Tribute

This is the text of the tribute my brother Ronald read at Mom's funeral.  My brother Myron and I worked together in writing it, with input from my sister Linda.  We were all pretty sure it was longer than usual (and maybe longer than it should have been), but we decided to go with it anyway.  Thank you for indulging us.  Those who were with us at the funeral, either in person or electronically, already heard what is given here.  I regret that I can't seem to fix some of the formatting issues.

A Tribute—Memories of Mom

We wish to give thanks publicly for the rich legacy our mother left us, by this means giving glory to God Who created her, directed and sustained her, and has now received her to Himself. In looking through old pictures and in remembering, we have retrieved a picture we’d like to share here, especially for those who learned to know her only in recent years.

Mom’s roots grew deep in rich Iowa soil where she spent her growing up years. She walked or sledded downhill to Evergreen school a half-mile away and also attended the German school her father taught every winter. Others tell us that Mom was an excellent student and a fast runner during her school years. She learned from her mother how to make things grow, Her mother also showed her where to find horseradish roots along the roadsides and how to harvest edible mushrooms on their farm. Mom always kept a bit of Iowa in her heart. On the day before she entered the hospital for the last time, she attended the Christmas service and her face registered delight and recognition when Alta, her age-mate and cousin from Iowa spoke to her. She was the only person to elicit that kind of response that day.

During World War II, five of Mom’s brothers left home on assignment from the United States government in Civilian Public Service. It was on a visit to a CPS camp in Dennison, Iowa with her parents when Dad first met Mom. His cousin had discouraging news, however, when Dad inquired about Mom. The competition was stiff, and he was unlikely to succeed in winning her. Thankfully the cousin had misjudged the situation.

After she turned 21, Mom served for a time as cook at Brooklane Farm, a Mennonite mental health care facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. During that time Dad was in Virginia as a student at Eastern Mennonite College, so they were able to get together occasionally. It’s hard to say which was more unusual for Amish young people during those days–young women working voluntarily in the mental health field, or young men attending college.

In August of 1950 Mom undertook a major transition by marrying Dad and moving to Kansas. By October of 1954, life had handed her a number of significant challenges. Kansas was suffering from devastating heat and drought. Mom remembered that the dishes she took out of the cupboards felt hot to the touch. Dad had transitioned from earning a living as a teacher to working as a farmer. At the age of 27 he had been ordained as a minister. Mom and Dad had three daughters ages three and under. More followed in rapid succession. As she adjusted to life in Kansas and life as a wife and mother, she developed friendships with the women among her in-laws and age-mates, and looked up to women like Lydia Yoder and Mary Martha Miller–mothers just older than Mom.

Over the next several decades, parenting, homemaking and hospitality occupied center stage in her daily activities. She did her parenting alone whenever her husband was away in church and community work, for three weeks at a time whenever Dad was teaching at Calvary Bible School. Early on, she taught her daughters to work alongside her in doing household tasks, gardening, and hosting guests. The older children helped care for the younger ones. “Marshaling the forces” is how she often referred to the project of harnessing her offspring’s energies constructively.

Practicing hospitality was one of Mom's most consistent character traits, whether cooking an impromptu meal for out of state relatives, her children's peers or college friends, or visiting ministers and colleagues of Dad. None demonstrates it better than the time she found several men walking west of Partridge along Trail West Rd who, having recently crossed our southern border in search of work, were now very hungry. Mom knew what to do when people were hungry. You feed them. Though 

they could barely communicate, Mom had them get into her car, drove them to the house and cooked them a sumptuous meal. They were strangers and she took them in.

Mom had a strong practical bent and tried her hand at various things. When the light switch in the bedroom needed to be replaced, she did it herself. When the screened-in front porch needed an upgrade, she enclosed it herself. Early summer mornings found her patrolling her huge vegetable garden, setting up irrigation and planning how to “marshal the forces” after breakfast. She learned how to make coverings for the girls as well as suits for the boys and found a way to learn whatever else she needed to know. Linda remembers Mom often being very specific in honoring the various people who taught her what she had learned.

Picnics and camping in nearby locations were usually Mom’s idea, as was the purchase of a large station wagon to carry the whole family to Colorado for a week of vacationing in a campground lodge. The Colorado trip happened just before Linda left home for the first time. It was the only out-of-state family vacation we ever took, though there were out-of-state trips to visit relatives or to accompany Dad when he traveled for church or board related work.

During the last part of the busy years of raising a family, Mom enjoyed teaching Sunday School, especially after she and Dad attended a Dale Carnegie course together, where she had the opportunity to practice making short speeches. One of her classmates introduced her once as “one of our best speakers.”

In later years, when Mom finally had time for flower gardening, she often learned the botanical names of flowers and used those names as easily as the common ones. Her vegetable garden often included a novel item like broomcorn or cotton or comfrey. Her cooking included variety and artistry. Pecan pies had one carefully-placed pecan half topping each piece of pie, and potato salad was sometimes garnished with geometric designs composed of hardboiled egg whites and yolks mashed separately, and radish flowers with parsley leaves.

Mom read the Hutchinson News and Time faithfully, at least in later years, but never developed a Budget reading habit. World affairs interested her, as did issues related to the environment, health, and ethics. Mom appreciated nature as demonstrated by the fact that she ordered both a simple field guide to Kansas flowers and Kansas birds at a time when money was hard to come by and our reading was mostly from periodicals, or from the school or church library.

Mom loved her freedom in the sense that she did not want to be enslaved by any habits. After having learned to enjoy drinking coffee and reading the comics, she stopped indulging in either of them after concluding that she was in danger of needing them too much. In later years, she started drinking coffee again on Sunday mornings to help her stay awake in church. We all smiled to ourselves in recent years when she had trouble keeping track of the days, but frequently inquired if today was Sunday, hoping that it might be a coffee day. In recent months she once wondered aloud whether she was giving her coffee maker too much vacation. The comics habit stayed permanently banished.

Mom didn't neatly fit into boxes. Most of her life was characterized by simplicity. Plain was good and

personal ostentation was a clear indication of misplaced values. Yet her flower gardens were

characterized by a riot of extravagant color and Mom surely reveled in their beauty.

Mom believed in discipline but told a daughter-in-law upon the birth of her firstborn when discussing child rearing that there are plenty of occasions for “no.” Try to use no sparingly and yes whenever possible. She allowed her children to pursue learning and service opportunities with a spirit of optimism and parental blessing.

Mom warned against living life in reaction to persons, words, circumstances, or disappointments.

When life is lived in reaction, whatever you react to controls you. Reflect and respond instead with

what is best, what is right, what is true.

Mom liked to say, “they that compare themselves among themselves, are not wise.” She wanted us to remember that there is a higher, more reliable standard than peers and others' personal agendas.

Mom was no slave to public opinion and she did not lay the public opinion yoke on her children. We

never heard “what will people think?” as a consideration for determining our own course. Yet Mom

was deeply loyal personally to group sensibilities developed over decades or even centuries of time and really loved seeing her children embrace those same sensibilities.

Mom prayed without ceasing. It was not uncommon to see her kneeling beside her bed. Her prayers at family devotions were seldom petitions for favor from God. Typically, they were prayers that God

would act in the world to set things right. Be they struggles her children were having, someone

rejecting God, someone suffering from illness or accident, or world problems such as war and

poverty, she implored God to intervene. But we heard little of requests for having things a little easier.  We know that she prayed earnestly for all of us, as we often heard her do so.

Mom liked interesting words, and freely mixed English words into Pennsylvania German syntax and sentences. As her mind began to fade, she began to use her advanced vocabulary more freely. A group of grandsons walking past the window, BB guns in hand, were not just little boys out hunting, but “a contingent of marauders.” Thinking about the day ahead did not involve asking “What’s up?” but “What does the day portend?” She looked out her south windows at home and was disappointed that she wasn’t seeing anything “arresting.” A variety of vegetables on her plate made “a colorful repast.” After she heard a series of emails read aloud regarding dad’s condition after surgery, she summarized it by saying “Quite a litany.” During the past year when she was asked if she could finish her grape juice, she said, “No. I’m satiated.” When Linda once asked if she was awake, she said, “Just about.” Recently, after Rhoda tucked her in one night, she prayed this prayer, “Please keep watch over us tonight and keep tabs on our situation.”

Heart surgery at the age of 80 allowed Mom to experience several more years of good health. A gradual decline set in after those years, however, and Mom and all of us had to adjust to accumulating losses. Dad and Linda were often the ones to compensate for these losses most directly, and the rest of us are deeply grateful for the kindness and respect with which they did this. In the final weeks, her doctors and the staff at the hospital in Lyons provided excellent care, a welcoming atmosphere for family involvement, and as good a setting for her home-going as we could have wished for. We were able to say farewell individually and privately, to sing and pray and eat meals freely together in the spacious hospital room (to which Mom was taken on Sunday at noon). Nurses came and went as needed, serving all of us unselfishly and wiping tears with us. It was the nurses who called our Monday evening meal together “The Last Supper.”

Some time ago Mom announced that she doesn’t like to look in the mirror at all anymore because all she sees is an old woman. Early in 2013 she asked, “How many days did we live today?” And then she promptly added, “It just seems like we did so many things.” Advancing age and busy lives both emphasize our need for the watchful eye of God to “keep tabs on our situation.” Today, we believe that Mom is no longer tempted to avoid mirrors or cram several day’s worth of activity into one, and, in the presence of God, she is certain that God has tabs on her situation, and on ours.