She went as far as eight grade. She spoke Lithuanian and English. Bi-lingual like a lot of Moms out there today. Her father worked hard in the Chicago Stockyards. Upton Sinclair's The Jungletold the story of men like him. He made it to 55 and died in his sleep. Pretty good for that group. He was illiterate. He practiced signing his name so he could become a foreman. My mother died from a head injury. She apparently fell in the tub while taking a shower. When I was a pre-school kid we lived in a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago and she was a housekeeper, cook and baby sitter for the folks in the neighborhood. Between Lithuanian food and the stuff she learned to cook on that job and the fact that Grandpa brought home lots of innards from the stockyards (we lived with her parents from when I was in first grade until I was in my sophomore year in high school) I learned to eat some really neat foods! So here I am a semi-retired university professor and an ex USMC officer writing blogs. Read on below and I'll tell you what this did for my attitude towards women and their role in our culture.
Mom worshiped FDR. He died on her birthday. She took me to the movies often and we had gone that night. When we came out she glanced at the newstand and broke out sobbing so hard. I asked what was wrong and she said "he's dead!"
Later when I told her that I was going to college on a regular NROTC Scholarship, she broke out in tears again. It took me a long time to understand those two events and relate them. She had an eighth grade education formally, but she read the news every day and she was quite intelligent. After she stopped working as a housekeeper she never worked again. She devoted a lot of time to me. Being an only child I guess that makes me a spoiled brat. People who know me well will not argue with that.
When we moved from living with her parents my Dad bought his first house in a working class suburb called Stickney next to the more well known suburb of Cicero where Al Capone hung out. As a result, I was the only kid among all the Stickney youth who intended to go to College. I was also the first on either side of our families. Using the opportunity to serve in the military was the only way I could accomplish that since I was from the wrong side of the tracks and my high school guidance counselors didn't see fit to waste a real scholarship on the likes of me. I was never told about them until it was too late to apply. So Mom cried when I told her.
I later was a leader in the anti war movement during Viet Nam and am a strong pacifist. I guess I finally knew what was wrong with my decision to go to college that way. It was not something I am proud of now. The idea that I was trained to kill bothered her deeply and she was right. I was wrong.
As a leader in the anti-war movement I was also a faculty adviser for SDS. Then there was the the evolution of the women's right's movement on part of which came directly from SDS. I had no trouble getting on board since I was beginning to understand how a woman as intelligent as my Mom could have been unable to go beyond eighth grade. I benefited greatly from having her my developing years, but she gradually began to show the effects of the life she was forced to lead. Eventually she had mental problems and went through a number of rounds of shock treatments.
She was not untypical of women of her generation and background. When she had the fall and injured her head I was now teaching in a medical school so the doctor showed me her brain scans. she was basically a vegetable. My Dad could not accept this and would have kept her on life support forever. Eventually I got him to go to his Priest with me and we talked for a long time. He agreed to pull the plug. I'll never really get over my role in that.
Here we are in 2011 and women still get a pretty raw deal. It has improved just as the race situation has. We are even less understanding about immigrants now it seems. So we celebrate Mother's day. It is a strange holiday. It always has been to me. I never saw the need for a special day to honor my Mom since she always meant so very much to me. We weren't close after I left for college at 17. Yet her place in my heart never lessened. I guess it is nice to set aside a day to reflect on these things. thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you