Thanks, Mom

Last week was the anniversary of my mother’s birth. She was born in 1918, which seems like so long ago (a century!), yet if a mother’s son represents one generation, it was not long at all as human history goes. Yet look at all the dramatic changes that have occurred since she was born. She was born in England just as WWI ended – the war to end all wars (not.) Her family emigrated to Canada one year later for my granddad to work on the railroad. I suspect one reason he survived the “Great War” when so few English men his age did is because he was a railroad man. That would have been a vital occupation, exempt from conscription.

Grandad took advantage of the homesteading laws in Canada and planted his brood on the prairie while he rode the rails – often for weeks at a time. That meant Mom lived “Little House on the Prairie” for real – with no indoor plumbing, no electricity, and no Pa. In 1919, that meant horse and buggy transportation (if you could afford a horse) and trains for longer distances. Commercial air travel was in its infancy (first flight in 1914) and out of reach for homesteaders in any case. Telegraph messaging was the latest thing. I don’t know much about Mom’s childhood in the little house on the prairie, but one story resonates with me. She said there was a tree in her yard that she loved to climb. Supposedly, her favorite times were spent at the top of the tree dreaming into the distance.

Eventually, Grandad moved the family to Windsor, Ontario. Apparently, Granny wasn’t cut out for ranch life. With the onset of the Depression, one went where there was work. Being across the river from Detroit, Michigan, Windsor fell into the booming auto industry. A young man from West Michigan eventually drifted into the automobile capital of the world as one of the few places where work could be found in the Great Depression, and in a local theater company he met Mom.

The rest, as they say, is history. But what a history! Not long after she was married, and carrying their first child, Mom had to move in with her mother-in-law because the Second World War came knocking. Her new hubby flew as a navigator in the Pacific at first and then was tapped to teach at Lackland AFB in Texas. After the war, he and Mom set up housekeeping back in West Michigan. Grand Rapids, like most cities, had geared up for the war, and there were foundries and factories and machine shops everywhere. While Dad got busy in manufacturing, Mom got busy making babies.

This is where I enter the story behind my three older sisters. But I have to pause and marvel at the difference between my childhood and my Mom’s. Where she spent her early years in a small cabin with no plumbing or electricity, I was brought home from the hospital to a three-bedroom house (built by my Dad BTW) with all the modern utilities and two cars in the driveway. Because my parents were not rich enough to ride above the tempest that was The Great Depression and then WWII, they knew what hardship was.

As much as any normal human hates war, one has to be amazed at how WWII ended the depression and rocketed the United States into a whirlwind of development. I never knew anything but the unbelievable luxury that was middle-class, mid-twentieth century American prosperity. I couldn’t understand why Mom pinched pennies so hard Lincoln screamed. I get it now, intellectually at least. Then, I couldn’t understand why although Dad became more and more successful, Mom still made our clothes or bought them from the Sears sale catalogues. I was never hungry or unclothed, but I longed for soda pop and candy bars and McDonald’s hamburgers.

Mom rebounded from depression and war to a state of continual frugality. I’m ashamed to say I rebounded from the strictures of our home to a state of reckless consumerism. The American banking system “helped” me by making credit insanely easy to obtain. My mantra became, “If I can afford the payment, I can afford to buy it.” That mentality has left me in my retired state with a tiny Social Security benefit and an empty savings account. Granted, the government could have done much better with my FICA contribution, but at least I have something to show for my years of deductions. (See “Social Insecurity” for more of my opinion)

One thing I did get from Mom (and Dad) is a faith in the God who created everything and love for His Word. They became involved with a Restoration Movement church (Church of Christ, Christian) when I was young. The organization’s mantra was, “No creed but Christ; no book but the Bible.” Its founders were nineteenth century refugees from protestant denominations who believed they were not protesting something but restoring something: original New Testament Christianity. In my twenties I attended one of their Bible colleges and fell head over heels in love with the Word of God.

To this day I am grateful that Mom and Dad set me in the direction of the Restoration Movement. I have come across many sincere believers from protestant denominations, Baptist denominations, charismatic denominations, and various non-denominational associations. But it is the unwavering determination to read and live the Bible that has made me what I am in Christ today. I appreciate A.W. Tozer’s opinion of this: “Whatever it may be in our Christian experience that originates outside the Scriptures should, for that very reason, be suspect… until it can be shown to be in accord with them…. No experience can be proved to be genuine unless we can find chapter and verse authority for it in the Scriptures…. Beware of any man who claims to be wiser than the apostles or holier than the martyrs of the Early Church. The best way to deal with him is to rise and leave his presence!”

To reach that position, we have to know the Word intimately. To know the Word on that level we have to read it daily, deeply, devotionally. To be effective, we have to pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us to an understanding that will build the kingdom of God on earth and bring glory to His name. That kind of commitment is all but gone from my generation. It’s what Mom’s generation strove for; it’s what she would have wanted from me. You could do worse than be like her in that respect. Thanks, Mom.