As reminded in a recent letter, mothers are people to be loved, respected, cherished, and cared for (or not) every day of our years, not only on a Sunday in May when our outpourings of affection have been directed to the bottom lines of Coutts/Carlton, florists, and fancy eating places.

Every one of us remembers our mothers differently, just as our growing and present years are different; some of us still have our mothers, others have been without them for months or decades. Some may still be grieving their loss. The memories are bound to be varied and innumerable. Whatever form the memories, we’ve learned things from our mothers.

I had a little fewer than ten years to collect memories and lessons from my mother but they are well preserved in long term storage. These are some of them.

Every weekend of every summer, my Dad loaded us and supplies into car and boat for one and a half days at our island cabin. Oh yes, and the dog … a high strung Irish Setter, always car sick, always boat sick … my mother the unwilling caregiver. At the cabin, her routine didn’t enjoy much relaxation; it was meals, clean up and child care … under adverse conditions … and coping with snakes. I guess I learned how to dispatch them with an axe. And I learned to hate wearing blue overalls; girls were supposed to wear dresses.

Back home, I learned the trick for getting cotton sheets straight for folding after their looped hanging on a clothes line. Mom holding the corners of one end of a sheet and me down the kitchen holding corners at the opposite end, we tugged vigorously with our opposing diagonal grips, then walking toward each other, folded once, folded twice, and so on till the sheets were of a size to be put in the closet.

I learned how to iron (hopefully without scorching with a no-temperature-control iron). For things embroidered – pillowcases doilies, and the like – place a heavy terry cloth towel on the board, lay the embroidered item with the fancy work facing down, and iron … this made the embroidery stand out plumply, the better to be admired.

Still in the kitchen, I watched and begged to be able to bake things. Miraculously, I learned how to use the new-fangled Mixmaster without mangling a spoon or incorporating fingers into the mix.

When it came to bread-making, I was most intrigued by Mom’s method of getting the air pockets out of the dough. Lifting the dough ball high in the air, Mom would fling it mightily, with accompanying sound effects, to the surface of the enameled steel table … not once, but several times, to make sure her bread baked without butter-dripping holes.

My Mom’s knack with pie crust, I’ve been happy to see, has passed on to two of my own children who enjoy baking. This is not likely a unique trick by any means, but as youngsters, my two were rather fascinated by it. The highlight was the decorating of the edges of the top and bottom crusts by laying two fingers of one hand a little apart there, and pressing with the index finger of the other hand from the circumference toward the center to make those little pleats around the outside … and help hold in any escaping juices as it baked.

Housekeeping? Well, before I was allowed to use the vacuum (another of Dad’s ‘if it’s new, gotta have it’ widgets of the 40’s), I was taught how to use a broom and dustpan, and have never seen the need for the little brush to urge the dust into the pan … it was lean over, get a good grip just above the straw, and with pan in other hand, coordinate the movements of both. It works.

Not all Mom’s declarations were necessarily true; like ‘if you tell a lie, a darning needle (dragonfly) will stitch up your mouth’, and her method of subtraction to which my teacher was firmly opposed. But Mom, every time I use my pinky to get the last of the batter off the spoon and into the pan, I remember standing beside you in the kitchen … learning.

The best to all you Mothers and thanks for the good memories that will always be with us.

Nancy Whelan
Email Nancy Whelan

See all articles by Nancy Whelan