Mother's Day remembering

Repost from When I Was 69 blog, date 5/9/2021  

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My mother who worked an 8 hour job, then came home and fixed dinner and did our laundry and the house cleaning until we were teenagers, and did all the shopping. My father worked the same hours and came home and read the newspaper, and sometimes fixed cars, or mowed grass, or did carpentry...men's work around a home. I do remember a few times my dad would tell me, when my mother was behind her bedroom door, "she just needed to lie down for a while."

Mataley before she married my father.

I'm so grateful that I was a mother in the 60s and 70s...women's lib, moving into civil rights, and then the consciousness of children's rights. The children still are not protected anywhere near enough from suffering in many ways...but I guess parents have rights too. We keep talking (politically) of a minimum wage that would actually allow the poor among us to have housing and food. So far it's not adequate.

So the civil right that still needs addressing is classism. It has become more evident with the rich getting richer with tax rules in their favor. As one wise saying goes, you can't ask the rich to give up what they have by passing laws which would take it from them. So it is a hard battle. But all civil rights have been.

Glad I had the mother I had.

Hope you had a mother you got a lot from as well.

Last night's dream was of cats and kittens. That's somehow close to my sense of parenting.

And happy mother's day to my daughters-in-law who mothered my grandchildren!

A rather old photo of a mother's day with my oldest son and his first wife and kids...the youngest of whom just graduated from college!

And here's a salute to all the women who chose to be creative without having children!

Today's quote:

​"No woman should say, 'I am but a woman!' But a woman! What more can you ask to be? Born a woman — born with the average brain of humanity — born with more than the average heart — if you are mortal, what higher destiny could you have? No matter where you are nor what you are, you are a power."

 

Maria Mitchell, astronomer,  In her Life, Letters, and Journals, founding memeber of the American Association for the Advancement of Women.

Standing on the shoulders of our mothers!

Because of their strength, we are here today. And I'm not just talking about the mothers - but all the women who raised/nurtured/mothered us!

Their strength got us through childhood, but first through birth. What wonders our mothers had...pushing us into the world after we had been snuggled under their hearts so long.

That strength got us through young adulthood, when we discovered our own minds, our own sexuality, our own paths that would start us going toward where we are today.  For many of us the strength of our mother was shown when we defied her, and then she had the wisdom to let go.

This Mother's Day I share the strong shoulders who lifted me up so many time when I fell, who embraced me while I cried, and who fed me and gave me life.

 My mother in the years before me!

 My parents,  Mataley Mozelle Webb Munhall Rogers (1917-2003) and George Rogers in their elder years...

My mother during her productive working years in St. Louis, MO. She worked so that my sister and I could attend a private school.

My mother on right about the time she married in 1936. On left is my father's mother, Ada Swasey Rogers (1886-1964).  She became a guiding force for my parents for quite a while as young adults.

 Dad's mother, Ada Rogers, in her elder years.

Ada Rogers as a young girl.

 My mother's mother, Mozelle Booth Munhall (1897-1960) in her younger years.

Mozelle Munhall in her elder years

My great grandmother Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller (1873-1936, mother of Mozelle) in her elder years.

This photo below is dated '25, where Eugenia B. Miller stood next to my mother, Mataley, as a child with 2 of her friends, at her home in San Antonio TX. I was named Barbara Booth after my great grandmother! In 1925 my great grandmother would have been 52, and my mother would have been 8.

The Booth family home, built in 1855, Hillsborough TX (photo from the 1970s)

And I'll give a bit of my genealogy of the Booth mothers in my ancestry.

Eugenia Booth Miller's mother was
Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth (1852-1875) who lived in the Booth home in Hillsborough TX.

Her mother was
Susan Elizabeth Hoke Witty (1817-1895) who first moved from Alabama to Hill County TX.

Her mother was
Elizabeth Hunt Hoke (about 1793-1846) who may have been born in South Carolina or Alabama.

Her mother was unknown.

I have a few thousand grandmothers, but many of them don't have their mothers' names.  So when I look back 12 generations or so, these mothers were usually through their sons in my records.  But this post is just about the mothers of mothers.  I would not qualify since I only had 3 sons.

Have a little fun!

Some fun photos come to mind...so I'll share a couple that I can find easily. 

The prompt photo has some folks on a beach kind of standing on one foot and moving toward the water, but they are fully dressed. (below) Just hamming it up.  I thought immediately of one of the photos of my father's family.

From l to r, father George Rogers Sr, son Alec, son Chauncey and son (my father) George Jr. posing as an Indian.  The middle two uncles are making gestures as well, with Alec posing as Napoleon, and I don't know what the thumb raised gesture of Chauncey might be.  But he's also thrust at a balanced pose.

The home at 1201 Woodlawn in San Antonio has a also been mentioned in some of my prior posts.

But I want to include some more of the family, so here's my grandmother, Ada Rogers, walking with her youngest, Jimmy.

This was dated at 1936. I know the Rogers family lived in San Antonio from 1935 to 1942.  Uncle Jimmy was probably 14 when this photo was taken. He joined the Navy in 1941 when he was 19.

And fast forward to 1953, this shot of my mother, Mataley Rogers on L with her eyes closed, walking with Dorothy (Dottie) Rogers, wife of James Rogers taken in Stevens Point, WI.  I like how my father labeled the photo "Leave it to Honey to shut her eyes. It's good of Dottie too."

Thanks for suggesting some  interesting shots related to this photo at Sepia Saturday this week.

"We are dancing along this week with a somewhat odd couple - the girl on the left is brewery heiress Grania Guinness, and the main on the right is Australian actor Cyril Ritchard. The story behind their odd pose has been lost, but that doesn't matter because they are inviting you to share you old photographs: whether they be of dancing, odd poses or anything you like.

Thanks Alan for hosting this meme!

 

 

Groups of people - the Rogers in the 30s

I just found an interesting old photo of my family.

This photo is a bit different than our usual full length ones (why did they think we had to see the shoes someone was wearing, I wonder!)

Pictured front, grandmother Ada Swasey Rogers, then two women behind her on left is Donah V. Pelphry Rogers, and on right, my mother, Mataley Mozelle Munhall Rogers...and the three men in the back are on l. Alex Rogers, then my dad George Rogers Jr, then on r, George Rogers Sr., my grandfather  But they really enjoyed this set-up, where my dad must be standing on something, and Ada (Gummy) is leaning down to get short enough for the camera.  And who do you think took it?

Another shot with same scenery, and this one includes information which we could have guessed, a Christmas gathering.  That snowman kind of helps.  Here my mother, Mataley, Ada (Gummy) and Aunt Sissy (Donah V.)

Same outfits, but now the happy family is standing out by the road.  My dad George Jr, Mataley my mom, Gummy Ada, and George Sr, Poppy.

My parents Mataley and George Rogers,  had been married about 1 month for this photo, with Gummy (Ada Rogers) approving.

And in 1938 there is another Christmas gathering.  Small tree, but these were all adults.  Men are from l. to r, George Jr, Alex, Chauncey, James, and George Sr (Poppy).  Women are l to r, Mataley, Donah V (Sissy) and Ada Rogers (Gummy.)

And assuming it's the same house it is now identified, 400 E. Myrtle.  Of course I'm guessing it's San Antonio, because that's where my parents met.  Aunt Sissy and Uncle Alex must have driven from Houston, where they were living (according to the census reports.) They had married in Oklahamo in 1933, then lived Houston by 1935.

 And thanks to Google, here is 400 E. Myrtle St. in San Antonio in 2016.

The lot to the right had a house demolished between 2011 (there's a photo of the neighborhood then) and 2016.  And wait till you see what is next door on the left!

I wonder if that building was built with 6 apartments in mind...I kind of think so.  Glad my grandparents didn't see it, the way it dwarfed their sweet little cottage.  I think it's nice that a ramp has been built for someone with a wheelchair.  But unfortunately, that shadowy thing outside the fence on the far right, is a pile of furniture including a mattress and a wood chair.  Google is fun to go up and down the street.  And how the trees have changed since 1937!



Another group of people, this time men concentrating on a chess game, for Sepia Saturday this week!