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Note: My Mom Posted 09 Jun 2011 by MarthaSwanson72
There is a lot to say about my mom. She was a talented semstress, an excellent housekeeper, very loving mother. She made Barbie Doll and Ken clothes. They were all matched sets, ex. wedding dress for Barbie and Tux for Ken. She posed each set in a zip lot bag and stored them safely away. Another example, we lived in a 8 x 35' Spartan Trailer from the time I was 7 until I was 14. Every few months, she would wash down every surface of the walls. Both my parents were smokers and I am sure looking back that was to keep the residue nicotene cleand off.
Mother had a very hard life. They were poor, as were so many other families. Her father was a broom maker and one of the youngest Babtist ministers in the state of Texas. He fell into drinking a lot. Her parents were divorced and though her mom remarried, things were really hard. In the fourth grade, she was supposed to buy a compass to use in school. they only cost a $.05, but she did not have a nickel. One day the teacher told her to get a compass for the next day or don't come to school. So she did not go back to school.
One morning, after her mother had remarried, her stepfather sent them off to school. Things did not seem right, so they returned home to find that her stepfather had set fire to the house with mom in it. Needless to say, that was the end of that marriage.
In 1967, mother came to live with me. My husband had joined the A.F. and was in San Antonio in basic training. I decided to go to San Antonio, so we packed up and started South from Duncan, Okla. On the way, mother told me she wanted to see the First National Bank Tower, Bluebonnets, and smell the water. I understood about the bluebonnets, but smell the water and see the tower. She explained that her family had moved to San Antonio and from her bed at night she could see that tower. Her mom was a shop lifter at the time and she would pray to the tower that her mom would come home one more night. Now the water. She swore that the water smelled different. The first time we went to Brackenridge Park to the Sunken Gardens, she stood in front of the water fall and said "See, it does smell different."
Mother and her sister, Norma Jean, were only a year apart, and they were inseparatable for their whole life. Aunt Jean's house was our family home. We could always go to Aunt Jean's. When they were 14 and 13, they worked at a restaurant named "Earl Able" They were car hops on skates. I had an opportunity to take my Aunt Jean back to Earl Ables and she met a bartender who had been there his whole life. They talked about old times and he remembered the Holland girls.
My mom and dad met in San Francisco. Aunt Jean had met and married a Navy boy and when he was transferred, mother went with them. My dad was a marine, a very handsome man. They were married in June, 1942 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. They had gone to Oklahoma so that my mom could meet his parents. They were married just a few weeks less than 20 years. We moved a lot, dad was gone a lot. He served in WWII and Korea. The Marines are not very kind on family life.
It was a turbulent marriage.
Mother spent most of the rest of her life in Reno with her sister. "We could always go home to Aunt Jean." She had breast cancer that spread to her lymph glands and then to her brain. She died peacefully and without pain, her two daughters, Patricia Ann and Martha Jean, her sister, her nephews Mike and Deno were with her when she left this world.
There are many stories I could tell about my mother. Her meekness, her gentleness, her compelling need to have her coffee in the morning, and put on her makeup. It was a real comedy to see her and Jean at the same table, each with their cup of coffee and makeup kit talking about the news and the day's plans.
They are both missed.
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