A family history/genealogy has many, many mothers, most of whom are unacknowledged. Mothers have shaped each of the generations to whom they gave birth, passing on beliefs, traditions and family lore. As I move on in life, my mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fade into blurred images for the most part. But some are still vivid many years later.

My mother, Frances Mae Turner, was a happy woman who cared very much for her children. She took good care of us throughout her life and kept in touch with us wherever we happened to be. My last memory of her is a visit I made to Oregon with our son, Eric, in April of 2001, the year that Mom died. Eric and I had stayed at Mom’s place in Springfield, she was in a nursing home in Eugene dealing with the effects of a serious lung problem that would take her life a month and a half later. She was perky and happy that we were there. The morning that Eric and I left, we had planned to stop by for just a moment to let her know we were on our way. However, when we got there we were told we had to wait a bit till she was ready to see us. When we got to her room she was dressed and had her hair done and face made up and sitting up in a chair. It was tearful but heartfelt farewell. I am sure that she knew this would her last chance to greet us and send us off as her real self. I did get to Oregon again toward the end of May. We stayed at her home again and visited her briefly the evening we arrived. Early the next morning we received a call from the home that she was not doing well, we called my sister and brother and went over to visit her early in the morning. We sat by her bed, she was unconscious. Mary and Dick were there and about 9 we went out for breakfast. Mary Lee and I came back and sat with her till she died at about noon. This was a sad day but a relief for her. I shall always remember the way she looked that morning in April when Eric and I left to return to Denver.

My grandmother Anderson (Margaret Holmes) was a kind person who always took time to listen to what you had to say and to help you with your most recent project, in my case it was cutting out cars from advertisements in magazines and pasting them into a scrap book. My most distinct member of Grandmother Anderson is her very white hair with a blue tint. She was a determined woman who lived with a very strong willed man, but managed to keep an even manner about her. She cared very much for her children and grand-children. Toward the end of her life she suffered from Parkinson’s disease but was always cheerful and welcoming. I had an opportunity spend time with her in 1959 just before I was sent overseas.

Grandmother Turner (Jopie Frances Richards) I knew better and longer than Great-Grandmother Turner and Grandmother Anderson. Grandmother Turner was calm loving woman who always seemed to be wearing an apron. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen whether at her home in Woodbine, Iowa or that of the high school where she worked after Grandpa Snazzy died. She wore flower print dresses that came down to her ankles. toward the end of her life, Grandmother Turner would spend about a half year with each of her five children. She was living with Mom and Dad when she became very ill with congestive heart failure. I had the opportunity to visit her often either in Woodbine or in Springfield where she lived with Mom. She knew both her great-grandchildren (our son and daughter) because we were able to visit a couple of time before she died. I recall with sadness the way she declined as her heart condition became worse took away the energy and vitality that had always characterized her.

I recall my great-grandmother Turner (Etta Mae Hoefert), a tiny woman who lives now in a very dim past. I do recall visiting her in the “upper-room” where she lived in Woodbine, Iowa. I have a sense that she was physically frail but mentally alert and strong. After Grandmother Turner died and just before Mom died I was given her wedding ring, a simple silver band so tiny that even my wife Mary Lee could not have slipped it onto her little finger.

I may have known my Great-grandmother Richards (Louella Evans) who died in 1944, eight years after I was born. I think that she may have lived for a time in Woodbine, where our family lived till we left for Oregon in 1940. I only really have any idea about Great-grandmother Evans from the pictures of her in the family albums. She was a large woman with a kindly face. She was the focus of many family get-togethers in her later life.

My Great-grandmother Anderson (Margaret Horney) died before my father was born. Portraits of her done in the late 1800s show her as a matronly woman with tightly curled hair and a very serious expression on her face. I am very sorry that we have little in the way of any letters or things from her day.

And finally, my Great-grandmother Holmes (Margaret Haacke Holmes Newton) lived in Iowa after being raised in Illinois. Again I did not know her as she was a lady of the 19th Century. — born in 1843 she died in 1914 in Scranton Iowa. Photographs of her show a woman of substance and grit. Her daughters, my grandmother and her two sisters, were well educated. They completed an education much greater than was typical of others of that generation. All three graduated from Toulon Academy in Illinois. She managed to keep her family on its way to success in the face of loss. Her first husband, George died 1891 when several of his children were less than 10 years old. Margaret Haacke Holmes kept the family together through hard-work and remarriage to Benjamin Arthur Newton. When she died in 1914 she had successfully launched all of her children a strong life course.

These are the women and ladies we honor on this day. To them I give thanks for all the wonderful qualities passed on to us.