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.

Linda and Edna Groves in early 1945

I notice several things about my mother that are illustrated by this story. My mother was “spunky”!!! The definition of spunky is courageous and determined. Those are words that are true of my mother. She was not willing to accept the first opinion she got about her troubled pregnancy so she courageously took action in order to find another solution for her problem. That would not have been easy at that time for my mother. 1944 was wartime and gas was rationed. I do not know when my mother got a driver’s license or whether my parents owned their own car. The trip to La Crosse probably involved borrowing the car that belonged to my Dad’s parents or his grandmother and needing him to be the driver to a Dr’s office in La Crosse. But I am quite sure that Mom was insistent on the trip in order to be an advocate for herself and her unborn child.

Another quality of my mother is shown by the fact that she was “scrubbing the kitchen ceiling!” Mom would have been cooking on a wood burning stove in her kitchen. No doubt there was often an issue with smoke rising above the stove. She would have been aware of this smudging on the ceiling and walls of the kitchen so she would tackle the cleaning of those areas annually I’m quite sure. In the future, I would be asked to help with that type of job on a regular basis. Mom was concerned about cleanliness and appearances so she kept her home quite clean. The scrubbing of ceilings and walls was an annual not weekly chore.

I am very grateful that my mother exhibited these traits before I was born so that I am alive and able to tell my stories now. I am grateful for her lifelong courage and determination which would and did benefit not only her family but many other’s as well.

I will add more stories in the future to answer the question “What was your mom like when you were a child?” but this is my start today.