Every holiday season I write a letter to family and friends about our vacations, school activities, and job accomplishments. Last year I started a new tradition. I recounted a story from my father’s youth, which was packed with novel worthy adventure. As I pondered what to write this year, I began to think about my mother. She came from a family without means. As a young woman, she had to earn her way in life, but she was smart and driven. She made her mark in an era when it was ludicrous to think that a woman could have a career. She was supposed to be a nurse, a school teacher, or a secretary, but only until she married. Then she was supposed to be a stay-at-home mom. Period.
My mother defied convention. With few resources she managed to study for a year and get a certificate from a business school. She landed a job as the office manager of an insurance agency. Then she met my father, and after a two-week courtship, they married. She quit her job with the birth of her first baby, who was followed by baby number two, three, four… until I ended the cycle twenty years later, baby number seven.
She stayed at home through the child rearing years, but always had a casino online side job. She and my father raised chickens (not a happy ending!), she was a part-time reporter for the local paper, and she edited and published two cookbooks, which helped put my sister Mary through college. When everyone was out of the house except me, she did something astounding. She and my father bought my hometown weekly newspaper. She became an editor and publisher, the only woman Online Gambling in Illinois with those jobs in the mid-1950’s and into the 60’s. She met governors and senators, and pushed for road expansions and new water and sewer projects. She was a powerhouse!
It was rough. From the age of six, I saw my mother engaged in daily battles with authority, and with men in general. That’s what a good newspaper editor/publisher does, but she was a woman in a man’s era. I had to have a tough skin at school. Kids echoed their parents’ sentiments about my mother’s positions on everything. A lot of it wasn’t nice. But it was my life and mom had no sympathy. I learned the issues, even going door-to-door in sixth grade, handing out leaflets and explaining to adults the need to pass water and sewer bonds. Mom sent me and I never thought to argue.
My mother pushed up against the barriers and the standards of her time. As a result, I endured taunting and teasing, but gained an understanding of what really mattered –standing up for my beliefs, standing up for others, and, just as important, to ignore the limitations imposed by people with less vision. Not bad, Mom!
What legacy will you and I leave our children?
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