A woman I haven’t spoken much about in this space is my mother who reared me from shortly after I turned six years old.
As many of you are aware, my maternal mother passed away when I was 3½ years old. She died of acute leukemia.
I have some photos of her at Broken Bow Lake in July of that year, about five months before she died.
Her sister that was nearly 14 months younger than she was became my mother 2½ years later on July 10, 1954.
Her name was Roberta and since she was my aunt from the time I came into this world, I had been around her really all of my life.
If she still were alive, she would be celebrating her 100th birthday today, Nov. 3.
She lived nearly 25 years after dad passed away. She died a little over nine years ago.
Even though I knew my maternal mother Mary was my birth mother, to me, I always thought of Roberta as mother.
She had my younger brother, Kevin, when I was eight, and my sister Maureen a month after I had turned 10.
Another younger brother, Timothy, died after living only about two days.
My mother Roberta gave up her career at then Mid-Continent News in Oklahoma City to have children and she became a stay at home mother. If I recall correctly, she didn’t return to the workforce until after I had graduated from high school.
Dad spent more than 30 years working for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. During my high school years, he was gone quite a bit out of town for extended periods of time on work assignments.
So that left it up to mother to take care and run the household. Mother didn’t get a driver’s license until after I had graduated from eighth grade. Not sure how we managed that, but dad’s travels came beginning my freshman year of high school.
Mother was a kind, gentle woman who generally spoke softly. But when she raised her voice, it got your attention.
Family was most important to her. She cared and took care of us, even when she didn’t feel well herself.
She loved large family gatherings.
She was an excellent cook, kept a tidy house and was so frugal with everything. She had grown up during the Great Depression and she never forgot what it was like and how hard it was during those years.
She was a great mother and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her, my maternal mother and my dad.