Tribute to a Patient Mother

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune

date unknown; probably 1962-1963

   SHE WASN'T expected to milk the cow, tend the chickens, mend fences or chop wood.  These were masculine chores and dad performed them with the help of his sons.
   But mother pumped and carried water, did the laundry via washboard and copper-bottomed boiler, churned the butter, strained the milk, baked bread, trimmed the lamp wicks, pushed wood into the kitchen range and considered an ice box the ultimate in refrigeration.
   The kids helped with the dishes, turned the crank on the ice cream freezer for the reward of licking the dasher, beat the rugs during spring housecleaning, kept the woodbox filled and carried out the ashes.

   WE WORKED more cheerfully for mother than for dad.  We were closer to her.  She was our confidante and companion.  Everyone was her friend and she upstaged nobody.  She was an earnest church worker but spoke no ill of the ladies of the night who were entrenched in considerable force at the east edge of town.
   She fed the drifters.  She invited the homeless in for dinner on special days.  Many kids were closer to her than they were to their own mothers.  She had a broad social awareness.
   Dad made no objection to her generosity but initiated little himself.  He was of different stripe, more or less a loner.  You couldn't be sure of him.  He could be kind or tyrannical, gracious or mean.  We were afraid of him.

   NOBODY feared mother.  Her discipline was gentle, her patience astounding.  Looking back now, I know she sought, perhaps unconsciously, to make home comfortable because of her man's inclination to make it otherwise.
   "She was the worst housekeeper and the best mother there ever was," brother Bud recalled recently.
   He spoke well.  She wasn't a good housekeeper.  Nobody who allows two sons and a couple of friends to play "basketball" in the dining room can be a good housekeeper.
   There was a hook above the archway between this room and the parlor.  A punching bag once hung from it.  We'd throw a bean bag at the hook and, if it stuck, It meant a basket.  The bean bag leaked chaff, chairs got banged around, dishes rattled and the dog ran for cover.  After the game mother would provide lemonade or cookies.

   IN ALL BUT bitter weather Bud and I slept out back in a tent to be sure of adequate fresh air.  The tent had a wooden floor and two double beds.  Every boy in town, at one time or another, shared the accommodations with us.
   Mother would come out each morning, ostensibly to waken us, but actually to determine how many would be on hand for breakfast.
   It is a pleasure to hark back to those yesterdays and the mother who made them possible.  I salute her this Mother's day as a great and understanding woman, a woman of compassion, courage and humor.  Dead now for more than 25 years, I see her with the six children who died before her--helping, counseling and comforting--giving to them the abundance she gave to the three who survived.


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