while, their hearts forever”. ~Author Unknown
I usually post on Sunday evenings, but today’s post is special. It’s a tribute to my mom, Pauline Mary Schaub, who would have turned 100 years old today.
The stork brought a bundle of joy to Minnie and Omer Godard on Valentine’s Day 1926.
I have mentioned in countless blog posts that I am fortunate to be the keeper of all the maternal family albums. Most of these vintage photos are in great shape – only a few are tattered or stained. This treasure trove of family photos makes it easy to substantiate my written memories of Mom and Nanny (my grandmother) in my blog posts. Many years ago Mom and I pored over each page in the old family album. Each photo had been tucked into black photo corners by Nanny and Mom, but there were also loose family photos we placed into a brand-new album while Mom recounted her memories about long-gone family members I’d never met.
So, let’s start with the backstory.
My grandmother, born November 19, 1906, was known by the moniker “Minnie” (short for “Wilhemina”) her entire life. She had eight siblings. The Klein family owned a farm in Ariss, Ontario, Canada. Minnie (left) and her sister Loretta, …
… not enamored with farm life, traveled to “The Big City” a/k/a Toronto, where the pair obtained factory jobs, then met their respective husbands soon thereafter.
Minnie married Omer Godard, who hailed from Saint-Jérôme, Quebec. The expression “opposites attract” applies here. Omer was argumentative, a bully, wherein Minnie was more of a gentle soul. Perhaps Minnie was enamored by Omer’s dashing and debonair style, as you see him here, dressed up and posing near his “wheels”, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, but his true demeanor belied that positive description, a tale I’ve told before in this very forum.
I have often pondered over this photo. Did Nanny ride behind Omer, her arms hanging on tightly to his torso, a glimpse of her bloomers peeking out as the pair zipped down the road? I sure wish I’d asked Nanny that question, but now it’s too late of course – she passed away 40 years ago, on January 29, 1986.
Minnie and Omer married in 1925 and soon a baby was on the way.
The year was 1926 ….
Once it was warm enough, Baby Pauline was wheeled outside in her carriage …
… and/or placed onto a blanket on the grass.
Note: The above two vintage photographs did not age well – they were loose in a box, but I decided to use them anyway. I think the rest of the photos are in good shape considering their age.
Minnie and Omer posed with their bundle of joy in this photo.
A camera was handy to capture these images of toddler Pauline.
During her first Winter, she was bundled up in this furry coat …
Then Spring arrived and a few photos were taken near a tulip garden, including a tender moment between father and daughter. (Check out the old car in the background in the second photo.)
Here was another bonding moment between Omer and young Pauline.
Looking at this photograph reminds me of my childhood, as my parents had several professional portraits taken through the years.
I don’t remember where this photo was taken – interesting dress though.
Soon young Pauline was attending school.
There were several school photos taken at St. Helen’s Parish School, like the featured image and these two below.
Then there was First Communion at St. Helen’s Church.
These photos were from Pauline’s First Communion, two by herself …
… then, after the veil was removed, Pauline posed again, along with her parents.
A few years ago I wrote a post about Mom wherein I mentioned her prayer book and prayer cards …
St. Helen’s Catholic Church, at the top of St. Claren’s Avenue, my grandparents’ longtime residence, was where Nanny worshipped, Pauline was baptized and attended the Parish school and was married, where I was baptized and funeral services were held for my grandmother.
But I’m getting ahead of myself a little here.
In a heartbeat, an accident changed Pauline’s life forever.
In July 1937, in a careless childish moment, Pauline ran between two parked cars. The driver, a soldier home on leave, didn’t see her, put his car in gear, hitting her. The car’s high front grille broke a few of Pauline’s ribs and tore her stockings. She was rushed to the doctor’s office where her broken ribs were taped up and young Pauline was scolded by her mother for tearing her stockings. The soldier’s insurance company representative went to my grandparents’ house, asking them to sign off on the paperwork that Pauline was fine and they did so.
Fast forward a few months ….
Pauline had a minor ear infection at the time of the accident, but suddenly she became very sick and spiking a fever, so she went back to the doctor’s office, then to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The ear infection, combined with the broken ribs, caused osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone. Pauline was hospitalized for the next four years, sometimes in a full body cast.
During her stay at the Hospital for Sick Children, in the Summer months, Pauline was transferred to Thistletown, a satellite branch of the hospital, where long-term patients could convalesce outside, weather permitting. This a picture of Pauline in her hospital bed outside.
At the hospital, the rest of the time, she was placed in a ward with other children, some with polio. Pauline’s parents were on the hook for all medical bills/expenses since they had waived any liability for the soldier that injured her. Her father often complained bitterly how expensive Pauline’s moment of foolishness had cost the family. My grandparents were on a payment plan to the hospital for years: $0.25 weekly to pay off that four-year hospital stay.
Pauline would have a total of 42 operations in her lifetime, all but one (a C-section for me) were orthopedic related.
Pauline decided on a business career.
The young patients had visiting teachers and excellent schooling during their hospital stay.
After settling in at home after her release from the hospital, pictured here with my grandmother and their beloved dog “Bozo” …
… Pauline decided she would forego further traditional schooling and proceed right to business school. She had a benefactor, a businesswoman named Mrs. Firby from a local Soroptimist’s Club, an international organization in which their credo is to “provide women and girls with access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment.” Mrs. Firby took Pauline under her wing, sponsored her business school studies, travel expenses to/from home to Shaw’s Business College and bought her a wardrobe of business clothing after graduation for her first job. Mrs. Firby was generous to her, providing little gifts of jewelry, or scarves and also was my mom’s confidante. When Mrs. Firby met Max Schaub in 1950, she told Pauline “I don’t like him and you can do better.”
Pauline had another faithful friend – his name was Harry.
Harry, like Mrs. Firby, was kind and thoughtful and looked out for Pauline. He painted this painting her first day of her first job.
In this blog post from 2022, I told how Harry gifted Pauline with a beautiful silver locket which you see in this painting.
You may recall I was given the silver locket to wear for Valentine’s Day many years ago and it fell off my neck into the snow, never to be found, even after the snow melted. I was heartsick about it. Years later I was given Mom’s birthstone ring, an amethyst, in a silver setting. I was twisting the ring around on my finger at the movie theatre and lost it. When the movie was over, we asked that the cleaning crew be on the lookout for the ring, but it was never found.
While I could never replace the silver locket, I did try to replicate the amethyst ring and bought one when I began working. I gave it to Mom who said that was unnecessary and told me to wear it.
The wedding.
My parents met in 1950 when Pauline was sitting on the front porch of her home and Max walked over and asked for directions. He had just moved here from Germany. They were married in 1953 in St. Helen’s Church.
I arrived three years later. I was only 4 pounds 11 ounces (2.126 kilograms) and was in an incubator until I gained some weight and could leave the hospital.
This is Mom and me – our first photo together.
This photo of Mom and me was taken a month later, in May 1956, in my grandparents’ backyard.
Mom’s 50th birthday.
Nanny and my Aunt Frances, (adopted at birth after 11 years of Minnie trying to get pregnant), lived together for decades. After we moved to the U.S. in 1966, in between visits to Toronto, Mom phoned them every Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m..
I decided that Mom’s 50th birthday should be a special celebration, so I wrote a letter to Nanny and Frances to ask if they would come over on the Greyhound bus on February 13th to surprise Mom. We communicated our plans by phone at the diner where I worked through college so Mom would not find out. I did not tell my father as I didn’t want him to blab the secret. We were excited about this surprise and I arranged to meet them at the Greyhound Terminal and, when I would normally return from school, they would walk up into the kitchen instead of me. My boss, Erdie, picked up the birthday cake as the bakery closed before we could get there, so we made a pit stop for flowers and to pick up the cake and so they could meet Erdie.
I don’t know why I didn’t have the pocket camera handy to capture Mom’s surprise at seeing Nanny and Frances. Nanny walked in first, holding a small vase of flowers, followed by Frances holding the birthday cake. Tears trickled down Mom’s cheeks.
But I did have the camera handy the next day, Saturday, February 14th, when Mom posed with the flowers and cake …
… and when we went out to dinner at Hungarian Village in Detroit. They had a gypsy band and a strolling violinist who serenaded Mom.
Once again, Mom was moved to tears. I misted up a little while preparing this post recalling her birthday celebration weekend. It really doesn’t seem possible this was a half-century ago.
My father abandoned our family.
I was an only child, doted on by my parents, especially my father when I was young, just as my mom appeared to be Daddy’s little princess.
But, on Christmas Day 1983, six months after their 30th wedding anniversary, amid unwrapping presents, my father announced he no longer wanted to be part of the family. However, he failed to disclose these details: he had stopped at the bank and removed all the money from their joint account and did likewise in a joint annuity account. We later learned he had written to the insurance company that held the annuity, pleading hardship and telling them his wife was out of the country tending to her sick mother, citing this as the reason she could not provide her signature. Then he left the county to return to his homeland, Germany.
Mom could not go to work at this point. She didn’t drive and time had taken its toll, exacerbating her existing orthopedic and mobility issues. She was on the cusp of turning 58 years old, thus she was too young to collect Social Security or receive Medicare and was told after an independent medical exam that she WAS fit to work, so could not have medical expenses/medications paid by Medicaid. Thankfully the house was paid for long before, so we soldiered on together, none the worse for the havoc my father had wreaked. I became the breadwinner in the house and took over all the tasks previously done by my father.
Mom and me.
Yes, we were very close – I wrote one of my favorite posts ever, on Mother’s Day 2019, when it was 10 years since I had celebrated Mother’s Day with her.
I have written posts about my fond memories, taken a few strolls down Memory Lane and wrote about her “Momisms” a word I coined for all the wisdom she gave me through the years.
This was the last photo of us taken in the Summer of 2003. We each had a dental appointment and our dental hygienist, Barbara, pulled up next to us in her new shiny red Corvette, a birthday present to herself. She asked me to take photos of her posing next to it, which I did, then she told Mom and I to stand near the car and she sent us this photo afterward. I was grateful for that as we rarely, if ever, had photos of the two of us taken.
We had our occasional spats – two people living under the same roof, no matter how much they love one another, will never agree, nor share the same opinions on everything 100% of the time, especially when there is a 30-year age gap. My mother kept the house immaculate until she got older and more and more of her tasks were shouldered by me. I was content to let things slide since I was always busy at work, sometimes worked weekends, was dealing with the outside chores, etc. I even wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about housecleaning.
When we returned to Canada to visit my grandmother and then my Aunt Frances (who passed away from kidney cancer in 1990), we always stopped in Amherstburg, a picturesque town not far from the Canada/USA border, before heading home. We went there sometimes for a Sunday drive as well. There was a little pond where we fed the ducks and a great restaurant called “Ducks on the Roof” so named because the restaurant had originally been a hunting club and had duck decoys everywhere. The new owner took many of the duck decoys and put them on the roof – thus the restaurant’s name.
My mom collected duck decoys as well and that love of ducks played a part in Mom’s final resting place. She wished to have her ashes scattered in Canada and had told me this long ago. This was problematic as I no longer had a passport, nor a special driver’s license permitting me to cross the border to accomplish this sad task. It was serendipity that I met an American woman, married to a Canadian, who lived in Windsor, Ontario. She crossed the border three times a week as she worked in the area. She was a little nervous about doing this, but discussed it with her prayer group first – they urged her to help me out. So, it was Sue who granted Mom’s wish and she scattered Mom’s cremains at sunset in Amherstburg.
She sent me photos of Mom’s final resting place – two of them are below.
I was very grateful for her doing this for me. I am still in touch with Sue every Christmas when I thank her again for this kindness.
I couldn’t resist including one of my favorite nature photos, this Mama Duck and her one and only duckling.
My mom had a hard life and often said I was the best thing that happened to her. She passed away on January 31, 2010, two weeks before her 84th birthday, after a bout with sepsis due to a perforated bowel.
Thank you for reading this post if you are still here.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
My dad died when I was 10. My brothers were a lot older than me and already out of the house so it was just mom and me. We also were very close. I still miss her. She passed in 1986.
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Thirty years already for your mom Kate – wow. We were close before my father left, but even more so afterward. It does not seem possible it is 16 years already, as sometimes it seems like just yesterday she was here – here one day and gone the next.
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It’s actually 40 for my mom. If you have a good relationship I don’t thing you ever get over missing a parent.
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Oh no – I’m sorry Kate … my math is bad, but my eyes are getting really bad. My eye doctor is monitoring me for cataracts, so he has not changed my prescription the last two years as he says it is unnecessary to do so. I enlarge everything to 150% – I may be enlarging it even more. 🙂 My grandmother passed away the day after the Challenger explosion. I would remember her death date anyway, but it is a sad reminder every year as they note the disaster on the news. Yes, that’s very true – the better the relationship, the sadder the loss.
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Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Heavenly birthday to your mom! Your mother certainly did not have an easy life. You wrote an exceptional tribute to her. You had some fine examples of strong women in your life. I loved seeing the photos.
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Thank you Laurie! I wanted this tribute to be very special. Yes, my mom had a difficult life, from age 11 on, but she was stoic about it for the most part. I enjoyed going through all my scanned photos and picking out the 30 pictures I used. I actually had a few more but had to stop myself! Although I never met my great-grandmother, she had a rough life too, a farm wife who had 11 children, (1 stillbirth, 1 died at age 18 and 9 that lived) and my great-grandfather was a piece of work according to my grandmother. So, I’m proud to come from a line of strong women. 🙂
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What a beautiful story and tribute to your mom.
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Thank you Irene. I wanted to do something special for what would have been her 100th birthday. I am lucky to have so many photos of Mom to do this tribute post.
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Great pictures!
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Thank you Cathy! Believe it or not, I had a few more vintage photos I could have included, but had to stop myself!
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What a beautiful tribute, Linda. Thanks for sharing. xo
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Thank you Pam – I appreciate you saying that. I know you have commented on other tribute posts I have done as well.
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❤️😘💕
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You should write a memoir, Linda.🤓
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Thanks Pam – I do have a lot more I could have mentioned but tried to keep it manageable.
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Beautiful and moving tribute.
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Thank you Mari – I appreciate your comment. I wanted to do something special to honor my mom’s life.
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This is a very touching post.
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Thank you Anne! I wanted this tribute to Mom to be as special as she was.
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This was beautiful. I can’t think of anything else to say. Beautiful.
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Thank you very much Barbara.
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That was a lovely tribute Linda! Your mother was very pretty, she had especially large beautiful eyes. I did not know that was how she had died – I remember you telling me it was very quickly over a weekend and unexpected. It’s nice you have so many older photos of her. My mother was the exact same age as you know, but I only have one photo of her as a baby, (taken for a passport with her parents) and her first Communion, wearing much the same kind of dress and veil as your mom.
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Thank you Joni! My mom had the most beautiful blue eyes and black curly hair, although her childhood photos show her hair straight. I took after my father for everything – eye color, hair color, needing to wear prescription lenses – luckily not his demeanor. I am glad I have so many photos – there were more of my parents and me when I was very young, but I liked those two of Mom and me the best. She knit the outfit I was wearing in the second photo. She knit all the bonnets, sweaters and booties in all my baby photos. I’m wondering if our moms’ Communion pictures were professionally taken? As to my mom’s passing, she had complained of having a sore side on Wednesday and by Friday night she couldn’t keep anything down – we knew it was not the flu as neither of us had been around anyone else for awhile. I said I was calling an ambulance, did so and she was very angry and made me cancel it. The next morning (Saturday) she woke up and was incoherent, so I called an ambulance. They diagnosed her with sepsis from a perforated bowel and said she would have been in a lot of pain (which she really did not let on to be in that much pain). They said they could do surgery, but would not live long and suggested giving her strong antibiotics and pain killers instead. She passed away 12 hours later. It happened so quickly I was in disbelief.
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That’s awful Linda. Sepsis can be hard to catch sometimes, but if the source is a perforated bowel that is bad news. Anything bowel related is dirty surgery and higher risk of infection. They are trying to do an awareness campaign after a 16year old died of it in Ontario while waiting 8 hours in the triage in ER….a totally unnecessary death, but the mother kept trying to get the nurse to get him some help and they ignored her. There will be a lawsuit over that i imagine. No, my mother’s first communion photo was just in front of her house. My grandparents were immigrants and wouldn’t have had the money for professional photos in the Depression. The passport photo is professional, of the 4 of them, as it was taken in 1928 before the depression hit, when they were thinking of moving to Chicago, but then changed their minds. And even then they weren’t well off, as they had only been in the country for 6 years, and neither spoke any English.
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Joni, I am sure that my mother’s perforated colon was caused by all the Motrin she took. She was supposed to take them with food. I bought small packages of applesauce and pudding, so in the middle of the night if she had pain and it was long enough since the last Motrin, she could just take a pill with the water at the night table and the food was right there and I left a spoon. Or she could call me. But she said “I’m not hungry” … and same thing in the morning as she took one as soon as she got up but not with food. Not good and I harped about it all the time and she continued to do this … as a now-retired pharmacist, you know the side effects of Motrin and she was on the strongest dose at the time, four a day I believe. I am sure that there will be a lawsuit over that young man’s death from sepsis. I know once sepsis sets in, unless there is medical intervention, you will not survive. My mother had been on strong antibiotics to keep the cellulitis at bay, but even those antibiotics did not help – she was probably immune to their effectiveness after all those years.
I did not know the backstory on your parents. My grandparents lived through the Depression as well and my mom and grandmother spoke about it often. My grandmother, to her dying day, would unwrap presents and fold up the wrapping paper and she kept the bows to use again, re-used foil paper and she said it was because so many things were “dear” back then, that they could be re-used. People would kid her about it (neighbors/friends, not family) … now they call it “repurposing” but back then it was survival. Neither my grandparents, nor my parents were well off to be honest.
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I don’t think they even had wrapping paper. I taped mom once talking about the Depression, specifically Christmas then, and if you got a doll or a toy tea set it was just placed on a chair, not wrapped. She said they never went hungry, like some kids did, but they often did not have meat, unless their uncle the butcher saved them some cheaper cuts.
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I don’t know that growing up there was a lot of extravagance at Christmastime for my mom and her family either. I remember my mom said one doll and there might have been new clothes, not lots of new clothes and the orange in a sock, that’s about it. My mom often mentioned, so this is why I did in my post, that her mother was angry with her for tearing her stockings when she was hit by the car because they could not be mended. My mom didn’t mention food much growing up except for rationing items like sugar. I think about her saying that every time Mrs. Hall was rationing sugar in her baking in ACG&S.
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My mom mentioned the orange too, and some hard Christmas candy, which I remember from my childhood too, but they didn’t do stockings. She said during the war the war they had rationing, (coupons?), but during the Depression it was just plain lack of work for the men, thus lack of money. My grandma took in boarders for a few years. There was the “dole” but people were ashamed to resort to that, so they just made do. I can’t imagine if that kind of economic collapse happened today that people would put up with that – they’d be an uprising and people demanding the government to support them in the style they were used to! People were stoic back then, and resilient.
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I remember my mother talking about the “dole” too, but I also remember she said that the Salvation Army stepped in at Christmastime which is why she always liked that charity. Now I don’t know if the Salvation Army brought clothing or gifts, maybe food? This was before 1937 and her accident so she was old enough to remember them coming to the house. In fact in 2010, the year my mom passed away, I volunteered to be a bellringer at a local hardware store through the holiday season to honor her since that was a favorite charity. I agree that people would not put up with economic collapse the likes of the Great Depression nowadays. People were made of stronger stuff back then and as you say were stoic and no-nonsense.
I think I’ve mentioned to you the Great North American Heat Wave of 1936. My mom mentioned how she and my grandmother slept on the front porch, as did all the woman in the neighborhood while the men in the neighborhood all went down to Sunnyside Park with pillows and blankets to sleep on the boardwalk. They all worked in factories in Toronto and it was like a sweatbox there all day, so they had to get a reprieve so the slept getting the breezes off Lake Ontario. Many people would likely call off work in those conditions today to be honest.
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I think there were organizations that gave toys out at Christmas, but many people were too proud to ask back then, same as most people would not collect the dole or welfare unless they were truly destitute.. I gave money to Christmas for Everyone campaign, every small village and town has their own, for hampers and toys, and one of the volunteers told me that people put their names on multiple lists these days???.
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That’s interesting that people put their names on multiple lists. I guess they want to ensure their kids have toys at Christmas or clothes and they are all different charities, so it is okay, as in legal to do that?
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No, I think it’s called greed or entitlement or something…..the agencies apparently compare lists with each other to weed out the ones that do that. I’m assuming it’s only a few but still.
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That’s really too bad if food or other items run out for some who won’t get anything.
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PS. Nobody is turned away, so there is no need to do that, as you will be taken care of. He showed me some of the bundles, nice stuff, as a lot of the big businesses here donate lots of money as in 25K (tax write off for them). So only new toys, no second hand or used stuff. They even get new clothes donations too.
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That’s good … I didn’t know that when I just replied. I would not want to see others turned away. Big corporations should do that and help out the less fortunate, especially if it is a tax write-off for them anyway.
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My mother lived in a town during the Depression. My dad’s family on the farm had it a bit better as they had their own meat/milk/eggs/butter/gardens etc….but I remember my dad saying no one had the money to pay property taxes for 3 years, but everyone was in the same boat so they just let it go – no one lost their properties over it like in the 80’s. And they didn’t wear shoes to school in the warm weather. In his grade one group photo in front of the one room schoolhouse, none of the little boys sitting on the grass in the front have shoes on, so I’m guessing shoes, would be a luxury they couldn’t afford, especially with growing feet.
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That was nice that the government waived the property taxes for three years and no one lost their property. Your dad’s family was lucky they lived on a farm so could eat nutritionally. My grandmother used to say that she and her 8 siblings took ketchup sandwiches or apple butter sandwiches to school and they lived on a farm, so maybe they only ate nutritionally for breakfast or dinner? I remember my grandmother said her father had a farmer’s breakfast every day and his lunch that day was the leftovers from breakfast. Lots of fat, salt – he died of TB. I remember my mom saying that her father worked at a place that made those tall black boots with the red rings around the top of them and running shoes. After my great-grandmother’s foot was stomped on by the horse, she could no longer wear regular shoes, so she wore running shoes not laced up the rest of her life. It makes sense if it was Summertime they didn’t need shoes as their feet grew fast, but what a danger that could be, especially on a farm – you could step on anything, a rusty nail, piece of metal or wood – even walking to school on a country road. They were probably healthier than us.
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My dad said the soles of your feet hardened and got tough so they didn’t think anything of it if the weather was nice. In winter they had shoes/boots. I don’t think niceness was the issue with the township – they couldn’t foreclose on all those properties as no one had any money to buy them so they would have been stuck with them! I see run down properties in the city, which apparently people have abandoned and never paid taxes on, and the city is stuck with them – it’s expensive to even bulldoze them down and then usually the lot is in a bad neighbourhood. I liked bread and ketchup myself and did not like stew when I was a kid, so that’s what I would eat! My mother didn’t care, as long as I ate something! She was never one you made a big fuss about you finishing your food like some parents do. Different times….now the parents are all helicopter parents.
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That does make sense. See that is what happened in Detroit and the mayor that just stepped down the end of 2025 because he is running for governor, prided himself on the fact that he reduced blight in so many areas. What areas were bad were bulldozed down and some areas were fixed up, people could go to the landbank and purchase homes for much less, so that homes were occupied and not sitting empty like before. I have never had a ketchup sandwich … I know my grandmother said it was cheap, so they got ketchup sandwiches and apple butter sandwiches. See you mom gave you a break … my mom said “you eat what’s on your plate, you eat around the clock, one bite of each until you finish it and then you will have dessert.” I did not like stew either, even as an adult. I hated chicken livers which my father liked so we had them – they were dry and I put ketchup on them to make them tolerable. I wasn’t big on liver either but my mom cooked liver with onions and bacon so it made it tolerable. I also hated soft-boiled eggs, so she relented a little, left mine in a little longer. I could still dip it with toast strips, but it wasn’t runny.
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Linda, this was a heartfelt and beautiful post. Thank you for sharing. I loved all the photos of your mom growing up and her story. It’s wonderful how you were so tight with her and you were an anchor for her after your father left. I’m sorry that happened to you both.
Your mom was an amazingly strong and resilient woman to go through all her medical hardships and still be able to go through pregnancy. Moms are strong and amazing and yes you were the best thing to happen to her!!
Your mother’s final resting place is tranquil and lovely. So good of your friend to scatter her ashes in Canada.
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Thank you Esther! I am lucky to have so many photos, so many of them vintage also, to be able to do this tribute post. I knew for a while I would do this post for Mom on what would have been her 100th birthday. She would never have wanted to reach that century mark. She was in pain every day but did her best to be stoic about it. I always thought that she had enough pain in her early years, spending four years in the hospital continuously, that the rest of her life could have been much smoother, less pain, etc. but instead, it was not – she not only dealt with her father, but then her husband. I am glad we were so close. She confided many things to me as I got older and especially after my father left. It was so nice of Sue to do this for me as I was not able to do it myself. Had I not met her, I would have gone ahead and made arrangements so I could cross the border, but this was serendipity that I met her and I told her about my mom’s passing before I learned she lived in Canada. I thought it was nice of her to send the photos to me where she scattered the ashes.
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You were her anchor and love! It’s hard to think about how much the women we love in our lives went through so much. Your mom was amazing in overcoming her medical challenges…intense that she spent 4 years in the hospital and all those surgeries. Chronic pain is difficult. Since you experienced seeing your mother’s medical pain and you being her caretaker later in life, you know how tough it is to be in the hospital and all that goes along with it. I feel like you see “us” when we are in the midst of our medical emergencies.
Do you know if your father is still living?
What a serendipitous meeting with Sue. God makes all things come together for good.
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Thank you for saying that Esther. I do feel like I can be more empathetic than a lot of people and not just to pat myself on the back for that, but I have seen a lot of suffering by my mom, both in-hospital, post-surgery and daily chronic pain and that is why I do feel what you are going through for each medical episode. As to my father, I know that as of about 10 years ago he was still alive. My high-school friend hired a genealogist to find some info for her (she has been researching her family tree for years) and she asked him to find my father. He was alive/remarried. He and my mother were the same age, he was 10 months younger, so he may not still be around now. Sue was so kind to do this for me. I had no idea she lived in Canada when she and I were chitchatting and I mentioned the recent passing of my mom. She volunteered to do this immediately but then asked if she could discuss it with her prayer group first. I would not mention her name if she still worked here.
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I know you’re not patting yourself on the back! You always help me so much to uplift me when I feel discouraged and overwhelmed. It seems to happen in autumn and they come in clusters. We have a cardiologist appointment coming up and I’m going to ask what we can do to preclude autumn episodes. It seems like seasonal change does that to her. It’s a relief that she has a cold and nothing has been going on besides that.
It is terrible the way your father left and the betrayal that you both felt. You and your mom were strong and thank goodness you two thrived in your relationship after he left. I wonder what could’ve possessed him to do that.
It was thoughtful and wise of Sue to discuss it with her prayer group!
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Esther – that is interesting about Ellis being affected by seasonal changes and I’m thinking about that and it would be worth asking the cardiologist if the irregular seasons we have now have anything to do with the problem. The weather is strange – for both of us. We have been foggy and rainy for two days now and again tomorrow. Your weather is all rain right now for days. I know you don’t have four distinct seasons (like we used to), but maybe the fact they are all morphed together now plays a part. Autumn used to be a chill in the air, but last year you had that searing heat going on for ever. I thought it was nice Sue asked her prayer group too – she told me they were close.
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The blazing summer heat in California is awful!! Our house heats up so badly and the a/c only provides brief reprieve, so we got 2 standing fans from Costco last summer. Teddy has his own fans too…a small and medium one. He actually sits right in front of it in the heat.
We have a cardiology visit coming up in March so we’ll talk about that. Still working on getting a new therapist.
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I kept hearing about all the California heat while we were dealing with our Michigan heat wave/humidity, but our Summer heat pales in comparison to your Summer heat. Do you have a basement where you live? Before we got central air conditioning back in 1975, my father used to sleep downstairs. He worked in a plant that had no A/C and he said he needed to get some relief from it and the window A/C did not make it that cool. I bought two tower fans a few years, one for the kitchen, one for the bedroom, because we get severe weather predictions so often in the Summertime and I always shut off the A/C when we have storms to avoid a condenser lightning strike. I find the tower fans give off enough of a breeze to cool it somewhat, without blowing stuff all over the place. I hope you can find some type of correlation to the onset of a new season and a reason. It’s so unfortunate Ellis’ therapist had to leave. Is there a way you can continue maybe by a Zoom call?
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A beautiful tribute to your mom, Linda! She certainly did have a hard life. The long childhood hospitalization and your father’s abandonment must have been terrible! Good that you had a close bond with her, and that you can relive your memories through those wonderful old photos. I hope you will be able to visit her final resting place one day.
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Thank you Debbie! Yes, my mom really did have a hard life and I felt like the childhood hospitalization and so many orthopedic surgeries as a result of the accident would have been enough for one person without my father’s abandonment and leaving her penniless. I am happy we were always close. I would not mind to visit the final resting place. I still keep in touch with Sue via e-mail – she no longer works in the U.S. It was wonderful of her to do this for me and I should have mentioned in my post that she had not told me she lived in Canada, before I mentioned my mom and her desire to have her ashes scattered in Canada.
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I’m sure your mother would be very proud of you Linda! You both did the best you could given the circumstances.
My mother was born in 1919. She passed in 86.
You sure were a tiny baby. I think I was twice your weight.
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I’d like to think so Wayne. I think we both did well considering the circumstances. After he left my mom asked me if we should move to an apartment or condo so I would have less work for myself, but I said we can do this and we did. You mom would have been a little older than my mom then and passed away young. My mom would not have wanted to live until 100 years old – neither would I to be honest, even if I have good health. My parents lived in an apartment in Toronto and we moved to Oakville in 1959 and a few days before I was born, her Italian neighbor said “no bambinos (babies) for you and your husband?” My mom had a coat on and it was buttoned up and the woman was amazed when Mom said I would be born in a few days! I was in an incubator for a while and had to be on special formula to fatten me up. I was on the formula for a while and my mom joked this was why I was so tall (my father was 5′ 3″ and my mother was 5′ 2″).
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was the milkman tall?……….just joking Linda….If I still had my mobility I wouldn’t mind hanging around until 100. Sounds like a good life goal…maintain my health until 100 and then just go to pot after that!
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Yes, be like Dick Van Dyke, who just turned 100 years old in December. He owes his mobility to the fact that he has always been a dancer, still dances and also goes to the gym three times a week.
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Ha ha – I forgot to answer this part of your reply? No, but my paternal grandmother was tall according to my father. I don’t know what happened to him since he was only 5′ 3″ tall.
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Linda, I enjoyed reading your touching, tribute to your mom Pauline. She did have a hard life I am glad she had you by her side. Your friend couldn’t have picked a more beautiful and peaceful resting place for her ashes. My mom has also born in 1926 she passed in 2022. I miss her everyday. Great pics!
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Thank you Mark! I really wanted to make this tribute special for my mom and I knew I had all these vintage photos which would really help to bring her story to life. We were very close, even before my father left. She had a hard life and I wish that having gone through all the pain and suffering in the hospital years and thereafter with all her surgeries, that maybe the rest of her days might have been more peaceful, but that was not to be. I am grateful I met Sue and I should have noted in this post that I did not know that Sue lived in Canada – I was telling her about my mom and then she said “I may be able to help you out.” She really picked a perfect place to scatter the ashes. I am very grateful to her. Sometimes it seems like longer than 16 years – sometimes it seems like yesterday, so I know how you feel.
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It was so moving, reading this biographical sketch of your mother’s life. You paid attention to so many details! Your mother will never be forgotten and she clearly meant the world to you. I wish she didn’t have to had suffered so much but having such a lovely daughter must have brought her a lot of comfort and joy. I’ll bet she never forgot the 50th birthday celebration you gave her! You truly were the best thing that ever happened to her!
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Thank you Barbara! I am glad my mom and I were so close and she confided so many details about her life over the years, especially when I got older. I always wished that the accident, hospitalization and many surgeries could have been enough and she would have had a husband who cherished her, but instead she did not, she had a husband who threw away 30 years of marriage and thought only of himself. The 50th birthday celebration was so special and my grandmother and aunt were enthusiastic about it and it brought her much joy that weekend – she spoke about it for a long time afterward. I wish I had captured the look on her face, when my grandmother and aunt walked into the kitchen! Maybe I did not have the camera as I wanted them to be first, so I kind of hung out in the cellarway behind them. Thank you for saying that – I was very lucky to have her as well.
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It’s remarkable how much detail you’re able to convey from your mother’s birth until her final days, Linda. I’d have to talk to many acquaintances and family members to come up with as much detail on my own mother. Interesting to see the “bowl cut” in the early photos, as well as the one b/w photo touched up with color. Fascinating how you managed to spread her ashes in Canada (and her final resting place looks beautiful). No matter the hard life nor the disappearance of your father, it was a story worth telling.
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Thank you Dave! My mother told me a lot of details about her family when we went through the photo albums and loose photos years ago and also confided a lot of other things after I got older. At the holidays, my mom often would relay stories about her cousins when they gathered in the Summer at harvest time to bring in the crops at the farm, (Canadian) Thanksgiving and Christmastime. Since my grandmother had a big family, there were lots of cousins and she spoke of them and the fun they had growing up. I could never remember all of them, but I was envious of those good times spent with family and also with neighboring farmers and their families, something I really never had since I was an only child and we moved away from any family we had in 1966. My father’s parents died when he was a teenager. I thought these vintage photos were in amazingly good shape and helped me share Mom’s story. As to the “bowl cut” my mom told me that a barber cut her hair and he was near where they live, so my grandmother gave her some money and said “tell the barber to shingle it up the back and mind the mole!” She had a mole at the back of her head/neck. I was so lucky meeting Sue – the funny thing is that I mentioned my mom’s recent passing and her wishes to have her ashes scattered in Canada and unbeknownst to me, Sue lived in Canada, an American who married a Canadian. Serendipity for sure!
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This was a lovely tribute to your mother! She sounds like the kind of person any of us would have been happy to know. I am sure you were a great blessing to her.
This is another reminder that I really miss the people of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. There was something often found in them that is harder to find today.
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Thank you JP! I was close to my mom, even before it was just the two of us. Although my mom had a hard life, she used to relay stories of being a youngster and visiting her great-grandparents’ farm where my grandmother grew up. The aunts, uncles and all of her many cousins would gather at harvest time and all the holidays. I liked hearing about how close they all were back then at these big family get-togethers. So, I am envious of the relationship she had with the extended family, something I never got to experience as an only child and also because we moved here away from any maternal relatives (my father had no family) when I was 10.
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What a heartfelt tribute to your mom Linda. I can’t imagine your grandma having 8 siblings. Your mom was very lucky to have you for her daughter. That was such a nice thing that woman did spreading your moms ashes for you Linda. Your mom had a tough life but having you at her side was such a blessing. The mama and baby duck was so appropriate for your post.
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Thank you Diane! I knew I had so many vintage and other pictures and the “story” was in my head for a while how I would do this tribute to my mom. Yes, my grandmother came from a big family and they grew up on a farm and all the male family members ended up buying farms in the area, so family gatherings consisted of all my grandmother’s family and their kids – my mom had a lot of cousins, none which I ever met. My great-grandparents died, one before I was born, the other when I was very young. We only went to up to the farm once and I met one of her brothers. So, I am envious of what could have been something great to know more of my extended family. I feel we were both lucky to have each other and I was so thankful for Sue spreading my mom’s ashes. I did not know she lived in Canada before I told her about my mom’s passing and her wishes. We were just talking in general. I am glad you liked the mama and baby duck. I was at Heritage Park for a while taking photos at Coan Lake and this was the mama’s only duckling. The duckling never left her side.
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There are a lot of nice people out there like the woman that spread her ashes. I think we tend to focus on all the bad in this world instead of the good people like her.
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I agree with you Diane … we get jaded these days and yes, as we just chitchatted, I was telling her about my mom, never knowing that she lived in Canada. She was very nice to send the photos as well.
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Happy Valentine’s Day Linda. Your poor Mom, all those surgeries, she must have been a very strong and determined woman. She certainly did have a hard life and with her husband leaving her too, that’s so sad. We never truly know what is in another person’s head do we? You think you know someone………….
That was a beautiful gesture by Sue to take your Mom’s ashes and put her where she wanted to be and to take photos for you was very kind of her.
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Thank you Susan! Yes, my mom had a hard life and it would have been nice after years of hospitalization and subsequent surgeries, if the rest of her life had been better, more peaceful, but that was not the case. She was stoic for the most part, but it was terrible what my self-serving father did to her. I thought it was a beautiful gesture by Sue as well and I should have said in this post, that she did not tell me she lived in Windsor, but we were talking about life in general and I said my mom had recently passed away and I wanted to grant her request that her ashes be scattered in Canada. It looks like a very peaceful place and I am grateful that Sue took photos of it.
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😊💕
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Hi Linda, sorry to comment late, I had read half your post then got interrupted. How nice to have saved so many wonderful photos and get them digitized, what a big job.
How sweet someone could scatter her remains in such a beautiful area. The duck mama and duckling is very poignant and tells much about you as well. Your grandmother passed one-year to the day of my oldest daughter’s birthday. A sweet memorial indeed.
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Thank you Terri – I’m glad you liked this post. I really enjoyed putting it together. I am lucky to have so many photos in the family album, so I decided this treasure trove of vintage photos would be perfect for a tribute on my mom’s 100th birthday. I actually had more photos I could have used, but I thought 30 was enough. 🙂 I didn’t tag your amethyst post because I really didn’t mention amethyst that much.
Sue was very kind to scatter my mom’s ashes in this beautiful area. I should have mentioned in my post that I was chatting with her and mentioned the recent passing of my mom and I did not know she lived in Canada – so it was serendipity that this happened. I was very happy she asked me if I wanted her to do it.
I had to use that mama duck and duckling picture as it was so perfect for this post. I watched these two at Heritage Park a few years ago and realized she only had the one duckling. I’ve seen this before with goslings, but it was a first for just one duckling – they usually have a slew of ducklings.
What a coincidence that is as to your oldest daughter’s birthday. My grandmother passed away the day after the Challenger explosion. I would remember the date anyway but it is a sad reminder every year when they mention it on the news, especially this year as it was 40 years. (I had to return to WP as I left to watch “All Creatures Great and Small” which I have to stream in real time as I don’t have TV.)
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Another coincidence on Jan 28, 86, as my daughter and I watched the challenger explosion a day before her 1st birthday, she remembered seeing it. 25 yrs later she had become an aerospace engineer!
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Wow, that is a coincidence … do you think that watching the explosion was a factor in her decision to become an aerospace engineer? I think that tragedy is one of those events that everyone that was around then can remember where they were and what they were doing at the time and we all viewed it on TV that same day.
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It might be. She remembered everything at one-year old. Plus I cried and she knew it was impactful!
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Yes, it was a horrible explosion. It still is sad to watch it, so I can see how it touched your daughter seeing you so upset.
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Miss Linda…………………I really enjoyed reading your memories of your family especially your mother and your grandmother……………………………your mother was very pretty woman…………………………and you get your good looks from your mother …………………….I’m going to save your Blog and reread it again at another time so I won’t forget about your family…………………..
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Thank you Ann Marie! I’m glad you enjoyed this post. I decided awhile ago I was going to do something special for my mom for this 100th birthday celebration, even if she wasn’t here to celebrate. My mom had the most intense blue eyes. Thank you for that compliment as well!
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An interesting bio, Linda. I loved watching your mom’s life go by in pics.
I think she would be thrilled to see this homage.
Thank you, and have a great week ahead!
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Thank you Resa! I really could have written more and believe it or not, I had some other pictures I could have used as well. I think Mom would have been thrilled to see this homage. I had it in my mind for a while, so I was happy to do this and had fun compiling the post. She passed away before I began blogging, so that would have surprised her as well. You have a great week ahead as well!
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It’s a wonderful homage. Perhaps you can do Momage Part II for Mother’s Day?
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Thank you Resa. I probably wouldn’t do it this year because I did a Mother’s Day tribute on the 10th anniversary of Mom being gone (Mothers Day 2019). I really poured my heart out on that post as I had been blogging six years, written about my mom many times, but never my father. I wanted to clarify that yes, I knew my father, but why I didn’t write about him and why. It was important to me that people knew, so that post and a new Mother’s Day post would be similar. I wrote the same thing about what my father did in this current tribute as I have new followers, like you. I find it despicable that someone would do that. However, I am going to write a Father’s Day post this year for someone special. He was a neighbor that moved in next door with his wife and son after my father left. He was from the South, a real Southern gentleman, who was disgusted with my father’s action and made it a point to help us out with little fix-it things. He helped out when I did some landscaping in the yard and did it myself, but he helped me out. He asked me to call him “Step-Papa” so I did. He has since passed away, so that is sad, but he was very kind. So I am going to write about him. I wish I’d taken pictures of him when he moved here. I only have the picture of him from his obituary notice, but I want to make it as special as he was.
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Wonderful, Linda!
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I think it will be fun to do Resa. I wish I had more photos … thinking of looking up his kids on Facebook and asking them for any photos of him. I don’t know if they would remember me, but I have plenty of time to ask.
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Interesting. Yes, no harm in asking.
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I looked around on Facebook today. All of their profiles are public, so it was easy to see if they had any photos of him … only one had a photo from the obituary notice back in 2011. I have that same photo from when he passed away. They also sent me a card from the funeral home, but it was the same picture. I would think if they had photos, they would have put them out there. I even looked on his wife’s obituary notice to see if there was a gallery of photos, but just her photo.
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Interesting. Pre phone cameras, photos were not as plentiful. I have few pics of my parents, and only a couple of my grandparents.
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Yes, that’s very true. Nowadays, kids will be able to see almost daily photos of them as they were growing up. I follow a blogger with two kids and about once a month she does a recap of the month, 99% involving the kids. So years from now, they’ll watch themselves growing up – she does a lot of small videos as well.
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Wow, Linda, great pictures and a great tribute to your mother! Did she die due to complications involving a Colonoscopy?… just wondering.
Your love of ducks reflects hers! Awesome!
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Thank you Tom! I am glad you enjoyed it. I was very close to my mom and wanted to do a special tribute to her and I have so many vintage pictures, most of them in great condition. No, my mother’s death was very sudden, but I believe I know the cause of the perforated colon. My mom was in a lot of pain, sciatica plaguing her the last few years, plus she had cellulitis in her legs from an infection, so it was painful to stand for too long and she took the strongest dose of Motrin for the pain. She took four Motrins a day and was supposed to take them with food, but was stubborn about doing so. I bought small packages of applesauce and pudding, so in the middle of the night if she had pain, she could just take a pill with the water at the nightstand and I left a spoon. Or she could call me and I’d get her something. But she always said “I’m not hungry” and swallowed the pills without food. It was the same thing in the morning as she took one as soon as she got up but not with food. That wasn’t good and I told her about it all the time and she continued to do this. Sometimes I think she just gave up and didn’t care to be honest. She was in constant pain the last few years.
Yes, we both loved ducks. Originally, I intended to take pictures of the duck decoys – the kitchen is a country kitchen and there are duck decoys around and duck decoys in other rooms, duck figurines, a wreath, but I had so many vintage and other photos I did not go that route, but I liked this photo of a Mama Duck with her one duckling. She had no other ducklings. I watched her at the pond for a long time.
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Yes, Marla, my first wife, was in a lot of pain in her later years… and she wasn’t taking her meds correctly either. One can’t blame these people, expecting them to cling and cling onto pain. Many have a low threshold for pain.
Ducks are so cool and intelligent. They are experts at flying and diving down in the water.
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You sure are right about that Tom. I suspect that in both cases, the self-medicating to help the pain subside by both of our loved ones was not careless, but just an effort to feel better, if that was even possible when you are in chronic pain. We might have been by their side to help them, but could not walk in their shoes.
I was at the Detroit River last Friday. I went there for my Great Backyard Bird Count. I went to two venues to get some waterfowl on ice photos. I will be doing a post Sunday the 1st about some Mute Swans and different ducks – I was excited to see my first Redhead duck and also some Canvasback ducks. There were many Canvasbacks but too far to photograph clearly. I know they gather there every Winter and I’m glad a few strayed from the flock to come near the shoreline.
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Your mom really did have a tough life. And shame on your dad! I’m glad you were able to support her in that time of need.
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Yes, she did Eilene and I am glad we were able to go through this together as it made us both stronger for it in the end.
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What a lovely tribute to your mother! Life was not easy for her but it sounds like she was strong and did the best she could. She was also lucky to have such a wonderful daughter to support her when your father left (I guess she should have listened to Mrs. Firby, but then you wouldn’t be here). I have a picture of my mom as a young girl with the exact same short cut and bangs as your mom had in her school pictures. It must have been the fashion back then.
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Thank you Janis! I had this post percolating for a while in my head and had some fun putting it together with all those vintage photographs. Yes, I agree with you – Mrs. Firby took an interest in my Mom and disliked Max and found him rude and not to her liking. I wish she had ended up with Harry who was a good friend but yes, I would not be here then. That’s funny you mention the haircut because my mom used to say as a young girl, prior to the accident, she had her hair cut at the barber. She had a small mole at the back of her neck and my grandmother gave her the money for the haircut and said to tell the barber “shingle it up the back and mind the mole!”
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Hi Linda, i feel all sentimental and moved from this post.
It was so well done. I like so many of the photos – and it really is cool to see 100 year old photos – even if a couple were not in the best of shape – they are a century old – wow – and i wonder what that Harley-Davidson motorcycle would be worth today – and if M did ride on the back of it.
🦋་༘࿐
That was kind of your friend Sue to help out – and such a gift
also, the ending was superb 💜 o 💜 o 💜
Mama Duck and her one and only duckling.
awe
—
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Thank you Yvette! I’m glad you enjoyed this post, just as I did enjoy putting it together. I had a lot of it written in my mind before I sat down and having scanned in the photos back in 2017, I knew I had lots of vintage photos to work with and I knew how I would use them to tell my “story”. I too thought the photos were in good shape considering they were 100 years old or close to it. I never noticed the old car in the background and wondered how I missed it years before.
I sent a message to Harley Davidson and attached the motorcycle photo asking if they could give me any insight on how old it was. I knew the company began around the turn of the century. I was going to let them have the photo as I thought they might want it for their archives, but they didn’t respond to my message. I wish I had asked my grandmother if she rode on the back.
I thought it was serendipitous to have met Sue because I had no idea she lived in Canada – we were just chitchatting about our lives and she volunteered to do this. I was and remain grateful to her.
I’m glad you like Mama Duck and her one and only duckling. I stood at that pond at Heritage Park waiting to see if she had other offspring – no, she didn’t, so I equated the two with Mom and me.
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💚🍃🙂🍃💚 That is not surprising about the no reply for the HD folks – things can be so cold these days
and loved the mom and me with the momma and duckling –
hugs
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Yes, that’s true too. I’m surprised they didn’t think it would be an addition to their vintage pics of the bikes. I get it wasn’t a perfect photograph, but a big company like HD would have someone that could enhance the photo with Photoshop or another photo program. Oh well. I loved that photo too – so much sweetness wrapped up in one photo.
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Well the good news is that the photo is now online and there for folks who need it – and maybe someone will do research on the bikes someday and that will be helpful.
I used to work at a place in 2001, and one of the counselors had a collaborative fundraiser – where they raffled off a bran new Harley –
I looked it up to see if I could info about and I just recalled the website they had: it was something like
givemethatharley.com
and could only find that Halifax Urban Ministries (HUM), based in Daytona Beach, had Harley-Davidson motorcycle raffles as fundraisers for homeless and recovery services. I remember that he said they raised a lot of money with it because folks love those Harleys!
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Yes, that is true Yvette – easily searchable. There is a genuine site for vintage Harleys that does not appear to be associated with HD. I could be wrong, but I admit their vintage photos are in much better condition and sharper than the one in my photo. They were black-and-white photos. They have pictures of the workers building the bikes and the buildings from the early 1900s as well on that site. I just looked at the site you gave me … I see what you mean. I had neighbors that lived a few doors away and the husband and wife each had their own Harley. They rode on the weekends and on vacation they had a large pick-up truck and put the bikes in a trailer to travel around. Their dog was named Harley as well. They retired and moved to Florida where they could ride year around (well maybe … who knows since Florida gets crazy wintry weather now too).
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🙂Hi Linda! this has been fun to chat about Harley’s even though I am not a motorcycle fan personally. I like them from a distance. ha – also, I have heard that there is AI software to enhance old photos. I wonder if some folks use that option?
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Yes it has been fun. I keep seeing ads for a service that creates moving pictures. To be honest, it is a little eerie. They will take any photo and bring it to life. They showed several examples … one was an elderly woman looking at herself and her husband (presumably) from decades ago and suddenly they are dancing, or another was a little boy from a still shot and suddenly he is smiling and running. It might be fun to do if the person is alive, but if not, it might be upsetting to some people.
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Linda – I agree with you so much!
it could be upsetting – and a bit eerie.
On one hand, I can see the fun in it- but on the other hand – it reminds me of how tiring it gets with this extra heavy visual era we live in. And I hate the LIVE option for photos – it makes the file extra huge and just seems silly.
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Everything is so about AI anymore Yvette. I follow some nature sites on various social media platforms and most of the posts are real, legitimate stories, then I’ll start watching a video thinking it is legitimate and soon realizing that it is AI-generated – why? And yes, some are really silly and unbelievable anymore.
P.S. – this afternoon I did a post for 03/22/26 about a Smokey the Bear 5K and to be whimsical, I asked WP’s AI to create a women hiker and Smokey the Bear at the end of my long post (full disclosure here after my comment above). 🙂
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well that sounds like you used AI in a great way. I look forward to the post – and well be there later this week
xxx💚
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I thought it would be fun to stick that picture in, but honestly, I had to try multiple times to get something I could use!
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What a wonderful tribute to your mom and a great introduction of her to us all. Isn’t it great that you have all these photos? I have a few of my mom growing up. But hardly any of her mom and dad.
I miss my mom every day too. I talk to her a lot in my head, sometimes out loud when I’m walking the dog outside at night. I hope she hears me.
I don’t think we ever get over the loss of our moms. Especially if, like you, you lived with her. To lose that daily contact must be hard.
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Thank you Dawn! I enjoyed putting this tribute post together and had it percolating in my head for a while as I knew I had lots of vintage photos I could use to tell her story. I had more vintage photos of my mom, as well as my mom and me when I was a baby, but I thought I’d better stop at 30 photos.
Yes, I think about my mom a lot too and talk to her sometimes too. Because I still live in the house where we lived together, I do feel like she is still here in many ways. I don’t think we get over the loss of our moms easy either. Even though my mom had multiple medical problems her entire life, the sepsis and perforated bowel happened so suddenly. I was talking to her the night before, then she woke up incoherent and was whisked by ambulance to the hospital where she passed away 12 hours later. It was all so sudden that it all seemed a little unreal to me to be honest.
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I’m sure it does feel unreal. When they seem fine one minute and then they’re not, you have to think it’s not real.
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Yes, it was like “what happened here?” I kept rewinding in my mind to the day/night before to try and make sense of it. The doctor said she would have been in immense pain, but minimized it to me. That part bothered me greatly as well.
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How wonderful to have this record of memories dating back to the early 1900s! I caught my breath reading about what your father did, after 30 years of marriage. Your mother was VERY blessed to have you!
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Thank you so much Nancy! I was close to my mom, even more so after my father up and left – who leaves after 30 years of marriage and leaves your partner penniless? It was horrible and selfish what he did. We were better off without him in the long run to be honest. My grandmother passed away two years later so that decade was not a happy one for us. I feel I was lucky too because she made me the strong woman I am today!
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