My mother didn’t bake pies. She said it was pointless with four children and a husband. All that work and it was gone in one meal. A cake and at least there would be some leftovers. She didn’t really like to cook. I asked her once if she could hire someone to either cook or clean, which would she choose? She said she would choose a cook. That sounded crazy to me. Who wants to clean?
Her life was hard, but not in the way one might think the life of a farm wife would be hard. We lived in a brand new ranch style house. My dad was a kind and loving man, and they were devoted to each other. That’s why her life was hard.
Married in 1942, he went overseas for three years. On his return, after a couple of unsatisfactory jobs, my dad gave in to his father’s wishes and moved back to the southern Illinois farm where he had grown up. We built the new house just up the road from my grandparents, and my Connecticut mother, who loved to dance, go to movies, and take the train in to New York City, went with the man she adored to a farm a quarter of a mile from her in-laws, and seven miles on a gravel road to the nearest town, which had a population of 3,000.
If I could choose one word to describe my mother, it would be “devoted.” And the second word, which I didn’t think of until just now, is “creative.”
She played the piano beautifully. I thought every kid’s mother played the piano. That’s what she did instead of baking pies. On a summer afternoon, as we kids lounged around enjoying vacation until it was time to gather eggs, Mom would be playing Chopin or Debussy. The house was not air conditioned, so the windows would be open, a fan whirring softly, and music filled the air.
She wore house dresses with an apron. She hated gardening. We did not have a vegetable garden, unless Dad planted it. She didn’t can vegetables. Too much work. But she was always busy, always tired, except when she was playing the piano.