With my mother’s passing in May, I have been thinking a lot about all of the upbringing that she gave me and the heritage received from her life. I write this tribute in her memory.
Mom knew how to discipline her four children. We did not have to wait until Dad got home. She had a paddle and she knew how to use it. She taught us right from wrong. I still remember the time I took a cookie out of the kitchen after being told not to; I lied when she asked me. In one lesson, I learned not to steal and not to lie.Mom knew how to work and had many skills she had learned from growing up on the farm. She knew how to make applesauce (not from a can), how to make a chicken dinner by killing and dressing a chicken, and how to sew a shirt for her boys among many other amazing things. She was a musician, playing both the piano and accordion and singing with Dad. She self-taught being a bookkeeper and office administrator when Walker Manufacturing was founded. She was diligent in her work, not being satisfied with the accounting until accounts were balanced to the penny.
Mom knew how to handle an emergency. The time my sister severely burned her hand on a hot clothes iron, my Mom did what needed to be done
quietly, quickly and calmly. There was no 911 call to make.
Mom knew her God and believed. Most all of the stories in the Bible I first heard from my Mom reading them to me. She believed the stories and so did I.
Mom knew courage, every bit as much as my Dad. I never heard anything from her but “move ahead” when the decision was made to start the manufacturing company. Mom shared the dream and was Dad’s companion in business right from the start. Even when the business failed in 1970 and had to be started all over again, Mom was the optimist and her faith was intact. Mom and Dad were two strands of a cord that would not be broken.
Mom knew who she was. She was an old fashioned woman of grace, graciousness and dignity. She was a modern woman who could think for herself and at the same time respectfully joined forces with my Dad. I never heard them argue and I never heard her say anything disparaging about my Dad.
From the Bible, Proverbs 31:28-29 comes to my mind as I think about Mom’s life. “Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her saying: ‘Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.’”
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