A Mother's Birthday

Last year on the anniversary of my mother's birth, I opened the post with a paragraph saying that her family's deep lineage in the western Virginia mountains had been lost to history. Thanks to a cousin's genealogical research I can report this year on her 110th birthday that much of her family history is no longer lost. Her paternal ancestory in the New World began 1628 in the Plymouth Colony. From there the family line moved to Harford County, Maryland, by 1700, followed by Tidewater Virginia during mid-century, and the Virginia frontier (now West Virginia) around 1800. 

Her parents married a century later and raised seven children on their family farm on the eastern edge of the Allegheny Front a few miles from the Potomac River. One weekend in 1931 she and her four sisters went to skate and dance at the local lodge armory. It was a common practice among families, but especially attractive among young people as a way to have fun with old friends and make new ones as well. She struck up a conversation with the young lodge member who was selling tickets. That conversation grew into a two-year courtship that ended in marriage in 1933. Their conversation continued for more than forty years.  

On the farm in 1932

 

With my birth she became a full time mother and homemaker, but still found time to enjoy her church family, reading, gardening, nature, frequent visits with her large family, and vacations on Pattersons Creek in Burlington, West Virginia. She was taken from this world far too early after a long illness. There's no question that I miss her and I'm sorry she did not live to enjoy her daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. Still, I feel her goodness has been with us helping to shape our family over the years. Wouldn't have it any other way. She was a great mom, full of faith, love, compassion, a wonderful sense of humor, and dedication to family and friends.


Happy birthday, Mom! See you later.