I recall watching the early tides of our mother.
She was not a natural housewife when she married Dad. It was frankly like she had entered a different culture...
His line was of strong widows and strong wives and strong mothers holding together tradition and agricultural labourer bloodlines of deep maroon.
Whereas hers was of half-trained mothers trying to grasp the wind and harness music and woodwork, and of aunts who sang hymns and spun nieces and grand-nieces and great-great-nieces as legacy lace.
Mum built her own little family, holding together her facade whilst dusting off her career threads to become a wife and mother.
It was what every woman was meant to be trained to do, but she waa trained in the college of The Aunts, where the motto was "Never Rely on a Man. Always Have a Career to fall back on."
Only now doing the family tree do I realise that those words were their mother's regards a father (known more for roaring at the family than for doting and delighting in them)'s abandonment of her and four teenage children; for her earlier abandonment through widowhood when pregnant with an older aunt; for war's abandonment of a great-granddaughter and the farewell gift from a soldier; for the parcels passed to another great-granddaughter; for the unforseen future; and for me.
Dad's Mum showed her the office system in use. There was the clip and - there was the spike.
Mum's career was as a locum Chemist. Throughout the state she would travel and relieve rural chemists and allow them not just the luxury of a holiday, but the delightful service of a job well done, a shop tidied and cleaned and organised with a completed stocktake and accounts all up to date. She was booked years in advance.
I don't really wonder at any diagnoses of new-fangled alphabets in any related to me. These people were my example.
Mum converted the clip and spike into triple-journals and general ledgers. She calculated interest rates and diversified investment and streamlined the payments process.
She couldn't cook a thing. Her mother-in-law was a third-generation CWA devotee steeped in full Queensland History of Hospitality. Grandma could cook a roast with the best gravy, her scones were singular and her lemon butter spoken about in show pavilions,
Dad was one of the originating Brangus studs in Australia. He was very enthusiastic about the potential.
Mum became a studmaster, training herself on husbandry and genetics and the science of fertility and artificial fertility temp-testing techniques and traits and handling and developing systems to best keep these records.
She became adept at marketing and networking and held committee roles with industry and women's groups and early internet exchanges.
So sometimes her house wasn't perfectly tidy and the benches were never quite clear.
It was her humanity showing.
(To Be Continued...)
(Maybe)
7 comments:
It's interesting to read what makes people who they are and how they got there.
My mother learned "never rely on a man" (or even "others") too late. I did an entry on a writing site about it once and I think I used it in a post on my blog as well. All that to say, I made sure I would never be in that position.
Life is a balance and what works for one, doesn't always work for another.
So true Kelly. And sometimes life comes along and will change the factors that will allow it to work or not work too. The more we look at history, the more we see a lot of what might have been also. And some look for romance in those might have beens too.
I love the idea of women shaping and advising the next generation, urging them towards independence and self reliance. It was an uncommon gift in those days.
That's our Mama... bless her. Thank God she is ours. x
Debby I think that it is a connection that we were raised not to notice but has always been there.
Aren't we blessed, BB?
I remember my mum always being sure our home was clean enough for Royalty to knock on the door and be welcomed (always keep your home as if expecting important visitors), then she packed up and left me and dad to ourselves. Years later I went to live with her in order to get a job (nothing available in my tiny hometown) and her main aim from then on was to get me safely married, so I could stay home and have grandchildren for her. I didn't mind since I discovered that once I was married I wanted nothing more than to keep house and have children. And my home was always clean enough to invite royalty should they ever come knocking. My children are different, I never pushed them in any direction and now all four of them have jobs and three of them also have children, four of those children also have jobs of their own choosing.
We were always told that our table manners should be fit for a queen!
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