I have a friend and neighbor, Connie, who regularly reads this blog. I saw her at church on Sunday and she told me how much she enjoyed the Cool Mama contest. She went on to say that she had a cool mama too. I said, “Why don’t you send me her picture and maybe I’ll put it on the blog.” Connie did just that, and she sent me a little bit about her mother, Evelyn and her Aunt Barbara.

Here’s the story: “My Grandma’s family was Amish until they broke away from the Amish religion when she was a young teen.  There are no pictures of her family until after they broke away from the Amish.  That is, other than Grandma’s sister, Fanny, who snuck out with some kids and went to town and got pictures taken in one of those picture booths.  She took the pictures home and hid them in her bedroom.  Great Grandpa found out about the pictures and demanded she bring that envelope downstairs and throw it in the fire.  She did bring the envelope down, but it did not contain the pictures.  She threw the envelope in the fire and he assumed the pictures had been burned.  It was after that when they broke away from the Amish.  After that there were lots of pictures taken.

My grandparents lived in the country over in the Midland, Michigan area when my Mom and Aunt Barbara were kids. T hey went to a one-room country school.  Barbara writes:  ‘There was a recitation bench that we went up to when our grade was called up front to have our lesson or whatever.  The school had a big stove in the middle of the room toward the front which was our heat in the room in the winter.  We used to bring a potato to school and the teacher would put it in the ashes then at lunch time we had a good baked potato hot out of the stove.’ 

Evelyn and Barbara didn’t get an allowance like other kids got.  That’s why they were anxious to get jobs after high school to earn some money of their own.   My Mother (Evelyn) went to work at the Telephone Company in Battle Creek.  Grandma didn’t want Evelyn to live alone so Aunt Barbara got a job at Newberry’s Dime Store and they lived together.  

These pictures don’t have dates written on them, but they have to be from the mid 1940’s.  Two young ladies dressed in the latest style.”

Aren’t moms great? Thank God for them. And thank you Connie for sharing with us a little about your mother.