Well, I've finally hung my shell cross that I ordered from Dawn at http://gahangirls.blogspot.com/ . I told you I had a special place to put it and today it was finally hung. It is on the side wall by my dressing table and beside two pictures of my mother as a small child. When I sit there on my bench in the morning I always take time to look at her pictures and I know she would love having that special cross hanging beside her photos. Thanks again Dawn.
I'm not sure how much I've told you about my mother but she was an incredible role model for me and many others.
After finishing high school, my mother got her teaching degree at Clarion College in Clarion, PA. For the first few years she taught in a one room school.
When she and my Daddy were married, she continued teaching. My sister Susan was born first and 2 years later my mother delivered twin girls who only survived a few short days. Two years later I was born, two years after that my brother Paul was born and 18 months later my baby brother John.
Both of my grandmothers helped to take care of us during all that time when my mother was teaching.
When I was in about 3rd grade, my mother started back to school to get her masters degree in guidance and counseling from Indiana University, in Indiana, PA. She went to school in the summers and during the school year after teaching all day. And the school she went to was an hour away from where we lived. She finally succeded in getting her degree when I was about 15. Shortly after that she found out she had breast cancer and had a radical mastectomy and radiation. She continued working as a junior high guidance counselor during all of this time and retired after 30 some years of teaching.
At that time, I was divorced, living with the boys back in my hometown and working in county government. I convinced my mother to run for Mayor of our small town. No woman had ever held that office before. She won the election in a landslide. There were few people in our small area who hadn't been taught by her or guided by her in one way or another.
She and my daddy sold their farmhouse and farm and bought a small house on the edge of town. When she retired she was 60 and she hoped that she and my daddy would have 10 years in their new home. That was just about what they had. My father passed away in May of 1989 at the age of 77 and my mother passed away from colin cancer at the age of 72 in December of 1989.
Well, I didn't mean to go on and on but she was a very special person. She's the one who took me to auctions from the time I was little and loved antiques. Anytime I'm back in my hometown in PA I always run into someone who tells me how she changed their lives, or helped them, or encouraged them.
Thanks for reading,
Gretchen
