MY MOTHER - GLADYS DAVIS HOLT

My mother is all gone. My mother and I had good times together. We took a French course together. She was pretty darned good - she was very smart. We went to the YWCA classes together. My mother was mostly interested in people's problems and helping new people who came to the country. She would help them with the English language and trying to make them feel at home in this country. She was a real club woman. Clubs that helped bring up children, anything that would help her keep up to date on new ways of doing things.

We did a lot of things together after I got my license to drive. She thought once I had my license I should give her rides and she could go lots a places. I would drive her downtown to stores to go shopping. I would take her any place she wanted to go. Sometimes to visit a friend. Of course I was only available after school. Sometimes I would take her to the hairdresser. My mother got her license after my father died. I did not like to ride with her.

My mother had one sister, Victoria. Victoria was the social butterfly. She was very, very outgoing. I remember that my mother had some serious surgery when I was in my teens. It seems that she was in the hospital for a long time. My dad and I took care of the house and ourselves and had a lot of meals out together.

When I was growing up we had to do chores divided between me and my sister Ruth. Ruth use to boss me around and I would end up doing a lot of the chores. We always did the dishes. I remember having to do the dusting. Such a senseless thing to do as once you finished it you had to do it again. We always made our beds in the morning. These would be all "girl's" chores. My brother would do other chores like stacking wood. Once he stacked the wood in the cellar in the form of a little house that had a little door and everything. He managed to make his chores fun.

My parents would go out in the evening. Every Tuesday my father was out for band reherssal. My mother would go out to church ladies clubs. They would go out to visit friends on Saturday night - the Canfields is one I remember. And sometimes the Canfields would come to our house. They would play cards and have something to eat. As kids we were not invited to be around on visiting night. Sometimes I would sit at the top of the stairs and observe and listen.

My mother did a very good job sewing. She would make my dresses and my sister's dresses. I think she also did sew for herself. I can remember going shopping for dresses down in Lowell with my mother for both of us. She was also a good plain cook, not a fancy cook. As she got older cozy family things weren't her thing. She preferred to go to women's clubs and do more women's types of things. In hard times my mother would work in my father's office. I think she would have been a good business woman. She had a very orderly mind.

Nowadays mothers and wives have the opportunity to be their own selves. Back then she were one or the other, a mother or a business woman.