Mother

    Our Mother was a prim and proper lady that fell in love with a handsome scoundrel and couldn't say no to his charm.  That led her down a long hard painful road for the rest of her life. But she stayed prim and proper and kept her dignity. We ask her to help us write a story about her life. She said she didn't want anything to do with the book, that it would be to hard to go back over her life.  She was from the old school where you sweep your troubles under the rug and hide them and pretend they do not exist.
    Our Mother was a treasure, She had so many talents and was so giving. I remember when we lived in Short Creek AZ, she had lots of friends. She was always doing something for someone else.
    When we moved to the Ranch she seemed so sad. She was all alone, no friends and stuck out in the boonies with just her children to keep her company. She was a task master. We spent hours out in the garden pulling weeds. Beth and I would go hide behind the house and play cars, trying to get out of work. At night she would read to us as we sat around coal oil lamps for light. Some of the books I remember were, The Last of the Mohican's, Huckleberry Finn, The Silver Challis, Tom Sawyer, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice. It made the evenings with no electricity and no TV, bearable. How did we survive.
    One of the gifts she gave us was her example of good health. She said "your health is your responsibility, not the Dr's". We had an herb bible and when someone was sick she looked up what herbs to use, and got them from her herb garden. We drank lots of herb teas, and ate very simple foods. Not a lot of sugar or rich foods. Hell, we were so poor we didn't have money for all the good stuff. We ate out of our garden. Our Dad was too cheep to kill a cow so we could have meat, so when we did get meat it was a treat. We did have milk cows and chickens.   We only went to a Dr. if we had a broken bone. Every Deer Hunting season we had lots of people come up and bring us goodies. I remember the first time we all got to drink our own soda. It was to much junk at one time and we were all puking our guts out. That's how pure we were back then.   For having 18 pregnancy's she was a very healthy lady. I am very grateful  for all the things she taught me. I love her, and I miss her.

Lilly