Sentimental Saturday - Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  I enjoy being a mother.  I am even spending my Saturday smoking a large pork shoulder to share with my sons tomorrow.  But I don't feel I need a special day to be thanked for doing what I made a decision to do many years ago - have children.

I am sure my attitude was developed as a young person who had a mother who would start complaining well in advance of Mother's Day that she was not appreciated.  Needless to say, she and I did not have a good relationship.  Ever.

Nevertheless, she was my mother and she did teach me many things; so many things before I started school that I was almost immediately promoted once I finally started my formal education.  (The ramifications of being the youngest all the way through school could fill a book.)

So, while I have decided to post these 'sentimental Saturdays', I decided to find some pictures of the mothers in my life.






Here is me and Mom (left) sometime in 1947.  I know it is before Easter that year because my mother was in a serious car accident on Good Friday and was laid up for 14 months in a hip cast. 

Here is my mother as a child with her older sister, my Zia Ardemia, who raised her after their parents died.  My aunt was like a grandmother to me. 

Here is Grandmother Sophie Szal (left), my father's mother, the only one of my grandparents born in this country, specifically Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

This is Sophie's mother (riight), my great-grandmother Louisa Kozimor.  She is 82 in this photo.  And yes, that is me next to her.  It is the only photo I have of her.  I have been trying to research her online, but every time I find something, I get more confused.  I have confirmed that she lied about her age and was actually nine years older than she admitted in later life.  Go, Grandma.









I couldn't write this Mother's Day post without mentioning my mother-in-law, Helena Sheehan Hammond.  I miss playing cards and Scrabble with her.  We had a great relationship that continued after my divorce from her son and right up to her death in 2005 at the age of 96.  Here she is on vacation with us in Charlevoix, Michigan.  She is co-captaining our speedboat, 'Blue Thunder'.

And this is probably the oldest picture I have in my collection; it is of my great-grandparents, Giuseppe and Giovanna Luigia Mariuz, taken in Cordenons, Italy. 






I hope everyone has a Happy Mother's Day tomorrow.