Scarlet Fever and Eyeglasses

Scarlet Fever and Eyeglasses

I had previously mentioned that Mom had scarlet fever when around 6 years old, and how she nearly died….because an awful lot of people who had scarlet fever did die. Well, obviously she survived, but the fever affected her eyes far more than anyone guessed.

She nearly got run over when in the road at some point while still very small (grade school), because she didn’t see the car coming, and apparently this provided the impetus for her parents to have her eyes examined.  Naturally she needed glasses, and the prescription was pretty strong.

Shortly afterwards she went out into the backyard with her mother, and she made some sort of comment about being able to see the flowers or some such…and her mother cried, because she never realized how bad her daughter’s eyesight was before the eye exam. 

Manual Typewriter

Growing up in Churchville, my dad used a manual adding machine that required him to punch in the number and then pull the lever to get to the next line. It looked sort of like this one: 

(Anyone else remember these? LOL) 

…and my mother used a manual typewriter (long after electric typewriters had been introduced, but hey…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!).

Since she was secretary for several different women’s’ groups, she still used that typewriter quite a lot while I was growing up, even though at that point she didn’t work outside the home. And she typed at least 80-90 words per minute.

Honestly, sometimes it sounded like a machine gun was going off in the dining room. 

Meeting the Family

Mom told me that when she was a young woman, women still wore corsets for special occasions. They were married in 1958, so I’m guessing it was 1956 or 1957 that she boarded a train in New York, with her beau Richard Boyce Jr., to meet one of his relatives.

She was very nervous, of course.  And, since she grew up in a German Lutheran family, she had had virtually no experience with “standard” Italian dinners. Additionally, since her manners were (and are) impeccable, I’m sure she didn’t want to give the impression that the food wasn’t good. So she had a substantial helping of the first course, not realizing it was the first of many courses.

By the time the dinner was over, her corset was a private torment to her.

(can’t imagine why!!!)

And she remembers nearly getting sick on the train ride back, due to the combination of having eaten wayyyyyy too much and a corset that was now wayyyyyy too tight.

The "Waiting Room" in the Hospitals' Maternity Section

Since Father's Day is just around the corner, this one's about both Dad and Mom:

Dad is not a demonstrative person in the slightest. He's never been. 

So when Mom told me a story about the night their first-born was on the way, I had absolutely no trouble picturing him doing what she described!

Her water broke late in the evening, and of course Dad was very calm as he helped her get ready to go to the hospital. I’m sure he remained calm while he was in her room for the first part of her labor too. 

Then, of course, he had to go to the husbands’ waiting room (or whatever it was they called it) in the maternity section of the hospital, to wait for the news. And apparently he wasn’t calm in there.

When he was allowed to go back in and visit the new mom and the new daughter, Mom noticed that he kept his hands behind his back. She wondered if perhaps he had something for her, so she said, “Richard, what’s behind your back?”

It only made her more curious when he just mumbled something she couldn’t understand. So she said again, “Richard, what’s behind your back?”

When he brought his hands forward, she was both amused and touched to see his pipe…in pieces. 

He had bitten his pipe in half while pacing back and forth!

Lipstick

It's a very vivid memory, so it must have happened more than once.

In my mind's eye, I can "watch" Mom putting on lipstick.

Without a mirror.

Perfectly. 

It was generally the only makeup she wore. When I asked her one time how she did it so perfectly without a mirror, she laughed and said something along the lines of, "I've had this face for a loooong time!"

Because You Loved Me

To Mom:
In the words of the old song,

I'm everything I am because you loved me. 

With thanks and love from your most grateful youngest daughter,
Marianne

Mom and Music

Mom has loved to sing (and music in general) her whole life. She definitely was the one who instilled the same love in me.

When I was 10 or so, she let me sing a version of Mary's "Magnificat" at our church's Christmas Pageant, in front of the congregation. She was there without fail for every elementary school concert, every intermediate school concert, and every high school concert.

Even though I went to college 4.5 hours away, she even managed to attend most of my college concerts. And she's attended 90% of my post-college concerts. (It's like she's my own personal cheerleading section!) Perhaps that's why I feel like I'm singing to her (or with her) almost every time I sing.

She can't sing at all anymore, these past few years, due to a combination of physical concerns. A severe thorn in the flesh for her. So to me, it's even more important that I sing well...it's almost like I'm singing for her as well as me.

But that means that even more of my emotions are involved than usual when I sing, especially gorgeous songs about love or gardens or flowers...

O God...please give me the strength to sing well...for her and for You.

"Praise Arms" from Bible Gateway

 

Yessir, that's my mama.

Typing on a Manual Typewriter

Mom went to secretarial school a few years after she graduated high school. Since she graduated in 1945, school was probably sometime in the late 1940s, or possibly early 1950s.

Even in the 1970s and 1980s she could type 80-90 words a minute.

On a manual typewriter.

I can still "hear" the sound of her typing some committee report or whatever, sitting at the dining room table after supper.

Honestly, it sounded like a machine gun going off.

Church Volunteering

Definition of the 20%: Marion E. Boyce

Something Old and Something Blue

It was the morning of November 25th, 1995. My wedding day.

I still lived at home, and as I was finishing up getting ready in my bedroom in the late morning, Mom came in and asked me to sit down on my bed with her so she could show me something.

In her hand was a GORGEOUS bracelet, made of silver and tiny blue sapphires. She told me that it was my grandmother Amelia Moger's bracelet, given to her by her soon-to-be husband as a courting gift, circa early 1920s.

Then Mom fastened it on my wrist, and told me that it was her wedding gift to me:

Something old and something new,

Something borrowed and something blue.

The Last to Leave

I wrote before about Mom's philosophy, "Early = On Time."

It didn't extend to leaving places early. Especially church.
We were almost always early, like I wrote previously. Well, she knew everyone (or so it seemed). And everyone knew her. So she would talk to them. And they would talk to her.

In the process of all this talking people would meander (slooooowly) toward the exits. Meanwhile us kids (or maybe just me) would be shifting from foot to foot, getting more impatient by the minute, waiting and waiting and WAITING for her to be done.

I would think to myself, "If I ever have children I'm NOT gonna do this to them!"

Riiiiiiiight. Ask my almost-9-year-old how often we leave immediately after the church service, and she'd probably say, "Never!"

Mirror, mirror, on the wall - I've become my mother after all!
(Don't worry; this is a good thing if true. Actually, a great thing.)

On Time = Early

As far back as I remember, Mom's idea of arriving on time meant that we were 15 minutes early almost everywhere we went. 
I specifically remember lots of times during Sunday School especially that we kids arrived before the teacher did. Talk about awkward!

On the other hand, it's been a valuable lesson throughout my life about allowing more than enough time to get to a destination, building in time for unscheduled/unexpected/unavoidable delays.

Thanks, Mom!