| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Marybeth |
Posted - May 11 2008 : 12:17:35 AM
Happy Mother's day to my mother AND to all the farmgirls.
My mother at age 8
oops I lost the rest. Oh well MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| 25 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| DearMildred |
Posted - May 14 2008 : 10:39:04 AM
What wonderful, wonderful pictures!!! I love the old ones so much. Strength and grace.
Kathie, I HAVE to catch my mom off guard to take her picture or else she usually holds something up in front of her face. |
| frannie |
Posted - May 14 2008 : 08:05:11 AM
gayle, i love the pics of your mom. in the early one she reminds me of ....oh gosh i'm having one of those forgetful moments. the woman who played opposite jimmy stewart in its a wonderful life. was it donna reed? anyway she looks like that movie star. and in the more current pic she is just beautiful. i worked in "nursing homes" for many years and i just love the faces of older people. there is a look of strength and fragility all at the same time. but the eyes tell all, and your mom has some pretty eyes.
thanks to everyone for sharing the pics and to sweet marybeth for thinking of such a great thread.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| Kathie |
Posted - May 14 2008 : 07:22:54 AM
Gayle your Mother Is so gorgeous!
What a beautiful woman!
Don't you just love the charm that these woman seemed to carry with them back then.. so amazingly pure & simply beautiful!
Kathie.. Farm Girl Sister #29
"In a World Where you Can Be Anything, Be Yourself".. |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - May 14 2008 : 06:44:19 AM
Wow, look at Frannie. What a stunner. Such a beautiful woman you are! And I mean ARE.
Gayle, those are wonderful photos...thanks for sharing.
Farmgirl Sister #80, thanks to a very special farmgirl from the Bluegrass..."She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian.
http://www.buyhandmade.org/ |
| Marybeth |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 9:02:06 PM
GiGi, A beautiful woman---then and now. thanks for the pics. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| GiGi58 |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 6:56:52 PM
Here are couple of pictures of my mom -- one is of her when she was just 16 years old and going to the "Gold and Green Ball" at the Church. The dress was bought at a nice store in Billings, Montana and cost about $10 (a lot of money back then) and it was turquoise. The picture was taken in a field of tulips at the house where she now lives. She was/is so beautiful to me!
Then, the second picture is of her just last year when I was up in Montana taking care of her (and, I am going back in a few days to help out again) and was taken at the same house only about 65 years later. Oh, how we change with aging, but the inner beauty is still there as I see it in Mom.
Nothing like going back in time. I am so glad I have these photos of her, now, especially with all that is going on with her health. Thank you for letting me share.
Hugs and Smiles,
GiGi
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain" |
| Marybeth |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 5:55:57 PM
Fran, Amanda and Theresa, thanks for the wonderful pics. Moms are the best. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| farmgrlchick |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 1:32:18 PM
The best moms turn into Annette? No the best grandmas!
Farmgirl Blessings,
Theresa
http://theresaslavenderbox.blogspot.com/ |
| Kathie |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 10:06:36 AM
Gosh these are GREAt pictures!!!!
Everyone looks So Pretty don't they in the older vintage shots?
Frannie of course your gorgeous Now.. but I LOVE seeing all of the pictures of you growing up! You always were so Stunning!
Every picture i've ever seen of you reminds me of this..!
I always have this horrid look of surprise on my face.. or am EATING!!
WHY don't the people around me ALLOW me a moment to prepare!
THEY LOVED catching me off guard WAY too much..
I'll have to see wht I can come up with of my Mom..
They are almost ALL funny as ever! She ALWAYS looks like she was Crying!
Pitching a fit about something & NOT getting her way i suspect!
LOVE these Pictures Girls!
Kathie.. Farm Girl Sister #29
"In a World Where you Can Be Anything, Be Yourself".. |
| frannie |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 09:20:57 AM
![]() 
this is a pic of me and my mom and the two youngest girls.
(they are now 21 and 24) but i like the old "vintage" pics, i was thinner then!
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| frannie |
Posted - May 13 2008 : 09:04:03 AM
amanda, you look beautiful in that picture! where is the dorky part? i missed it.
iwish you could post the pics of the big rollers, i lived in those as a youngun, i had this incredibly coily hair and lived in the humidity capital of the world and was always trying to tame my hair. it didnt work!
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| DearMildred |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 3:39:42 PM
Frannie, I don't know the girl in the picture, I think she was just a wedding guest. We were at Wanda's daughter's wedding reception.
I have a GREAT picture at home of Mom & Wanda in the early 70s, wearing gas station attendant shirts and nylons with their hair up in huge rollers. I think she'd kill me if I scanned it in though!
Here's a (rather dorky) picture of Dad, Mom and me from a few years ago.
I love the pictures of your mom too - and the sentiment. Beautiful stories.
Thanks Marybeth for starting this thread!
~Amanda in OK~
Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered by your old nonsense. -Emerson |
| frannie |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 11:10:50 AM
amanda, your mom and her best friend are too cute, but the pic of your mom in high school is beautiful.
and who is the woman behind the door in the first pic.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| DearMildred |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 11:02:35 AM
Here's one of my mom and her best friend Wanda a few years back - those two have been tight since middle school!
And here's my mom in her senior year of HS - I love this one.
Right now she lives in Ohio and I live in Oklahoma. I miss her terribly, though we talk on the phone almost every day. My mom is my best friend! |
| frannie |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 10:43:21 AM
i do wish that our society was a little more family friendly in the work place than it is.
i think as young marrieds we actually had it better than our parents, AND now better than our children. i think in general the work place that i see with my children has become less family friendly than it was in our generation, so while both people as expected to work out of the home and sacrifice the home life the work place isnt as supportive of families. at least that it what i see in our part of texas. we are a right to work state, so here they can let ya go just "cause" and that includes sick children, or trouble with day care etc.
all of my kids except my son have jobs that have them essentially on call 7/24 but they dont get paid well and they dont have benefits.
when i was young it seemed all jobs had more reasonable family friendly schedules and people wouldnt think of putting you on rotating shifts and schedules unless you were a high paid employee. i think it is strange that our society and politicians like to tout family values but they dont seem to do anything to support that in the work place. my dh is a mediator on his job with labor disputes and it is incredible some of the things that are done to american workers. the rules have really decreased over the last 15-20 years and the ones we have are not enforced.
anyway,for something a little different, i have to say, i have always thought no body makes it out of childhood without some things they have to rethink, cause even with the best of intentions, we dont always know what kind of world we are trying to prepare our children for. but if you have had a kind of topsyturvy upbringing i think sometimes you feel you are the only one who doesnt "cope" so well or who has unanswered questions.
i think we all come out of childhood like that its just a matter of degree. i think folks who do the best are the ones who recognize that while their parents tried, maybe they just didnt get it all right and that as adults they may just need to fill in the blanks and finish the job that their parents couldnt or didnt do. thats why i think you find people who learn, stay focused and become wonderful parents even if that isnt exactly what they had. i think it is important to forgive people who didnt exactly do it right, but i think the person in charge of that should always be the child, it should happen when they are ready. i think, jonni, if your husband hasnt forgotten, and is trying to determine what should have been done for him, that means he is trying to grow and be a better possible parent than what he had...and i think that is the sign of a very thoughtful person. i think that person has more potential to be a better parent than someone who just refuses to examine things and learn from them. i would say, though that i have never met a parent that didnt make mistakes and that i always like to look at peoples intentions. as a young mother, i thought my job was to protect my children from hurt, i didnt have aclue that if you were too protective you could do harm. by the time i figuted it out i was already well on my way to raising children that had a little too much fear in their lives and not enough confidence. i think parents should learn everything they can about parenting before they become parents and then at some point become your own expert and just operate out of love.
oh, i dont know, i wish i had some great answers, seems i have just always been full of wonder and questions, among other things.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 10:04:36 AM
This forum has made me think of the way women all around me live--that before I'd learned about Mary Jane's Farm and these farmgirls, homeschooling or stay at home mom's were just something I couldn't comprehend. Not having children myself, and always working in a corporate environment, I just didn't wrap my mind around it...but, Frannie...I've been pondering over this for a while...especially since Justin and I have taken on the idea of starting a family this year...What you say is valid--being at home with your children, providing for them in ways that money can't make a difference... My poor husband--he didn't have a real happy childhood, and unlike you, his parents divorced, but it wasn't amiable. He lived off and on with each parent, until his mother couldn't handle him in his early teens and she gave up custody. After that, his father put him in a boy's home, and it's taken a long time to get over that for him...I don't know that he's not forgiven, but he sure doesn't forget easily. His mother is a lovely woman, but different, and suffered her own childhood cruelties, and I think that she loved him until he wouldn't let her love him anymore...his baby book with her handwritten entries is hardbreaking. Her first born, she wrote in it until 1st grade, adding pages. She stayed home with both he and his sister, but after the divorce, had to start working. Then she remarried and had another little one.
Personally, I would like to get to the point that, at least for the first 6 years (if we can have a little one) that I could stay home, at least part of the time...I've always been the stable income and I always think of my mother saying, "I would have loved to have been home for you more..to see you jump off the school bus and have a snack ready..." but it just wasn't possible with daddy's job, and she was a product of the 60's, when women could "be" anything, so she liked to work.
I do wish that lifestyles were different now...were more simple somehow. That it wasn't so expensive to just live. That houses didn't cost over $100k, and that, like my great grandmother, she could stay at home and raise the family and take care of the household. That didn't mean it wasn't work--it was a lot of work. But she was always there for them...
Farmgirl Sister #80, thanks to a very special farmgirl from the Bluegrass..."She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian.
http://www.buyhandmade.org/ |
| Marybeth |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 09:59:04 AM
Well put Fran and Jonni. I thank my lucky stars and of course my late husband, because i got to be a stay at home mom. I am so glad. I see my kids who have to work because today a lot of families have to and come home tired and don't always have the time for their kkids like they want to. We lived out in the country and had horses and ponies and I was as much my kids playmate as they were mine. I think even to my husband I was just one of the kids, I guess that's what happens when one marries so young. My dad died when I was young and my mother had to go to work and I now she would have rather been home with her babies but life happens. I had the best childhood ever though and tried to raise my kids as I was raised. My mom is still the best!!! MB
PS. I have a couple more pics of my mother on another blog.
www.smallcityscenes.blogspot.com MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| frannie |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 09:46:20 AM
i think there probably are women struggling in much the same way that some of our moms before us did but i think in america we have made progress.
my mom had a very stable life as an adult compared to when she was a child and young woman, but there was always a sadness about her that she couldnt seem to conquer.
when i look at the family history of my mom and dads family most of the women did not get to raise their own children. a lot of the children have been raised by the men and i think these losses and especially the early losses affect the children forever.
in my childrens case, after our marriage broke up they all ended up living with their dad and as teenagers would come here and live with me, but i think that it has taken its toll on them as well. i just think nothing can replace a mom, and nothing can replace a dad. i think that when we are raised without them, we can survive it, but it is not the same as when you have both.
i am so grateful every day that as imperfect as it was a had a mom and dad that made me feel safe and happy in my childhood, it is a tremendous gift, that i think all children deserve, a gift to the child, and a gift to society. i wish that my first husband and i could have given that gift to our children.
we didnt have a successful family, but we have had one of the most successful divorces i have ever seen.....but having said that, i still think that is not as ideal as a committed and devoted mom and dad, which is the ideal situation.
so, when i see or hear about mothers in particular who decide to stay home with their children and be a full time mom, and the dads who truly support that in every way, my heart is so happy cause i have seen for many generations now in our family, the consequences of a family without a mom and it affects EVERYTHING.
so on mothers day, i always like to send out a special wish. i think all moms are special, and it is a truly difficult job, but i think women who choose to stay at home and Be There, are really doing the most difficult and most important work in the world.
yesterday was mothers day, i spent it with my husband, my daughter from new york, who i havent seen in over a year(she has been there with her family while her husband has been in afghanistan) my youngest daughter and her daughter,autumn. my daughter's inlaws who i adore,
and my first husband, the father of my 4 children.
my oldest daughter was ill and couldnt attend, but also a little upset with one of her sisters and her dad, so she probably wouldnt have attended, and my son was at his home in austin with his wife. i got a phone call from him when we got home and had a great visit with him.
when you have had a divorce, you dont know how would life have been if......because you do see familys that havent experienced that and they also have many of the problems that i sometimes attribute to the breakup.....but what you dont have is the realization that you gave your children the best, your best shot at sending them out into the world without the questions of what did this do to them.
i do know that i worked as hard as i could to stay in my first marriage and know that my children know that, and that letting them live with their dad was the hardest decision i had ever made in my life (within the year of the separation i had to move to a smaller town as i was very ill and couldnt afford to stay in the affluent town that my children and husband lived in, and then was diagnosed with cancer).
so all of these things come to mind when i think about our choices and how they affect our children. i think that women who choose to stay home, give up some of the financial perks of being in the real world, and i know that you can sometimes feel ambivalent about that ....but i also know from my own childhood, and from my children's childhood that the gift of a happy and safe childhood with a mom who feels dedicated is ...priceless.
so i have to say, even though i know there are women who can do more than "just" stay at home, my heroes have always been moms who are at home, and i thank them for the gift they are giving our society.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 09:09:21 AM
Beautiful and sad, Frannie. Texas probably was full of cowboys (and some Indians) at that time...maybe not fighting for territory, but I bet it was still pretty green.
I agree that we have little hardships compared to those of our mothers, grandmothers and those before...I always think of my Great Grandmother, Theodosia, who said that "she should have been shot" for marrying my Great Grandfather...but she did because she needed to help her parents and baby sister, because both of her brothers died in WW I (one of typhoid, the other in battle). So, as the eldest daughter, she set about trying to find a stable man to send money back home. At 18, she married a man who was 35 (ancient, she said :)) and though I don't think they got a long real well, they did have 3 daughters. Oddly enough, my grandmother, Helen, the oldest of the girls, also gave up her dreams of love and a life outside of Grove City to be close to "home" to care for her parents. She loved a man named Emmett, who was going to be a "big Oil man" down in Texas (and he sure did!!!) and he begged and pleaded for Gran to come with him, but she couldn't (or wouldn't) leave her mother behind so she married my grandfather Roy and they had a terrible marriage for the 6 years he stayed around.
After that, she took in whatever work she could do--laundry, babysitting, whatever, all without a drivers license. She took the bus wherever she needed to go. I guess that's where my mother gets her determination to work and keep things "sane". When my daddy died, she got two more jobs in addition to the one she had, so there would be "more money" and "no time to think". It's always a pleasure to see her enjoying herself, like the photo in Vegas.
I'm still on a mother's day kick--celebrating the maternal line from which we come is vital to who we are today.
Farmgirl Sister #80, thanks to a very special farmgirl from the Bluegrass..."She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian.
http://www.buyhandmade.org/ |
| frannie |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 08:55:53 AM
i did the same thing at las vegas. won some and gave it all back! well we did get to splurge with some of it and take our kids out to eat. they picked a thai vegan restaurant, not our fav but it was fun.
my mom was quite a character, so outspoken and in some ways still had that little 6 year old inside her heart.
a lady who knew my mom since childhood told me once, "i never knew a time when your mom wasnt working and taking care of folks." she lived in the convent when her mom got sick and died and then at some point i think she was about 11 she made a deal with her dad and said if i can come home and be a day student i will cook and take care of everyone. he was a night worker for the railroad with 2 small children so he let her come and live with her grandfather and him and eventually her brother who was also a border at the seminary in la porte, texas. so at 11 mom was going to school and cooking meals for her dad and grandfather and brother and keeping house for them.
my mom died 5 years ago, and when we went through her belongs, i found a letter from her mom which was the last letter she wrote from the tb hospital the night before she died. the letter was about the last visit my grandfather had with her and how she wished he could have tucked my mom in his pocket and snuck her in so she could see her. i think the letter was about 75-80 years old.
my mom didnt really mention her mom much but said that she had no memory of her, just memories of pictures of her.
i think sometimes that we have hard times, but i dont really know if we can feel the isolation and loneliness that women before us must have felt when they had circumstances where they knew or didnt know if they would ever see their own families again when they headed across country to start their own lives.
my grandmother left the tenement houses of brooklyn and her siblings(they lost both parents and raised each other) to marry a man from galveston, texas, my grandfather, a man she had only met once before their marriage. folks tell me she was terrified of texas cause she had read of the 1900 storm and she thought texas was full of cowboys and indians. when she died she had made my grandfather promise not to bury her in galveston, so he took the children and the went to brooklyn so she could be buried by family members there. i'm not exactly sure but i dont think she was 30 years old when she died.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 08:28:41 AM
Frannie, the photos of your mother are wonderful...and what beautiful words about her. What a wonderful woman, and what a gift she raised for this world (you...). Hope you, too, had a wonderful Mother's Day.
My mom did win a little, but she gave it all back she said! She laughed and said, "I know that if you would have won, Jonni, you would have hopped the next plane back home with all your winnings, but not me!!!" We are different that way :)
Farmgirl Sister #80, thanks to a very special farmgirl from the Bluegrass..."She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian.
http://www.buyhandmade.org/ |
| frannie |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 08:22:19 AM
....and thanks to you marybeth for such a great thread and the chance to share our moms. i loved seeing the pic of jonni's mom who is a cutie and i hope she won at the slots, and lea's mom who has the same pretty face that lea has. ...
and of course the treasure of a pic of your mom who raised such a good woman.
thanks again, marybeth and hope to see more pics of our moms, and hope everyone had a great mom's day.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| frannie |
Posted - May 12 2008 : 08:17:14 AM
 [im here are 2 pics of my mom. one is when she was 6 and they took a trip to new york to bury her mom who had died of tuberculosis in san angelo, texas. that is her brother with her.
this is a pic of mom at 16 at her graduation. she was validectorian at the convent where she grew up. she was unable to go to college because her dad did not believe that women needed to be educated because when they married they lost their jobs. that is what happened to my mom 3 years later when she married my dad.my mom was a strong, outspoken progressive women, who i feel was often torn between her traditional upbringing and the barriers that it put on her life.
i am grateful for this strong woman and the life she and my dad gave to me and my sister. they adopted us as infants and gave us a good start in life on the gulf coast of texas.
blessings to you my mama, and thanks for all you did.
love
frannie in texas
(http://farmfolks-frannie.blogspot.com/)
(http://abunnystale.blogspot.com/) |
| Marybeth |
Posted - May 11 2008 : 9:47:45 PM
Jonni and Lea great pictures. I think it is great to share pics of our moms or grandmothers or Aunties. I don't have a scanner either. I just take a picture of the picture with my camera. EASY PEASY!! Just DO it. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| kissmekate |
Posted - May 11 2008 : 8:44:28 PM
I would love to do this, but I don't have a scanner. My Mom was adorable when she was little. But, she is like me and hides from the camera now.
Don't miss out on a blessing, just because it isn't packaged the way you expected. ~MaryJo Copeland |
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