Remembering My Mother

Bernice Yeager

July 30, 1917
January 1, 2011

Remembering my mother is a rather daunting task because in our family, Mom was the chief rememberer. For example, she could tell us where she found an attractive piece of driftwood twenty or thirty years ago, or the year a certain relative was born. And, if she didn’t have the fact in immediate memory, she knew exactly where to find her note of it.

I especially appreciate having my baby photograph album. Mom placed the snapshots carefully on the pages and labeled each one with a caption. She also made a beautiful album of congratulation cards and letters my parents received when I was born. For several years she added birthday cards along with a list of the guests who attended the parties.

The sewing machine was going strong during my early years. Mom made garments for all the family: shirts, pajamas, coats, aprons, dresses, and Halloween costumes. The best part of being the oldest child is never having to wear hand-me-downs, although I do remember that my two brothers and I sometimes had matching shirts and also matching flannel pajamas.

Mom enjoyed artistic crafts of many kinds including ceramics, making artificial corsages from sheets of colored wood fiber, leather tooling and lacing, paint-by-number, knitting, and crochet. She enjoyed her African violets and other collections as well—miniature crested spoons, decorated thimbles, rocks, shells, books, salt and pepper shakers, miniature shoes, and the driftwood I mentioned earlier.

When my mother’s uncle Chris and aunt Myrtle raised parakeets, we got a young one and named him Peppy. Mom taught Peppy to talk. “Pretty bird,” he said. “I’m Peppy. What’s your name?”

My mother and father were introduced to each other by a mutual friend in the summer of 1937 when they were both working at the Sebastopol Apple Growers’ packing house. After going together for four years, they were married in Reno on Columbus Day, 1941.

Raising four children cannot have been easy—especially when those four are my siblings and I, each of whom has a noteworthy independent streak. I know we were quite a handful, but I also know that our mother was deeply proud of us along with her beloved grandchildren and great-grand children.

Mom loved her memories; she loved her collections and crafts. But she loved her family more than anything.

The following words are adapted from David Harkins, a British poet and painter, who was born in 1958.

You can shed tears that she is gone
Or you can smile because she has lived.
Open your eyes and see all that she has left.
Be full of the love that you shared
And do what she would want:
Smile, remember, and go on.