the moms

Hallie, a scrappy farm girl from Corsicana when she came to Austin to study piano at UT right after the war, could read classical music and play like her hair was on fire. She met some knucklehead on campus one day who was fresh out of the Navy, dated him, married him and promptly followed him Out West where he was in a post-graduate program at UC Berkley. I surfaced and then we came back to Texas a couple of years later where my brother appeared.

She was the Mrs. Cleaver on the block (no pun intended) and ran the place with an iron fist since she had two sons to chase and their furry friends to chase off, a house to clean and vestments to iron and toilets to scrub and meals to fix and dishes and laundry and PTA and choir practice and scouts and taxi service ad nauseam. It kept her pretty busy.

The moms... what a piece of work; mentor, limo driver, chief cook, bottle-washer, ace batter and pinch hitter with a hair brush during the punishment phase and pastor’s wife extraordinare. She was a woman of many hats.

We never misbehaved in church (much) or the grocery store (very much) or other people’s homes (at all) and learned early on that it’s bad form to get caught anyway. She always got me up on Saturday to do the yard and didn’t care if I was dying didn’t want to hear it... she was quick with a band-aid for the bo bo, iodine for the puncture wound or enema bag as needed. It was straight to the doctor if we even looked like we were going to faint. A swim at Barton’s on a Sunday afternoon followed by pancakes and bacon or scrambled egg sandwiches with Miracle Whip at home and Bonanza on the tube before bed was a high point of the weekend. She made us go to bed early and then got us up for school, fed us lukewarm gruel, sent us off, dragged us to the doctor or the dentist whether we needed it or not, made us do our homework whether we liked it or not and, I’m happy to report, we’re none the worse for wear and I still like oatmeal. I might add that the moms knew exactly how to wield her favorite secret weapon for full effect. Her withering hiss “...just you wait until your father gets home...” worked every time. It was indeed a brilliant tactic to maintain law and order around the house short of bloodshed.

Mom was a good mom and the best mother we ever had. She knew which buttons to push, when to take our temperature, when to feed us and when we needed a hug. She deserves a medal. And many hugs.
She was a great friend to those she knew and loved and was a more than generous mother and grandmother to us and the kids. I credit her for a lot of lessons learned growing up. Sadly she was robbed a few years ago by dementia so what more can I say? She has found the peace she deserved.
We love you mom.