Chapter 4 What was your mom like when you were a child?

I think that my mom and dad were opposites. In my mind, my dad was hard-headed and conservative. On the other hand, my mom was open-minded and liberal. Since my father was in the Navy, my mom basically raised four boys by herself until my father retired from the Navy. My sister, Loretta, was the youngest and born after my father retired.

Mom didn’t have a driver’s license, but she took us and often my cousins to baseball games, the beach etc. by bus. Mom’s father was also a farmer, but they moved to Seattle when she was a young child and grew up in the city. She loved reading and learning new things. She wanted to go to college, but at that time, “women don’t need to go to college.” She did the weekly crossword puzzles from the newspapers. I think that she won $20 or $25 a couple of times.

She and her sister, my Aunt Agnes, loved talking.  I remember driving them to their weekly ceramic classes. They would sit in the back seat with non-stop talking. Sometimes I think they were talking about two different subjects at the same time.

Even in death, my parents were opposites. My father was afraid of dying, he had a fear of the unknown. Conversely, when my mother was rather sick from old age and was getting near “the end,” she just said, “I’m ready to go.”

I think that it is good to have parents with opposite personalities. Hopefully, the children can take the best points from each parent. In my case, I think that I mostly took my mother’s traits, but I am at times a little stubborn.

The first photo is my mom in high school and the second photo was taken circa 1943.