MEMORIES OF MOMMA

Today is my mothers birthday---August 5, l892. My earliest memory of Momma is sitting on her lap in her rocking chair while she read me Bible stories while holding a warm cloth on my ear to help ease an ear ache. I remember standing on a chair by the kitchen table kneading my own piece of bread dough beside her while she made bread for the family. Nothing tasted better than that little piece of my own bread, warm from the oven with melted butter on it. She taught me how to sew, by hand at first then on the old treadle machine when I was big enough to work the pedal and guide the fabric at the same time. I learned to love growing things and enjoying the produce from them both as flowers and fruits and vegatables, and to preserve them for the future. It seems as though we always had a pet of some kind, usually a cat and the picture of her with a cat on her lap purring while she petted it is a warm memory. She loved her chilckens on the farm. I can still hear her talking (clucking) to them while she fed them and gathered the eggs. And she loved music--playing the piano, singing as she worked, and teaching our canary to whistle a tune by whistling it over and over whenever she was in the room with it. Of course, singing hymns in church was a favorite. Her love for the Lord shone through in her daily life. Her lessons for her children was by example. She has been gone now for over twenty years but I still miss her and there are many times even yet when I wish I could tell her of my joys and sorrows and laughs. The memories are many, of good times and not so good times, but always of love. Momma still means love to me.