As we enter this season of Thanksgiving and Advent, I praise the Lord for the godly heritage He has given me in that my maternal grandparents were Christians, and so were my parents.   My grandparents became Christians later on in life.  I do not remember them as my grandmother died four days before I was born and my grandfather not long after that, but I do own several silent movies of the last year or two of their lives that my father shot. 

My mother dropped out of high school when she was in 10th grade because my grandparents were so poor that she had to go to work.  My grandmother cleaned for people and sometimes my mother would go along to help her.  One place they cleaned was a boarding house in Middletown, Pennsylvania where my father lived while he was in the service at Olmstead Air Force Base.   The year was 1943 and this, of course, was World War II.  So my mother and father met, went to Shamokin a few weeks later to visit relatives, and decided to get married then and there. 

Some time after that my grandparents came to Christ.  Following conversion, my grandparent’s immediate concern was for their daughters who did not know Christ.  At this time my mother was already married to my father and my two brothers were just little guys.  My parents had already decided not to have any more children as my brothers were a handful and society was leaning the direction of small families.   My grandparents attempted to share Christ with my parents, but each time they tried my mom and dad would change the subject or walk away.  Not giving up easily, my grandparents purchased a boat and would take my folks out on the lake to fish where it was harder for them to escape when the topic of Jesus Christ came up.   The diligence of my grandparents paid off.  My parents came to Christ and years later my father told me about his conversion at age 30.  There was an immediate change in his life.  He had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day since he had been 12.  He quit smoking overnight and he found a Bible church to attend three times weekly, which our family did for the next 30 years.  He read his Bible and collected a wall full of commentaries and old Christian authors.  My father’s Bible at the time of his death was worn out and falling apart and as a child I remember seeing him read and pray each morning as I prepared to go to school.  I am the result of my parent’s conversion as they reversed their decision concerning children and three little girls were born over the next ten years.

This is my mother, Jane.  She was a published poet and writer, part time radio talk show gal, played the piano and loved music, made incredible Pa. Dutch deserts, excelled as a keeper of her home, and she loved to laugh.   One thing has been said of her by many people and that is that she was a terrific mom.   In first grade she sewed my costume,  Little Bo Peep, for the school Halloween parade and I won first place out of 300 costumes.  That was after she kept me home for kindergarten, since it was not mandatory and she wanted her children home with her as long as she could.   She loved to throw parties and her rule was the quantity of colors on a birthday cake equal to how good her child was during the year.   Miraculously, we all had extremely colorful birthday cakes year by year.    She read books to us, took us hiking-swimming-fishing-to the zoo-and all kinds of places a kid loves to go, let us eat donuts in her bed on Saturday mornings while we watched Bugs Bunny, and she always had cats and dogs and hamsters and bunnies and birds around.  And she loved Christmas.  Just loved it.  My happiest memories are of Christmas.

This is the last picture I have of my mom and is one of my most precious possessions.  It was taken Christmas 1965.  I am the blonde in the center front of the picture.  My mother died 2 months later in a car accident at the age of 39.   My oldest brother died a few months later in the Viet Nam War.   It has been a challenge my entire life to walk life’s journey without my mother.  The longer I go without her, the harder it becomes.  The longer I go without her, the deeper I have walked with my Lord and claimed His promises when I sense the lack of maternal love and insight in my life.   The longer I go without her, the more I appreciate the six years I did have with her.  And this week she is near the top of my Thanksgiving list after my husband and my father.    She would know what I mean since she lost her own dear mother before all of her children were born and raised.

In honor of my mother, this year I am doing something different.  She loved to put tinsel on the tree, one strand at a time.  I remember my father teasing her by throwing it on in clumps and she would exclaim, “Oh, Rollie, not like that!”   Today tinsel is not popular due to animal activist groups who claim it is harmful to pets to the point that very little of it is manufactured and sold.  To my delight,  I found a box of tinsel at the thrift store for nineteen cents and I think I will place it strand by strand wherever it will hang in our house.   On the furniture.  On the lights.  Across the piano lid.  Since I am of German descent and tinsel is from 17th century Germany, I think I will consider this a Family Heritage Moment. 

Later I will post the only poem written by my mother that remains in my possession.  The events in my life turned out in such a way that someone endeavoured to erase our memories of her and anything we owned of hers.  Some things providentially slipped through the cracks and remain in my possession and though scantily few, they are treasures to me.

May the Lord remind me every day to love my husband and children to the greatest extent I possibly can as I don’t know the date of my homegoing and it could be right on the horizon.  We never know how many days we have left, and aren’t I ever glad that my mother made that 1965 holiday ever so special.  Thanks, Mother.