This is a tribute to my mother.Today is the 40th anniversary of her death. I am her name sake because I was born three hours before midnight on the 19 th of November and her 35th birthday was on the 20th of November. She was one of ten children, and was born in Madison County, Ohio. Her parents were first generation Americans, her grandparents were born in Ireland and migrated to this country because of the potato famine. She, also was named for her mother and Grandmother, Ellen Elizabeth.. Mother was the only one of the ten children in her family,that had children. My brothers, Joe and Paul and my sister, Martha and I were the only grandchildren of Ellen and Peter Morrissey.
Mother was a very soft spoken, kind and gentle person. Her strongest expletive was "Honest to John!" and she made a sound with her tongue that resembled ,"tsk, tsk, tsk. " She was not given to rants or loud chastisements or physical contact, just an "Honest to John!" showed her displeasure adequately.
When she was a young child, about two years old she fell from her mother's lap and fell on a scissors that her sibling was playing with on the floor and she lost the sight in her left eye. Consequently she was never allowed to learn to sew, or drive a car or a few other things that her family thought might harm her right eye. Actually she missed very little. Her vision was fine.
She was very interested in politics all of her life. So also was my father and his family. Both she and Dad were very active and involved in all election activity. We always had placards in our front window , comparable to yard signs today, for all the candidates that they supported. Dad was the campaign manager for one of his railroad colleagues that ran for mayor of Springfield, O. He won and we attended the celebration party when I was about nine or ten years old. Mother always worked at the polls and did a task beforehand called 'polling the ward'. As soon as I was old enough to work at the polls she signed me up to work too.
She never really made a fuss about things but in her quiet unassuming way she was ahead of all the other women . She went bra-less long before it became a 'statement', she had strong values and lived by them but did not condemn people that did not live or believe as she did. She figured there was room for all of us and we all had the right to be what we wanted to be. She was very devout but not overbearing or judgemental about others. She was truly a tolerant person.
Her sense of humor was sharp. She saw the humor in a lot of things and was always the first to laugh at the funny remarks we made. She especially liked my humor and I was always pleased when I could make her laugh or when I heard her repeat some of the witty things I said. The Great Depression happened during our early years and she was able to manage to do the best she could do with the pittance that Dad could bring home to her on payday. We never wanted for food or care in our lives. She stretched every dollar. My brother ,Joe, teased her frequently about her frugality. He would say, "Take down the wallpaper, we're moving!" and he had comments about how tight she was, so tight she squeeked, he would say. Nevertheless, we all knew that without her frugality we would have had life a lot worse than we did.
When, because of Dad's health, they moved to Arizona, she promptly joined the League of Women Voters and continued her volunteering work for the candidates of her choice.
I was married and had three babies when she moved to Arizona but I was only about 23 years old so she never got to know me as a grown up, mature woman. I regret that she did not get to know our wonderful children nor did they get to know her! She would have enjoyed them and enjoyed watching them grow up.
She loved lilacs and would grow homesick when it was lilac time in Ohio. Lilacs did not grow in Tucson. Dad nurtured rhubarb and coaxed it to grow out there but could never get lilacs to live long enough to bloom. She died on the 30th of April and we brought her home to London, O for her burial. She came home for her last time, at lilac time. She would have liked that!
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