STORIES I COULD HAVE TOLD AT MOM'S FUNERAL

STORIES I COULD HAVE TOLD AT MOM'S FUNERAL: Mom died shortly before Christmas. She had turned 83 and was in gradual decline. She was on oxygen, receiving Home Care. Gale called to say she was in the hospital dying. She called later that night to confirm her death. I left the next day. Tim and I drove to Emmett. We decided to have the funeral on the Saturday after Christmas. Since that same day was Jim's birthday we threw a party at Gale's house. It got a little loud and a little drunk out. We had assembled the previous day to divide up her belongings. The only thing I took was her birthday ring. I have it in my jewelery box made by Charlie in his shop class. C harlie wanted the angel that hung in the kitchen so I took that for him. Ellen had fallen in love with some of Mom's glassware and she took that. I don't remember what Carla took. Phil took the Neeci-Elna sewing machine and later gave it to a family who needed one. There was a small problem with her hand written will, it needed two witness signatures. So we decided to have Richard take care of that. Ellen was in charge of Mom's Money Certificates and she got that divided up. She had written several check to us for Christmas, I cashed mine. She did not sign some of them, so that had to be figured out. Richard took the electric bike thing to sell. It was not worth much. Phil loaded up some of her furniture. The funeral was a lot more jolly that Dad's. Gales then man friend read a childhood history when Mom grew up in Colorado. She met the King and Queen of Denmark who came to visit a Danish hospital. I told my story about her signing an excuse slip with Mrs. Baseball and about how when she was a young suburban housewife and took me to Brownie Scout day camp for singing and crafts. It was fun. Then the rest of the audience chimed and told other stories. Had I thought about it a bit more carefully I would have said that Mom worked very hard. She kept us washed, fed and clothed. Cooking, she told me as a young bride she experimented with food coloring. She put blue in the mashed potatoes. Dad gave her his best stink eye and that was the last of the food coloring. Mom's cooking was basic, nothing fancy but all pretty good. All of us kids have the list of Childhood Torture foods. Mine was fried brains, fried oysters, liver and onion any any form of aubergine. Ugh. I have read of aubergine parmesan and I would give that a try. I think the secret to successful egg plant was to soak it in milk. SEWING: Mom talked Dad into letting her purchase a sewing machine when I was not in my teens yet. The sales pitch included free sewing lessons and wouldn't that be nice to teach a me? Um, never happened. Mom would not let anyone touch that machine. She sewed approximatley ten thousand miles of stitches on that thing. The only thing she did not make was blue jeans. She made my school dresses out of Dan River cotton. This was a cotton that washed well, did not fade and ironed like a dream. The pattern of plaid usually had little tufts of cotton here and there. These dresses wore like iron. The pattern was a simple shirtwaist that buttoned from the skirt to the neck, collar and short sleeves. If the material she bought was on the cheap side she always washed it then had me hang onto one end while she held to the other end and tugged it to stretch the material. Fortunately I left home before the advent of polyester. She made lots of very unappreciated dresses for the girls. They did not need ironing and lasted way too long. She made several quilts out of the left over material. I gave mine to Gale. It needed new backing but the front was still in pretty good shape. When I was in Junior Highschool at Parkview, I was enrolled in Home Economics. The only thing we learned to cook was milk toast. Which is pretty disgusting. We also had a sewing project. We used a pattern to cut out material and sew a dress. I used Mom's shirtwaist pattern for my project and she purchased a nice dark blue cotton. It took several weeks and at the end there was going to be an inclass fashion show. I took my dress home and showed it to Mom. She shrieked in horror, got out the seam ripper, tore it apart and put it back together with properly spaced margins and seams that would actually hold up to washing. She sewed my eight grade graduation dress of white cotton with black dots, It was beautiful. The skirt flared a bit, short sleeves with a square back. She put in some black strips to hold it snug so it would not slide down my shoulders. I wish I could still fit in that dress I loved it. No idea what ever happened to it, obviously grew out of it, Dang. IRONING: Mom taught me how to properly iron. The clothig had been sprinkled with water from a pop bottle with a top with holes in it, rolled and placed in a basket. My chore was to iron down to a certain colored towel. She taught me to iron a shirt; first do the collar back side first,then the top. Next the back yoke by folding the yoke over until that was all that was showing on the ironing board. Then cuffs if there were any, then each sleeve. If there were buttons turn the shirt inside out and iron the button placket from the inside then the outside then the other half of the shirt front. Then iron each side on the front then the ba ck. Pay special attention to the hems, iron them straight so they would not curl. Hang finished piece on a hanger. OTHER CHORES: Mom had me clean the bathroom and wash the dishes. I knew how to get out of washing dishes. The longer I played around in the kitchen the better. She would get impatient with me and ask if I was done yet and I said no. Get out of there, I can do it faster myself. Yup, that worked. I could get back to whatever book I was reading. I was the built in babysitter. I didn't care my little sisters were self entertaining. She taught me to wash blood out of clothing when I got my period and how to put the Kotex pad on the little belt. It was kind of tricky. She took me to a ladies house in Emmett near the highschool. She sold underwear. Mom took me there to get my first brassier. She told dad that my cup runneth over. Mom sewed my wedding dress for July 3, 1970. It was a simple satin sheath with a lacy over dress, no sleeves. My first roomie loaned me her veil. It was very hot in Novato that day. Fun was had by most of us. No idea what happened to that dress either. WASHING: Early on Mom would use Grandma Horns wringer washer. I found that fascinating. Hot water was in the first tube where the soap was put and the clothes were agitated. She clothes then went throught the wringer where most of the water was squeezed out. The second tub was where the clothing was rinsed, I think this was agitated as well. The wring was swung over to the third tub where the clothing was put through the wringer after rinsing and allowed to fall into a tub. The clothes were then brought home to be hung up to dry. The winter we stayed at the Bishops house near Letha, Mom hung up some wash, mostly cloth diapers. She told me after school to go bring in the clothes from the line. They were all freeze dried. I brought them in to thaw by the wood stove. Then they were folded. I learned early on how to fold diapers. Start with a square, fold one side into a triangle, fold the other side over the triangle. Fold the top flap down. Fold the bottom up two times. Then fold in half for storage, Voila, diapers!. Later on God invented Laudromats. We would go to the one by Albertson's. They had a centrifuge machine that you could put the wash load in and it spun the water out of the clothing. Mom would take it home and hang it on the line. Very efficient. Christmas decorations. Consisted of a small allumium tree silver colored and a few balls. That was it. Mom had migraine headaches when I was younger. If we came home from school and the curtains were closed, and she was lying down. We knew that we had to be quiet or else. That stopped after a few years. When I was much older and would come home to visit, I would take Mom out to lunch to Boise somew'shere. She had active passenger road rage. I would tell that her that while we might be having an adventure it might not necessarily be much fun. She liked to go to a certain place that had free pie for seniors on Wednesday, so away we would go. I did not know for a long time that she did not like Chinese food. During the 80's I lived in Emmett. We traveled together for one of the Cousin's re-union. We drove through to the Yellowstone park. We were walking toward some of the springs and it was real sulfur smelling. I turned to her and said, “Guess what? We can fart all we want and no one will ever know. “ We picked up Ellen in Caspar and drove until we hit Best Westerns then we would stop for the night. We stopped at the Wind Caves and walked around in the dark. Mom hurt foot and actually had fractured her toe. We drove on to view the Presidents carved in granite. Stopped here and there, went to Kansas City to pick up Carla who flew in from Seattle. Then eventually we went to northern Missouri for the re-union. When I lived for a year in Dillingham, Ellen to Mom on a cruise through the NorthWest passage. Then flew from Anchorage and stayed with me for a few days. She decided she needed to have her ingrown toenail removed. So they came in, signed up and she was seen by a young doctor. He went to inject some pain killer but she kicked him like a mule and got a needle stick out of it. Mom came to visit a couple time after we moved to Coquille. We went to the County fair in Myrtle Point and looked at all the fun stuff in the barns. The dahlias were as large as dinner plates. The last time she came was to can fresh caught tuna. She gave me one tiny jar but it was delicious. If anyone else remembers anything please post in Facebook.