MY MOTHER
INA GENEVA MCGRANAHAN BROWN
1878 - 1939
 

Some time ago I wrote some recollections of my father and my early life, and a suggestion was made that I write something about my mother.  This is something more difficult for me because of the length of time she has passed from this life, in early 1939.  Time has a way of fading one's memory of things long past, but I will do my best to make my mother come to life again for me after about near sixty years.  Again I must say that I have no great recollections about my concern for, or my willingness to be helpful to her.  She was not one to demand much, or expect much from her children.  And I must say, I didn't disappoint her in my anxiety to make her life more desirable or more comfortable.  But away with my excuses.  I will, at this late hour, attempt to get from my memory some things that will make my mother a real person, not just a little plot of ground in the Augusta Cemetery.

To begin with, my recollection of my mother is of a lady perhaps five foot three inches in height, and normally rather well built, not fat, but decidedly not skinny.  She was one who liked nice things, but she never had any of those things.  I recall one occasion I purchased a cheap (very cheap) string of pearls (not real ones of course), and I later came upon her in the front room (the sitting room of our home) admiring those pearls around her neck just like they were something special.  I only regret that I did not have the money, or thought I did not have the money at that time, to buy her some nice things, clothing and other frivolous things that a lady dearly desires.  She would have loved such frivolous things which, of course, she never had the privilege of enjoying them.

My mother was not a meticulous housekeeper.  In fact it is my opinion that she did not particularly like this occupation.  It is small wonder that she didn't because she never had anything nice to take pleasure in around our home.  It was plain, very plain.  Nothing to make any real pleasure in maintaining.  I remember one of the nicest pieces of furnishings, a lamp with two ball shades, which sat in our living room until I bumped the stand on which it sat and caused the top ball to fall to the ground in many pieces.  My mother was very upset by my clumsiness, and as I look back at the incident I now can see why.  This may have been her mother's.  It was one of the nicest and most frivolous articles in our residence and I caused it to disintegrate by one of my awkward maneuvers.  In defense of myself, I might say that I was maneuvering to go through the sitting room after dark and I forgot just where this stand stood until I heard the crash.

What I want to say is that my mother never had anything to keep which was nice.  That very likely was the reason she did not apply herself to maintaining the home that could not be made glamorous.  There were four of us, all boys, who did not expect the home to be glamorous; we were satisfied of things as they were.

My mother's love was music.  The only thing she didn't have was a proper instrument with which to enjoy it.  One of my earliest memories was our organ, a pump job.  No pumping, no music.  Mother could spend hours making the organ come to life.  One of her favorite selections were the old familiar Christian tunes.  To this day I find myself particularly enjoying the melodies of these particular hymns and I must give my mother credit for the joy I get from these old melodies.  Early in her life she must have made a special study of music.  I have no recollection of her work in musical composition, but I did find among the miscellaneous items I received from back home one of the musical selections she had composed.  Whether it was good music, or not, I did not attempt to discover; only that my mother did compose it in her younger days.  In my opinion, she was not a musician.  Like me, she loved it, but did not have the hidden talent to be outstanding in the field.  But I can say, no one ever enjoyed it more than she.  It could have been her life if she had had the hidden talent to pursue it.  Some people have the musical talent, but not the energy and joy that causes them to pursue it.  I am convinced that Mother had the energy and the joy to make a musical life wonderful, but, in my opinion, the Lord didn't give her that magical and inherent ability that makes music come naturally to some.

Not only was it the music that she loved so much, but also she was most familiar with the Bible.  I learned from her the desire to be certain to check "the Book" to see whether any Christian procedure was correct or not.  I recall that I had many discussions with her relative to my desire to play baseball on Sunday.  She never was in favor of this activity, and we arrived at a truce on the subject in which I promised to go to church regularly on Sunday and she reluctantly agreed that I play baseball on the same afternoon.  On one occasion thereafter, a game in which I was playing was attended by some spectators who had indulged in some special liquor which caused them to engage in a brawl.  While I had the feeling that my mother's position in Sunday baseball was likely accurate, I never related to her the ugly occurrence I helped to provide for the drunken spectators who attended our baseball game.  That remained my secret.  But it has always been her influence that has caused me to check "the Book" to ascertain whether any activity, even in a Church I attended, was right or wrong.  That is a legacy she left with me.

During my early life, mother had no money to speak of, certainly nothing to spend upon herself.  Nor not enough, even, to buy the necessities of life.  Later in life, as I remember it, around 1930, she secured work in the pottery in Minerva and then she, for the first time in her life, became "rich."  She had money.  She could proudly march over to Charley Leatherberry's store and purchase groceries to supply the table for all of us.  She never made over $3.00 per hour, perhaps $2.70 per hour, but it was a bonanza to her and she enjoyed her life immensely after she "struck it rich."

It was one of my habits, particularly when mother was working, to spend some time in cleaning house.  I mean by that, doing some "housecleaning" in my style.  Even some paper hanging. I remember purchasing the paper from those catalogues that advertised paper for 15 cents, or 20 cents, a double roll.  And in those housecleaning days, I did run into some trouble with my mother, as she saved everything, and I discarded some things she felt she should have retained.  Among the items were some old corsets that I had relegated to the junk heap, and she expressed her displeasure about my eliminating those treasured articles.  I remember to this day how this incident lead to her displeasure on this one occasion.  I still have no regrets in that I did attempt to help her keep the house in some kind of order, maybe my kind of order.  For the most part she did appreciate my efforts.  I was the only "housecleaner" in our family.  The other boys had not the slightest interest in such feminist occupations.  They used the home as it was, even bringing their friends home, sometimes to stay for the night without any warning.  I recall one morning awaking up in bed to find a long, tall fellow sleeping with me.  My brother, Ralph, had brought him home for an overnight stay and having no room in his bed, borrowed some room in mine for his friend.  PS: I was a sound sleeper in those days!

One thing I can always remember about my mother.  She liked to talk, and she had an old maid friend who loved to visit our home.  But in all her talking I can never recall any unkind remark she ever made about any person at any time.  One family in our town had regular additions to the family.  And every time my mother was called to assist in this new arrival business, she was always told she would be paid for her work.  The only thing was, she never was paid anything for the many days she contributed her efforts to that family.  Mother never complained about the imposition on her.  My dad and I, and other members of the family, strongly advised her not to be imposed on, but when the next addition arrived, mother would be there; and as usual, they would promise to pay her, but promises were never kept.  Even though the members of our family had many unkind comments about her efforts caused by the imposition on her, I never heard my mother say any unkind word about this family.

As I said above, mother had an old maid friend who regularly visited her.  When I say she was an old maid, I say it with the eyes of a child, because I now know this maiden lady was probably not more than 35 years of age, which was old to me.  Maggie, for that was my mother's friend, was dying when I first remember her.  She was continually sick, so she said, and would encourage vomiting to keep her going.  Maggie and my mother talked of many people I didn't know about, and since I have learned about the people they discussed, I now know that her mother and father, and also several sisters and brothers, had all recently died with tuberculosis (consumption they then called it) leaving her the sole survivor.  Since she was, too, anticipating an early death, she felt, or imagined, she was sick, and was on the very edge of death.  Maggie kept dying for many years even after Mother had expired.  I always wondered why my mother and Maggie enjoyed such long discussions but now I know that they both attended Eureka School, an one room country school, when they were youngsters together.  I now believe this was one of the real pleasures my mother enjoyed with her girlhood friend.  Now I wish I could recall some of the discussions Maggie and mother had long ago.

Mother was one who never asked for anything.  It is one of my regrets that I did not do things for her, even though she did not request assistance.  At the time I had no great salary, but I did have more than she had and could have been of considerable assistance.  She was independent and paddled her own canoe.  I did take her to the World's Fair in Chicago.  We traveled all night on Friday evening, visited the fair on Saturday and Sunday, and returned on Sunday evening.  Mary Lou's {Turnipseed Garrett} mother went along with us on this trip, and I recall Mary Lou's mother, named Mary {Kinsey Turnipseed}, watching for the five or ten cent hamburgers along the way.  Mother's funds were unknown to me, but apparently she had enough to enjoy some of the things available at that fair.  On another occasion I took her to Toronto, Canada, to visit some old friends, the Hutchinsons, who formerly lived near Augusta.  I believe we took Maggie, the old maid mentioned above, along with us.  At this time, we visited the Hutchinson family, stayed for a few days, and then returned.  I believe these were the only trips mother ever experienced that I now recall.  I do not recall ever taking her to a nice place to eat, or of taking her to any other joyful experience.  Those were the days of cheap hamburgers, nothing of any expense to those who traveled.  These, as I remember it, are the only two "luxuries" that she enjoyed.

Mother died long before Maggie expired.  She did not reach 62 years.  She suffered from cancer of her ovaries and adjacent parts of her body.  She had an operation and was to return to Canton in six months for a follow up procedure, and my dad and my sister-in-law felt that she could do very well with the advice of Dr. Taylor of East Rochester and not return to Canton as she was advised to do. That advise was fatal for mother.  In her last illness her doctor was Dr. Sam Weir of Minerva.  Sam knew he couldn't cure her of her physical difficulty; it had progressed beyond his ability to be of assistance.  But she had great faith in him and he had the unhappy duty of assisting her in an impossible situation.  So, in an early morning hour in, I believe, January, 1939, all of my brothers were at home in Augusta early in the morning, after she had suffered a particularly hard night, with morphine shots every three hours.  I recall we had just debated the wisdom of giving her another shot, even though the three hours had not elapsed from the previous one, and while we were debating, death gave her final relief.

One thing I didn't mention, mother had an affinity for boys.  In the Christian Church in Augusta she taught a class of boys, no girls whatsoever, only boys.  And when she was laid to rest in the cemetery in Augusta, you may be sure her boys from the church participated.  That would be a special pleasure for her.

This last paragraph immediately above is not made to leave the impression that the four boys she cared for, and at times endured, were of such angelic nature that she just had to have boys in her class at Bible School.  Far from it.  They often left much to be desired.  Just as mother loved music, but did not have the inherent talent to be a master at the organ or piano, she did have an inherent talent to love boys, regardless of whether they deserved to be loved, or not.  So when she departed this earth it was only natural that she have, participating in her service, the boys she loved during her lifetime.  That, in short, was my mother.

Much as all of her boys took her for granted, they were on hand when she died.  And they all cooperated to help my father give her a proper burial.  It is my unhappy recollection that we, as boys, stood by her when she did not know we were being helpful.  How much better it would have been if we had been on hand when she could have enjoyed the happiness and pleasure each of us could have helped her to enjoy.  In retrospect, I comfort myself by knowing that she loved boys, and in this manner she obtained the happiness that she had during her lifetime.

Paul

PS: I realize that this is very sketchy and that she deserves much more than I can give herein.  It is offered as "Something may be better than nothing."  I claim nothing more than this.