TO THE MOTHER I NEVER KNEW

New songs...new girls...and yet this tiny inn

Is still the last faint remnant of the past

Reminding me that there is never a sin

Whose reckoning must not be met at last,

Oh, now and then an old familiar face

Will wander in...but I am well content

To sip my drink and keep my proper place

And muse a bit on how our nights were spent;

For you were here but yesterday it seems

And so across a table set for two

I watch another couple clasp their dreams

And whisper all the things that lovers do...

And how are they to know I come to see

Two ghosts of golden days that used to be?

author unknown

A remembrance of the mother I never knew. I never had
the privilege or honor of meeting her face to face. She was just
a voice over the phone but I can never forget her greeting each
time I picked up that receiver, "Hello, darling". I will always
remember this because it made me feel so wonderful and so much a
part of her family. My darling, the son she loved so much, and
I, love and miss her so much, especially on Mother's Day.

After she passed away I learned some amazing facts,
heard wonderful stories about her. Reminisces of her high school
and college days are contained in the scrapbook I'm perusing. On
this page are numerous Senior cards with her classmates'
autographs on the back of each. Below it I find a newspaper
clipping of a Young Democrats meeting, invitations to teas and
balls of all types from sororities; ticket stubs from important
gates and golf club score cards. Many Western Union telegrams
are scattered throughout this book from friends and boys she
dated.

There are mementos from her trip with her mother when
they had to break a date due to illness. She kept a newspaper
column describing the event when, at the age of 14, she went
abroad with her mother to Europe, traveled through Scandinavia,
learning much of the languages. Theater ticket stubs
and clippings from the Jubilee Ball of 1934, a Spring Dance at
the Windsor Club, over here an engagement book from the Senior
Ball. In the Senior News of 1931 she was listed as the "Biggest
Flirt". And, in the Class Prophecy, the humorous statement that
she was in the group "now playing on Broadway in the 1950 Revue"
.

She also left her "vampish ways" to a friend in the
Class Last Will and Testament. I will always wish that I knew
the stories behind these long forgotten school day events.

There are items of interest from Bridge clubs and
society news clippings that described what she wore once to an
important annual dance..."in apple green crepe with silver cloth
trim on the long sleeves and high neckline." Area news columns
have changed dramatically since the 1930's.

I discovered a letter from J. Edgar Hoover, the man himself,
congratulating her on her marriage. There was a telegram from
her husband to her mother about her and the baby doing just fine.

I cried when I read about her handsome soldier husband
listed as killed in action during the Battle of the Bulge. I'm
honored that the ring he gave her so many years ago now rests on
my finger. It will one day belong to her grandson.

I'm grateful that she saved so many things, so many
photographs: these are important family mementos. I'm grateful
that she was southern, like me.

The photograph of her, her handsome soldier and their
young son are in the place of honor in our dining room along
with those of her brother Jimmy and her grandson, Charlie, when
he was a baby and then as a young boy.

The people in these pictures of a fine, young,
American family, just starting out at the beginning of World War
II, show people who will be forever young.

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