December 23rd

My Mom's birthday is today. She would have been 94. She was born way out in the sticks and the doctor had to fight a blizzard to be there for her birth. She was the youngest of four children. She was named "Carol", I'm guessing because of her arrival at the Christmas season. She learned to play piano from her mother, who had been schooled in Boston. She sang, played, led choirs, and encouraged her children's musical careers, such as they were.
Of course, music was just a part of her life. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, and then stayed on for a "post-graduate" year. She knew there was no chance of her attending college, and there were still courses she wanted to take. She lived in the town where the school was for that year, in a room or boarding house. Travel between her home and the town was difficult; there weren't many automobiles around, and certainly none in her parents' rugged farm lives.
After she finished school, she became the private secretary for the vice president of the local knitting mill. He had asked her to join the staff after her graduation, but she put him off for a year. How many young ladies would have the nerve to turn down a good job like that? But she did, because her education was more important to her.
During her post-graduate year, one of the things she studied was business law. That would serve her well after she married and became the (unpaid) clerk-of- the-works for the joint farm venture of her husband and his two brothers. She kept track of all the income and outgo of three farms and was the paymaster for the hired men.
In the meantime, she raised three children, kept the local Baptist church running from the laity's point of view, and grew and harvested gardens for the benefit of her family. She also was the sponsor for the Kids for Christ Club, and planned many activities for these youngsters aged 8-12. Many times the activities involved going on hikes in the great outdoors, since there was a lot of that around and it didn't cost anything and it helped the kids use up their surplus energy. As you can probably surmise, I loved and respected my mother. She was one of a kind.