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Having four brothers coaxed my mother toward the athletic side and she always spoke vividly of being on various basketball teams. At St. Mary’s she made varsity. Here is her acceptance note for the team, the felt patch from her uniform, and a copy of the St. Mary’s school yell.
I’m not sure what a “tally” card is; I think it has something to do with the game of bridge, but there were several decorative ones in my mother’s scrapbook. I chose this one because of the mysterious and somewhat touching greeting.
My mother saved a few letters from home, and I’m hoping they represent many more, but I guess even the cost of a stamp was meaningful in those days. It isn’t clear that my mom made it home very often, even for Christmas. The second letter is from her younger brother Jim.
I never met my mother’s father — he died when I was just a baby. So I was glad to find one of his business cards. The alfalfa business must not have been too good, however, as I know my mother’s family was dirt poor during those years, and my mother loved to tell of getting a dust pan for Christmas one year.
I like that the school newspaper was simply called “Smatterings,” and that to leave campus you had to have a “Parlor Call Card.” I don’t think my mother got a lot of visitors or she probably wouldn’t have held on to just the one card.
I don’t know who Eileen is, but she was kind enough to send my mother enough money to get a permanent, which I imagine was a big treat, and she hand-drew a lovely picture on the card. They didn’t have clip art in those days.
My mother’s scrapbook ends with her diploma, which I’m including because of the odd calligraphy. I imagine calligraphy was a hobby of one of the nuns, perhaps the same one who taught penmanship.
There was actually one more thing in my mother’s scrapbook, tucked inside the back cover, and it says as much about my mother as the rest of the items. She was always prepared and would certainly never run out of anything practical. So I wasn’t surprised at all when I found a full envelope of mounting corners, just waiting for memories that never came.
This article was last modified on March 8, 2021
This article was first published on July 2, 2010
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Thanks for sharing you memories with us. I’m glad you found what surely was one of your Mom’s hidden treasures.
It was an emotional and visual experience and it truly shows the power of visual communication and how one can communicate to another generation no matter if its your mother or an unknown person from another side of the world. It was a beautiful experience thanks for sharing.
Great stuff! I always enjoy looking at your column. Don’t know how much paper my dad will have to go through, but I think I’ll shoot his junkyard and post it somewhere one of these days.
Keith McGraw
Thank you! I truly appreciate what you have shared with us. With both of my parents now deceased, I have just returned from traveling to my family home of 60 years, which has recently sold. While there, I packed up all of the memorabilia from my parents years of raising our family of five children. In the midst, I discovered my mother’s keepsake box, which was filled with hidden treasures of times past. I also came across some special treasures of my father. I will pass these down to my children, nieces and nephews, and hope that they continue to convey our family story.
Thanks for sharing you memories with us. I’m glad you found what surely was one of your Mom’s hidden treasures. Knowing our parents for all of our lives, we tend to hear the same stories over and over. I treasure the times when something triggers a memory for my dad and I find out something about him that I never knew.
Thanks for sharing your mom’s high school life with us. It’s eye opening to find someone you always thought of as “mom” or “dad” or “uncle” were just as complex and interesting as we like to think we ourselves are. The discovery of shared traits and abilities hopefully makes us realize and appreciate the connections between generations.