Mom and Her Formica & ChromeTable and Other Snippets of Mom

I don't know when the beloved formica & chrome table was purchased. But it was around as long as I can remember. I don't have a picture of the table we had, but this is close enough. I just don't recall our chairs being blue...but they may have been. Some memories dull over time. I do know she fed10 kids, and at least one adult over the years. They just weren't all at the same table, at the same time. The first born was 21 years older than me and had already married and had a child of her own before I was born. Dad used to say I wasn't even "a twinkle in his eye" at the time. I do think there were at least 7 kids that ate from this table at the same time, because I remember when my brother Ken almost died from a sawmill accident (saw blade tried to eat him), and he was still in school. He was child number four. I was child number 10. I may have to amend this statement, once I hear from him. 😁😉

Mom and dad had moved a few times in the beginning of their marriage, so I'm thinking the table must have been purchased after their move to our farm on the northeast edge of Oklahoma that bordered Missouri, with possibly 4 kids in tow. 

She had allowed 11 of us to take up space in her body over a period of 21 years. One baby was tragically lost when Mom was thrown off the bed of a moving flat bed truck. I think it was her 3rd pregnancy. Again, I'm not sure. Most of us were only 2 to 2 1/2 years apart and there seems to have been a gap between the 3rd & 4th child. But, YIKES! Can you imagine being pregnant for all those years, with only short sabbaticals between each birth? A minister, and his wife on a mission to grow the world...

Mom rarely had time for herself, as one can imagine. Ten kids! It's no surprise that only the first few, six possibly, got to really know her. By the time I came along, most of her time had to be used to grow and harvest the food needed to feed her very large family. Once she pulled the carrots, gathered the green beans and snapped them, dug the potatoes, shucked the corn, canned all the veggies, gathered the eggs, prepared the chickens for consumption (she'd fed and raised), it was then time for cooking...which took many hours in the kitchen, working over a wood stove for a good portion of her life. Homemade bread, butter (homemade, as well), and all kinds of delicious fried meat and vegetables gave me my start in this world. When the meals had been prepared and served, she excused herself and retreated to a counter just a few steps beyond the cook stove, so she could eat while maintaining a watch over the needs of those gathered around the table. 

I wonder if she ever felt appreciated, cherished, loved?

Her duties didn't only consist of feeding her children, they had to be clothed, as well. I don't remember ever having a store bought piece of clothing. Mom sewed all our clothes. Mine were mostly made out of Moco Feed Sacks. Once the feed had been dumped into their bins inside the barn, she grabbed the bags up for laundering...on a scrub board, none the less! Wouldn't THAT be fun! A Wonder Woman, for sure!

I vaguely remember the day she was given a wringer washer. She was so excited as it was placed on the back porch. I could feel her anticipation of get clothes cleaned with so much less energy needed. She warned us of the dangers of getting our hands stuck in between the bars that squished the clothes as they were fed into it. She knew her kids and the excitement she felt poured over into them. It wasn't a stretch to know they would want to try their hand at running clothes through this amazing piece of machinery, and she preferred her kiddos with both hands instead of one good, the other mangled. She was always protecting us from what could hurt us, and intensely worried about the times she couldn't. She hated the girls having to work like men at the mill or in the woods. She would have kept us with her, teaching us "women" stuff, if she'd had her way. But, she didn't. We were needed elsewhere.  

After the clothes were laundered, Mom took them outside to hang on a clothing line to dry...even in the freezing temps of winter time. Mom was a very busy lady. Time constraints were a constant! It's no wonder she was such a nervous person. Always racing against time. Dad used to jokingly (I think) say, "Why pray, when you can worry." But, to be fair, I think Dad did his fair share of worrying, as well.

Maybe one day I'll share things from sawmill life...or the cow barn. There's more than a few to be had. I strongly disliked them both. However, teaching a baby calf to drink from a bucket was pretty amazing. I can still feel the warmth of their milk soaked tongues sucking on my fingers that had been dipped in the warm milk, as they used their heads to butt against the bucket held in my hand, as if it was the under side of their mother's udder. We all have some great memories, not just the not-so-great ones.

Mom had a special garden. Her own creation. I think it must have been her survival space. A place to catch her breath, to steady herself as she told the flowers of her deepest fears, of her hopes for the future, and just how beautiful they were. There were many places flowers bloomed in our yard, but this particular garden was hers, and she guarded it with threats of painful death (she didn't scare us) to anyone who chose to wander in and pick any of the blooms, or trampled through, not caring where their feet landed. This was her space. Her Paradise. Her place of restoration.

She had built a pergola and a gate, over the point of entry to her garden. Framed with a bench on either side, and laced with blue Morning Glories that, once trailing, she encouraged an over-and-through design that laid so elegantly over the top, cascading through the slats like a veil. It was beautiful to my young eyes and I loved hearing her talk to her babies...her creation, as I sat on the benches under those vivid blue flowers...yet never going beyond the gate. When mom spoke, we listened. Out of respect...not fear. Those times were few and far between. But I cherished them.

My mom was also a true artist who never got to use her artistic skills. She loved her flowers. Her mom's flowers. Grandma Edna (Doerrie) Fawks must have been her inspiration. She also had well tended gardens, and Mom drew likenesses of them on paper from the 1920's...thick and woody. Every part of each flower she had drawn out in great detail. So precise and developed with accuracy. With understanding the beauty of each one, she drew, she designed, she loved. All done before marriage and children. We do have a way of messing things up. *wink *wink

She had created two manuals during her school years, that she managed to keep over the years. She tucked them away so no one would find them. Good thinkin', Momma!!! 

Once she married and had all us yahoos, she did the same thing with store bought chocolate bars, which was a rare pleasure of hers. That, and the occasional bottle of pop, which she would share if we caught a glimpse of her sipping from one. We were allowed only a sip or two. It was hers. She earned it, and believed it to not be so good for her little ones. I'm glad she hid those things from us. Had we found them, she would not have had anything to keep her sanity. A part of who she was, changed after marriage and kids...to a degree. It does with us all, right? She was still Erna, the young happy girl from years gone by...but now, she was needed in a much more serious capacity. She had to let go of her dreams.

One of her design manuals was of an array of different flowers drawn with great love and what appeared (to me, at least) to be something the flowers would be proud to see, if they could see, just how beautifully she portrayed them. Notes were made in that manual revealing everything anyone would want to know about flowers. The other was of the human anatomy. Also very detailed and explained.

My first look at them was when I needed information for a school project and was talking with her about it. She pulled them out from I don't know where. I do remember being surprised and asked, "Did you draw these?!" I was in awe...

Mom never had time to sit and share her own thoughts with us. Until most of her children had moved on, creating a life away from their beginnings, did she have time to think about herself. Maybe she talked more with the older siblings, I just don't remember having "Mom time" when I was young. I was with Dad working at the sawmill, in the log woods, tending cattle, and all chores outside. There were a few times I got to help with the vegetable garden, especially when it needed harvested. It was a time I looked forward to...away from the sawmill, and working next to Mom in the veggie garden. Several of us helped because gardens don't wait. But I was still there with my Mom.

I rarely heard her complain, but when she did, it was usually because of some chore she didn't agree with that her kids were required to do. She just pushed through any difficulties she may have had, any struggles over caring for her family...carrying whatever weight needed carried. Picking up the pieces of broken hearts and understandings. Her family always came first. 

Mom never "lounged." That wasn't a thing in our home. "Idleness is the devils workshop," my Dad would say, and if he ever caught any of us idling away the hours (yeah...that wasn't a thing, either), he would find something for us to do. "No rest for the weary," was something he would say, as his mouth curved into a slight smile. And was that a mischievous twinkle I saw in his eye? 

Today, I'm really thankful for how I was raised. In all its "mistakes" I grew to be a good worker. Never considered hard work to be a dirty word. It was a gift given by the Father of all mankind, creating a sense of worth. Of being needed. Something of value the hands found to do.

Oh yeah! That table...

I'm not sure why (or when, for that matter), Mom began noticing faces in the formica table top. Looking back...remembering the times I found her tracing on the speckled canvas, causes me to wonder why she did that. Did she just all of a sudden notice there were facial designs in her table? Or was she bored at having time on her hands? Maybe it was because the family table took a good bit of her time when we were growing up, and it was there she naturally navigated to...it had become a habit, of sorts. It was there she pulled herself together once the family was mostly gone. And it was there she noticed the faces taking form...designs within the speckles that weaved themselves sporadically throughout. Maybe she was remembering our faces...hoping to have us all close by once again. Her hands ceased to have much to do.

The tracing didn't begin until after most of the kids were grown and gone, so gardening wasn't needed as much and cooking had shrunk to feeding only a few...not an army.  When my brother, two years my senior, left home, and I was the only one left, I began noticing it more. She actually enjoyed it and would call me over to see what she had found, asking if I could also see it. Sometimes I did, other times not-so-much. But she did. And that's what mattered.

Needing more to do with her once busy hands, she began putting puzzles together on the table. Yet, every once in awhile I'd see her tracing with her finger again. Was it enough to keep her mind from all those busy days of years gone by? Pretty sure she was wishing there was more to do than stand at a table. Or wash dishes. 

Okay. Speaking of washing dishes...a memory just popped up in my head that made me smile. Can't just throw away a perfectly good memory, right? And now that he's with Jesus, I can squeal on him. I know. One shouldn't talk about the dead. But he's not dead. Not really. He just isn't here to be embarrassed. And I think he'd actually get a kick out of this one being revealed. My brother, Rush (that guy in the picture, slightly to your left), was like any other man living in those days. His life span was short. Cancer took him, but that's another story for another time. During the years he lived out, a man would never be caught dead doing the work of a woman. Well, not in the 60's and 70's, anyway. It was a thing back then. We all had a "position" in life and lines never blurred like they do now.

Anyway...because most of us kids helped Dad with outside chores; known as the hard, dirty work (I know...🙄), a man would never be required to WASH DISHES! OH MY! OH NO!!! 😂 But Rush...when he started dating Linda Olds, insisted on clean nails. And there was only one way to get clean nails, and that was to wash the dishes that had the strong lye soap swirling around, cleaning out from under the dirtiest of nails. Gross, right??? But that's how his nails and hands came out pristine. That's how he rolled. 🤣🤣🤣 Okay. Enough about him. This is about Mom.

Actually, I think I'm done for today. This blog entry has gotten out of hand. True to form, I've allowed a lot of words to flow without being filtered for production. And that's how I roll...

As always, here you will find me...in Mary's World.