Family History Challenge - Day 3

 

 

 

 

The girl standing in the center of this photo was my mom. I think this picture was taken about 1941 or 42, but there isn't a date on my copy, so I'm not sure. My mom was the most hard-working person I ever knew. When she was eight, her mom found out she was expecting. Again. Of at least 4 previous pregnancies, my mom was the only baby that survived. When she found out she was expecting, the doctor immediately put her on bed rest. There was just one problem: It was harvest season and there were 50 or more farm hands to feed three times a day. No worries. Grandad simply moved Grandma's bed into the kitchen so she could supervise my 8-year old mother doing the cooking.... Yup, three meals a day for 50 men for several months. 

 

Sometime around 1936 my grandparents lost the farm when the banks failed (which is a whole different story.) They moved to "town" and grandad got a job with the county road crew driving big machinery. Grandma, with two toddlers by this time, took in boarders (I know one of the school teachers lived with them, along with my great grandmother from Sunday's post.) One day, grandad was working in the railroad right of way when he and his tractor were struck by a train. He was out of work for more than a year as the county and the railroad fought over who was going to pay his medical bills and rehabilitation. There was no unemployment or disability insurance in those days. The family was already in financial straits because of the depression and the loss of the farm. so this was a heavy blow. 

 

Enter my mom. Thirteen years old at the time, she worked three jobs - delivering newspapers before school, cleaning the local hotel after school, and another job on weekends. The hotel paid her in cash, so on the way home, she would stop at the grocer and get whatever was going to be on the table that evening for dinner. Their meals tended to be largely potatoes,I was told, because they were both cheap and filling.

When she graduated from high school in 1943, mom immediately moved to Bremerton and got a job with the Bremerton Navy Yard to help with the war effort.. As a kid, she was one of the few moms who worked outside the home, and she spent more than 35 years with Seattle First National Bank, rising to Assistant Vice President, quite an accomplishment for a woman in those early days of women in the work force. Since Seattle First National was also my first job, I remember her as a resource for branches near and far who wanted to know how to do things right.

 

These habits of hard work and industry were deeply ingrained throughout her life. My cousin used to say he would rather eat off my mom's floors than his own mom's plates. He said it in jest, of course, (his mom was a fine housekeeper), but it was pretty true nonetheless, and as a kid, I hated it. But mom, I've always been proud of you.