Mother's Day, Know all Your Mothers

Grandmother Murphy

I think it is so sad that most Americans can not trace their "Mother" ancestors back past grandmother and a few to great-grandmother. Mother ancestors are so hard, because their maiden names are often not recorded. So one of my many hobbies is genealogy.  I joined Ancestry.com about 5 years ago.  I get in the mood to work on it every time there is a death in the family.

Grandma Mae

Sometimes my mother would say to me, "You act just like your Grandma Mae.  She was bossy and rude like that."  Of course, I did not like that.  But now I understand that we are all made from the genes of our mothers and fathers from many generations ago. Both of my grandmothers were 5 feet tall, so is my mother and so am I.  My son once said to me, "You had better not make me short."  People, whom we've never met have a huge impact on our lives.
  

Great-Grandmother Blanche Hartley Washington

For instance, the way I walk. One of my former students, after not having seen me for about 10 years, was looking out the window from the 3rd floor of an office building when he saw me walking door to door in a near by neighborhood passing out my campaign literature. He quickly ran out of the building and caught up with me.  He said, "I knew it was you by the way you walked, not lady like."  Though I did not find that description flattering, I was impressed that he could recognize me from such a distance and by the way I walked.  Then about 3 years ago, I was given a picture of my maternal great-grandmother. She is Grandma Mae's mother. She is pictured walking in downtown Monroe. I just knew that was my walk.  Though shopping, she is a lady on a mission and that is me.  Never a stroll and certainly not a sashay. My 2 daughters have my mother's walk.  They stroll and never look like they are in a hurry, even if someone is waiting on them is--usually me.

I get my love for gardening and doing outdoor things from both of my grandmothers and my mother.  My daughter, Bridget, says there are blue jobs and pink jobs.  She does not do blue jobs.  Neither of my daughters want to do the gardening. That's a blue job.  Their father's mother was like that.  She was great in the house.

My last moments as an only child.

I learned to sew by working with my mother.  She and I would design an outfit and she would make the pattern and show me how to lay it out on the fabric and cut it out.  She couldn't actually teach me to sew,  because she was too bossy.  I got her back. But because I watched her for years, though didn't actually make anything until I was married; sewing came very naturally to me.

My mother instilled a love of learning in all her children.  But since I was her first child, I thought I could not read a book without her reading it with me. I think we read all the Nancy Drew books together.  She loved to read my history books too. If she had gone to college,  she likely would have been a teacher.

Yes, we owe who we are, to our mothers and to their mothers and mothers many generations ago. 
                                                                       

Bridget and my Grandchildren

 Paxton and Me                             Jacquie and Me