This is my 3rd entry for the March 2025 Challenge: This Is Who I Am, dedicated to my Mom.
My mom was an autodidact.
When I grew up, my mother didn't talk much about her childhood, except how difficult it was for her during the Great Depression.
Historical Time Period.
My mother was three years old when the Great Depression began (1929-1939). She grew up in Chicago, just like me. WW11 started in September 1939 and ended on September 2, 1945. One thing that was very clear to me, is that her parents and five siblings were a tight-knit family. My grandpa was one of many who stood in breadlines in Chicago for food. Food aid came from Al Capone. Formal education was not possible. She played kick-the-can outdoors or used her imagination using sticks and stones. After mom got married to my dad, she lived in the same house all her life from the time she got married until she died. Our house was one of the first ones built after the Great Chicago Fire. It was built in the late 1800's. While other neighbors took flight when things began to change, and many moved to the suburbs, my parents never left because this was her home and where her heart was. This was the house I grew up and the only marriage for my parents.
I can still picture what she looked like.
Mom wore house dresses and aprons, Bobbie Pins and Babushka's, nylon stockings, and her shoes looked like what nuns wore. They were black with thick heavy heals. My grandmother (her mother) did too! The only jewelry she wore was her wedding ring. Mom rarely wore any make-up, except for weddings, funerals, and very rare special occasions.
A Rare Photo of Mom, Dad, Me, and My Oldest Sister Sue
My mom was Pentalingual
I could almost hear her now gabbing to women in the neighborhood speaking Polish, Ukrainian/Russian, German, Yugoslavian, and talking to Gypsies too! To my sisters and I, she listened more and spoke English less. Like waddling ducks, my siblings and I walked with her, passing people on Chicago Avenue. She stopped to talk to strangers, stood in line waiting for meat from the Butcher's Shop while chatting in line with anyone who listened, or the old man on the corner who sold the daily news, the milk man who delivered bottles of milk, including the farmer riding the horse pulling the wooden cart selling fruits and vegetables. She also enjoyed using words of the unknown to salesclerks in department stores.
Mom was more than just a Pentalingual.
After mom passed away, my sisters and I talked about how easy it was for her to start a conversation with strangers and neighbors. She talked to my dad in Polish and he answered in English. Us kids listened but did not join in on conversations. None of my sisters or I spoke any other language than English, except what we were forced to learn in High School. After my mom passed away, my four siblings and I talked about how easy it was for her to start talking to a stranger as if they knew each other their whole lives. My youngest sister, (ten years younger than me) said, Mom learned how to speak Spanish after we all moved out of the house. The rest of us stood there speechless with gaping holes under our noses. We asked why? She said, that was the new language in our neighborhood, and she learned to adapt. Without a driver's license, she walked because everything she needed was on Chicago Avenue.
Mom Learned to Crochet
As soon as my mother found out my sister Sue was pregnant, and she was going to be a grandmother, she started crocheting blankets. To be honest, they weren’t very good but every day when I came home from school, there she was with those balls of yarn and wouldn’t stop. If she didn’t like it, she’d take it apart, rewrap the yarn into another ball of yarn, and start over again. For the entire time my oldest sister was pregnant, mom practiced crocheting with the same yarn. By the time my niece was born, mom was very skilled. All of her grandchildren had blankets she crocheted.
My son's first crocheted blanket
Mom taught me to be Creative
I learned how to make dolls or puppets with old socks. Mom taught me to make a treasure box for my cool rocks inside a cigar box glued on the outside with raw noodles sprayed with paint. Using paper bags, mom wrapped Christmas gifts (one for each kid). I was very lucky because there was only one year Santa Clause did not show up. And she taught us kids how to make book covers using paper bags. With old bedsheets, she shredded them and curled my hair for days when it was school picture days. To dry our hair, we laid in front of the space heater in the evenings to dry our hair.
Mom Budgeted and Never Wasted Food
My dad was Blue Collar and belonged to a Union. He always gave my mom his paycheck and she paid bills at the Currency Exchange, bought groceries, paid for our schoolbooks, uniforms, shoes, etc. Mom made soup if there were leftovers. I learned to be patient waiting while she sat on the bench inside the Currency Exchange counting her money. If she had questions, she spoke to the lady behind the window with bars.
More than a stay-at-home mom, Mom was a Businesswoman
When we needed change mom was the Petty Cash Clerk. If we found coins on the sidewalk or found bottles and took them to the store for deposit money, it was ours to keep. Every time mom did business at the Currency Exchange, she would sit on the bench and count her money. If she had questions, she asked before leaving the store. My mother could be like Mrs. Santa Clause or Scrooge. It just depended on whether my dad worked, and she had enough money.
Mom - The Negotiator
When I started at St. Stanislaus Kostka High School, I had two older sisters still in High School and two younger sisters in Catholic Grade School. Tuition for five children was very expensive. My mother went to the principal's office and negotiated a deal. They agreed that I could go to school for free only if I arrived at school at least an hour earlier and organized the classrooms and spent two hours after school every school day to clean the classrooms. The most important part of my job was paying close attention to cleaning and polishing the floors. I was committed to clean and organize for three years. If I never failed any classes, the nuns would let me out early in the afternoon in my Senior year to go to work. They had connections with Downtown business owners and would recommend me. I worked hard in High School and at a Law Firm working for two attorneys on Wacker Drive in Downtown, Chicago part time. My shorthand and typing were exceptional.
Mom believed in fairness.
My mother struck a deal with the nuns because she wanted me to have the same education as my older sisters at St. Stanislaus Kostka High School. The nuns were very kind and wanted all of us in the photograph below to have opportunities they never had either. The good Sisters planned a trip for the top students, and we all went to NY and Washington, D.C. Years later, after 103 years, and several years after my graduation, the school closed its doors in 1977 due to financial reasons and lack of funding. After many decades later it reopened in 2020. It is now St. Stanislaus Kostka Academy, known as an exceptional private school in Chicago serving preschool through eighth grade. I am very thankful my mother negotiated a deal so that I could attend private school and not public.
Mom was a Grandmother with the Magic Touch
All four of my siblings popped out kids quickly. Not me! I waited a few years. When my sisters started bringing over their kids, my mother showed each one how to burp a baby, the proper way to change a diaper, and feed them the right food. My mom even taught my daughter how to walk. She told me I wasn’t giving her enough stimulation or an incentive to learn. Within about 5 to 10 minutes my daughter took her first steps. I was as happy as I was sad for being a dumb mom.
My Children at Niagra Falls
Mom - The Window Watcher
For the most part, I learned my parents always wanted me to have a better life. I wanted the same for my children. The photo above was taken when their father and I took a vacation to Niagra Falls.
As a kid, my family did not take vacations. There was plenty to do where we lived. My house was on the second floor in a two story, four flat building facing the street. My parents were protective. Mom always stuck her head out the window to check on us kids. Meeting or holding hands with a boy was so embarrassing. 👀 Even when you didn’t think she was up there watching, she was watching. 👀 It wasn't until I was a mother myself and I heard the song "Somebody's Alway Watching Me," by Rockwell (son of Berry Gordan), that I realized all she was doing was looking out for me. The record was released by Motown label in December 1983, featuring Michael Jackson. It was then, I realized, you have to let kids be kids and there comes a time, when separation from parents is necessary for independent growth. Imprints of my mother's soul stayed with me.
Mother passed on long ago but there are still feelings - “I always feel like somebody’s watching me.” AI, camera surveillance, the itty-bitty light that stays on the television, and the Internet are instant reminders. Mom died on Mother's Day. I believe she would have made a perfect Spy.
It is because of mom.
I am who I am because of many of those invisible gifts from my mother. Mom was unlike any other mother! I learned to be frugal, manage money, pay bills, communicate without fear, take risks and roads not taken, negotiate, have a sales career, teach, raise children, and cherish books and education. Mom, if you're up there watching over me, just know:
Absolutely, positively no copying or re-blog ---Patricia
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