Traits of My Mother...

What was your Mom like when you were a child?

I plan to use this title for a series of paragraphs to answer this question. There are so many stories and things I could share about my mom from my childhood so I plan to add stories as a memory comes to me.

I will start with memories that I think illustrate lifelong traits of my mother’s. These things happened before I was born so I only know about them from being told during my childhood.

My parent’s first child was my brother, James Steven Groves. We always called him Jimmy during childhood because our father also had the name James and was always called by that name. The photo below shows Jimmy who had been born on March 29, 1942 with my parents. They must be dressed for church as my parents are not in their farm work clothes.

Edna, Jimmy, James Groves in 1942

Within the next few years, my mother experienced a miscarriage. But following that another pregnancy got under way. In her third month of pregnancy, my mother began to have some complications. She later told me she had been doing “spring cleaning” and was standing on a table or ladder and washing the ceiling in the kitchen when she began to sense something abnormal. She went to see her Dr. and was told, “You are not going to keep this pregnancy so go home and call me when you lose the baby!” So Mom left that Dr’s office and decided to drive 40 miles away to La Crosse, WI to see a different Dr.! This Dr. admitted her to the Gunderson-Lutheran Hospital for a week of rest. That week of rest brought the cure for the problem and a 10#,3.5oz baby girl arrived three weeks beyond full term at that La Crosse hospital on December 7, 1944. All of that happened seventy-six years ago and I’m writing about it today!
Below is an early photo of Mom and me.

Remembering My Grandparents and Great-Grandparents...

 How did you deal with your grandparents dying?.

 

I did not have the privilege of living near my Grandparents in their final years of life so to answer this question I will share what I know about who they were and what period of time their lives covered. I knew most of my Grandparents but only attended one of their funerals. I knew two of my Great-Grandmothers and attended one of their funerals. I will share my Grandparents’ names and how long they lived with some brief facts, photos and memories of them.

My mother’s parents were Ludvick Henry Matson, born October 13, 1888 and Tessie Jane Oliver Matson born September 16. 1886. Both were born in Vernon County Wisconsin near Viroqua, WI. The photo below is their wedding photo.

Very sadly, Tessie died on January 21, 1925 after a successful thyroid surgery at the Gundersen-Lutheran Hospital in LaCrosse, WI. She left seven children without a mother. My mother was Edna Virginia Matson, born on July 23, 1919 near Viroqua, WI. She was age five and child number five at the time of her mother’s death. So I never knew that grandmother and my mother had hardly any memories of her mother. My Grandfather, Ludvick, remarried twice after Tessis died. The photo below is the wedding photo with his second wife.

He and his second wife, Ella Lind Matson were married for thirty-two years. She died December 29, 1962.

My Earliest Memories of My Second Home...

In an earlier story I wrote about memories of my life on our farm which was east of Viroqua, WI.  Since I only lived there from birth, December 7, 1944 to one month before my fourth birthday, November 1, 1948 I did not have many memories to share. 

 Today I will share early memories of my life seventy-five miles north west of my first home.   These memories will be taking place on another farm five miles outside of Fountain City, WI which was a small town on the Mississippi River.  The photo below shows Fountain City, WI.

 Our farm was at the top of a hill after a two mile drive up a winding road from a highway that followed the Mississippi River.  Where we lived, the Mississippi River divided Wisconsin from Minnesota. Because of trees and hills, we did not have a view of the Mississippi River but our view was to the west where we often enjoyed gorgeous sunsets.

We moved the whole farm with its cattle, implements and household goods on November 1, 1948.  At that time our family was Dad, Mom, Jim, 6, Linda, 3, Kathleen, 2, and Barbara, 1.  Moving day was very difficult because of freezing cold rainy and windy weather.  Half the herd of milk cows died enroute due to being trampled in the truck that was hauling them.  I have a memory of seeing some of the cows sliding out of the big truck that was hauling them and not being able to stand up after the rear gate was opened.  That must have been extremely difficult for my parents as the milk cows were their source of income. 



Grandma Lee Remembers the Viroqua Farm

 Happy New Year January 2021

For my 76th birthday this past December 7, 2020, my son James gave me the gift of STORYWORTH.   This is encouragement for me to write stories about my life each week.  Each Monday for the next year, I will receive a prompt for a story.  I can chose to respond to the prompt I have received or change the prompt to something of my own choosing.  At the end of the year, my stories will be put into a book  I have written 3 stories so far.  Each of these stories share things that I remember happening earlier in my life.  Today I will post one of those stories on this blog.  This story references one of my earlier Storyworth stories but also stands alone in answer to the title of that story.

What memories do you have of your life on the Viroqua, WI farm? 

I was born on December 7, 1944  at the La Crosse, WI Gundersen-Lutheran Hospital at 5:30 AM.  I weighed 10# 3.5oz and was 23” long.  My Grandmother, Amanda Sophia Isaacs Groves, wrote in her diary on that date which was a Thursday, “Rec’d a telegram from Jas (James) & Edna saying they had a 10# & 3 1/2 oz baby girl Linda Louise born at the Lutheran Hospital.”   My Grandparents lived in Chicago, IL at that time so weren't able to visit me in the hospital. 

A nurse told my mother that I was the longest girl baby to have been born at that hospital up until that time.  My birth had come three weeks after my mother’s due date.  She told me that her Dr. took vacation time over the Thanksgiving holiday so he didn’t want my birth to interrupt that and I waited for his return apparently. 

La Crosse was about 35 miles from La Crosse.  There was a hospital in Viroqua which was much closer to our farm and my brother had been born there nearly three years before my birth.  But when my mother was about three months pregnant with me, she began to have some complications.  She saw a Dr. in Viroqua and he told her that her pregnancy wouldn’t last so she should “go home and call me when it js over”.  That was news my parents weren’t willing to believe so they decided to get another opinion from a La Crosse Dr.  That Dr. admitted my mother to the hospital for a week of rest and care which was what I needed in order to survive and thrive in utero.  Therefore, my birth took place in La Crosse where Mom’s Dr. worked.  This was added cost and stress for my parents because it was during WWII when gas and tires were rationed so multiple trips to the Dr. were not possible.  Close to the time of my birth, my Dad took my mother to his Aunt Helen Hart’s home which was in La Crosse.  Aunt Helen was able to get my mother to the hospital more quickly when I was on the way than would have been possible from Viroqua.  So that’s why I was born in La Crosse and not Viroqua.

The La Crosse Gundersen-Lutheran Hospital had other significance for my mother.  Her mother, Tessie Oliver Matson, had a thyroid operation in that hospital in January 1925 when my mother was five and a half years old.  Her mother was 39 years old at that time and was the mother of seven children from ages 8 months to 12 years old.  Very sadly, there was a complication for Tessie and she died in that La Crosse hospital a few days after what had seemed to be a successful surgery.