Remembering My Mother

Mom would have been 93 today. She died last September 5, as a mocking bird sat outside her window singing its heart out. Today I want to pay tribute to her memory.

Thelma Irene McLaughlin was born December 24, in the front bedroom of a home in Evansville, Indiana - the third child of William Clay and Nila Jane Austin McLaughlin, from mostly Irish/English/Dutch stock. Her father was a carpenter, building and selling houses; he seemed to have more drive and ambition than the rest of his family.

With two older brothers, she was a bit of a tomboy growing up. Also a bit headstrong and interested in boys, as a teenager! At 19, toward the end of the Great Depression, she married Bert McBroom after graduating from high school. Soon she was pregnant with me. A little over 2 ½ years later my brother Ronnie joined the family.

She was always a good, conscientious and caring mother, raising us to be a credit to society, to the best of her ability! She made judicious use of the “Persuader,” a yardstick that hung conveniently on the wall, taught me to read at four, and to copy “thank you” notes for birthday and Christmas presents when I was five. As I grew older, she also taught me the housewifely arts – cleaning, cooking and sewing. And because she had not taken advantage of her opportunity to learn to play the piano as a girl, she saw to it that I had that opportunity.

Shortly before my first baby was born, she wrote a long letter telling me about her experience carrying me – a letter I greatly treasure. It was one of the few times she let her emotions show; I think she wished she could be with me, clear across the country from her, at that special time.

Mom had a rather intense, ambition-driven, introverted personality which made her prefer solitary pursuits, while Daddy was an easy-going extrovert who loved being around people – a recipe, as are most marriages, for difficulties and problems. Yet in spite of all, there was love and commitment and endurance. There are many warm, happy memories mixed with times of tension and stress.

Our relationship was often difficult; not because I wanted it to be, but I guess in some ways I was too much like her and in other ways too much like Daddy and she had a hard time getting along with me. I’m so thankful that for the last 14 years of her life we managed to stay in a good relationship! I think I was always trying to earn her approval, but she didn’t believe in giving praise.

When I was 12 Mom decided to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse. This was in the days when few married woman attempted anything like that, but her tenacity and drive got her through a year of pre-nursing classes and three years of training. In some ways, I think she also tried to live out a continuation of her dad’s lifestyle, buying, building or fixing up houses and selling them, hopefully for a profit.

Mom was a diligent student of the Bible. She enjoyed making up her own Bible studies and in her last years especially studied Daniel and Revelation. She often had discussions – or arguments – on religious topics with her brother Tom in their later years.

Mom was an organizer of things and needed order – her particular brand of order – in her surroundings. I remember, with a smile, her sorting of the rocks and pebbles she had sifted out of the ground as she prepared her garden, into small, large and medium sizes, and carefully “paving” a pathway at her house in Grizzly Flats, where she lived after Daddy died.

Mom attended the deaths of many of her relatives: Aunt AnnaVliet and Uncle Del, Uncle Tom and Aunt Rita, her own mother, and Daddy. I am so thankful that Ron and especially his wife Jo took such tender, loving care of her in her last illness. She outlived everyone in the family of her generation, except one much younger cousin. Her death was probably caused by rapidly progressing ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), although she didn’t go to her doctor to be diagnosed. She had a distrust of doctors and argued with them about her treatment and diagnoses! I loved her dearly and I miss her sorely.