HELEN SANDERS
5-10-2020
MOTHERS
I am very blessed to have had a Mother that was a good example. My Mother lived a very hard life. My Father had a severe alcohol problem and did not support the family. Mom, as I call her, was a beautician. She started work very young. Her sister, (my favorite aunt) paid for Mom to go to cosmetology school. In the 1920’s things were very different than they are today.
I am the youngest of four children in the family. When I started school, she went back to work full time to take care of the family. I can’t remember her not working. As a very small child I would wait on our front porch watching to see her come home. She walked to work because we didn’t have a car until I was 8 years old.
Saturday nights we were washed up and polished up for Sunday. We didn’t have a bathtub, so she would wash us in a large galvanized wash tub. We would lean over the kitchen sink to have our hair washed and it was always clean for Sunday. There wasn’t a Sunday that she didn’t get up early and pull a wringer washer into our kitchen and do laundry. Everything was washed and put outside in the summer on clothes lines. We didn’t have a clothes dryer. All of this work was done before breakfast and was finished in time for us to go to Church. Church wasn’t an option. It was expected that we would go to Church. We walked to church before we had a car.
After church we would come home and have “Sunday dinner”, then she would lay down and take an hour’s nap. By then the clothes on the line were dry and she brought them in, folded them, and ironed them. There was never anything undone on Sunday evening. She kept her family taken care of.
When I was in junior high school a laundromat came to our town, and things changed for her. She was able to take everything there on Sunday afternoon and get it all done. I would go with her and be her helper.
Mom always put her children before herself. She provided and loved us with her actions. As a child I can’t remember her ever telling me she loved me verbally, but she showed it in what she did. Actions speak louder than words.
By that time I was in my early 20’s, I had moved to Florida, and was raising my own family. There wasn’t a week that went by that there wasn’t a letter from her. She always kept in touch with her family. We moved back to Michigan for a few years, and during that time my Mother got sick. She was hospitalized in the city that I lived in. The doctors said the pain she had was “all in her head.” I talked to her at that time about Jesus, and told her that he would help her through this time. She listened and she accepted him as her savior. She came out of the hospital and lived for several years. She battled cancer, and one day it was her time to step into glory. I wasn’t with her when she died, but I know where she went.
I am so thankful for the things that she taught me. Good manners, good morals, and being kind. A few weeks before she passed away, we moved out of Michigan, but before we left she took me aside and told me she loved me. I had never doubted it because she showed it, but I am thankful for those words. It was the only time she said it verbally. Words mean nothing if actions don’t correspond with them. Her love was steadfast and unmovable. I thank God for my Mother. She helped mold me into the person I am today.
I am the proud mother of 8 children. Four I gave birth to and eight I have given love to. There has been no greater joy than to be called Mom. It is the highest honor I could ever acquire.
Have a blessed Mother’s Day.
