My Amazing Mother!

Yesterday we spent the day with my mother celebrating her 75^th birthday which happens to be this coming Thursday.  We spent a wonderful day watching my niece and nephew play soccer before heading out for dinner together later that evening.  It was that night at dinner that we began asking my mother about her life growing up and some of the experiences she has had over the past 75 years.  During the dinner it amazed me at the differences our potential children would see in their lives versus the experiences that my mother had growing up in a small town in southeastern Indiana. 

My mother grew up just outside of Milan, Indiana on a small farm that my grandfather ran to help support the family.  Life back in these days was just different in many ways.  The family farm was not the family farm that I see when I visit Sarah’s family farm.  My mother’s was a 60 acre farm in which everything raised was for subsistence.  The crops they grew, the chickens they raised, and the pigs they took care of were all done to support the family.  My mother grew up helping on the farm with chores such as milking the cows, not making sure the computer was turned off before going to bed.  The most amazing fact for me last night was the revelation that my mother’s first house on the farm was a log house!  It had two main rooms downstairs, with two bedrooms upstairs all supported by a wood burning stove in the winter. In fact the first time that mother had indoor plumbing was when she went off to Ball State Teachers College.  The farm did not get indoor plumbing until she was a junior in college. 

Before heading off to college, my mother attended tiny Milan High School where she graduated Valedictorian of her Senior Class.  However, the major event in high school for my mother was during her freshman year at Milan in which the mighty Milan Indians won the 1954 Indiana State Basketball Championship.  Yes, this is the same famed team that inspired the movie “Hoosiers” in 1986 that we have all come to know.  My mother was a freshman at Milan that year and attended all of the basketball games including the State Championship game at then Butler Fieldhouse.  When the movie “Hoosiers” came out, I was able to hear the real life stories from a firsthand account. 

After her time at Milan, my mother went off to Ball State Teachers College where she worked to earn her teaching degree in Home Economics.  It was rare at that time for students from Milan to head off to college and my mother was the first in her family to go to college.  When we asked my mom last night about this, she said it was the basketball coach at Milan at the time that offered to take three students up for a visit.  It was then and there that my mom decided to head up to Muncie later that fall.

I could go on and on about my mother (yes I know I am biased) as she went on to take on many challenges after college, but that is for a later post.  Today has me reflecting on the experiences my mother had as a child and what life might be like for our children.  Today electronics and conveniences rule the day in our lives as we find ways to do things more efficiently and electronic devices to keep our attention.  As I walked through the house today and saw the three different televisions we had and I chuckle as my mother told the story of their first TV.  Her mother won the TV in a contest as they could not afford one themselves.  It was a small black and white TV that they set on the piano as they had no TV stand for it and all of the neighbors would come sit in the living room to watch TV together.  She laughed as she described the stiff necks people would get from sitting on the floor looking up at the TV!

 I want my children to know about these experiences that my mother went through and to help them appreciate the strong woman she is and has been in our lives.  My mother grew up in a different time where work around the house was required of everyone and playing games on iPhone was not around.  If nothing else, last night made me appreciate my mother even more listening to the way she grew up and the experiences she had in her life.  I feel so thankful to have her a part of our lives and can’t wait for her to be able to tell our children about working on the farm and growing up walking outside to use the restroom!