Mom's 2nd Career

After being a mom and home-maker and church/school volunteer, Jane Shutt Mason became the archivist of the United Brethren Church --when she was almost 60-after my father died of colon cancer at 58. She had the distinction (and connection) of being a previous president's daughter-in-law and long-time member of the college church.

This was like being a museum procurer,church librarian, preservationist. She traveled with some nuns who were attending national conferences on archives for Victory Noll, the convent in our county. Her archives were like a large closet in the church headquarters building.

When Huntington College -now Huntingon U.--built their new library, the church archives were installed in the library's beautiful walk-out basement and she became the college archivist as well. I think she was then an employee of the college, not sure. She says yes. She thinks she was the college librarian; she was not that.

But she used a computer, and rotated displays of historical items, and helped to choose and design a large and appropriate facility with appropriate cabinets and humidity level controls for preserving old documents. She catalogued and organized the place according to the latest archival standards.

Among those documents are letters from the Wright brothers and their father, who was a bishop in the UB Church. An excellent and most interesting book for young people and adults is The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wrightby Tom D. Crouch - 1990.

The museum/archives also includes old church and college publications --including those published by my great grandfather, Emmet Mason, church publisher. Mom has an excellent large photo of him and his family dated 1894 --handsome people! Great Grandma wrote on the back the colors and prices of her then 2 children's outfits --bright blue for little Harry, $4 (he became college president) --and red for his sister Ilah, $2.

Mom did this until she was 80, after Rob had arrived there for college, which was 1997.

One day, she turned in the exit doorway to go back and retrieve her glasses, which she had forgotten, and fell and broke her hip. Fortunately, though it was after hours and no one was there to help her, she had a cell phone that was inexplicably charged --inexplicably since she never used it--and she was able to call 911 and say "Help, I've fallen and I Can't Get Up!" (Just like the famous commercial!) She says she retired the next day. Rob moved out of dorm to stay and help her in her recovery. She had excellent hospital re-hab and some handicap bars installed so she could help herself.

A few years later, she had double knee replacement and Rob went back to help her then, also. She got around with her new knees much better than for 2 or 3 decades previous.

About Dad, Wendell D. Mason, he was a quality control chemist for Huntington Laboratories and also a part time chem teacher at IU-PU extension in Ft. Wayne. And great fun, filled with affection and kindness for his family. Always and ever a gentleman --with the common touch, well-liked by all who knew him, including those who worked at the plant where he worked in the lab.

Together, they were a disciplined couple, faithful in church and parenting, who provided a happy home for me and my brother and passed the baton of faith in God and His Son. They taught us principles of tithing, modesty, generosity, kindness, frugality, and the ability to make friends at all social levels. Our family was not wealthy at all --but practical and frugal, without vices --and they borrowed at low interest (gov't loans) and sent us to college --where I married an ambitious, successful guy. After some lean economic times at the beginning of our marriages, my brother and I have never known want --and have been able to afford things our parents never did. They also passed on to us the value of staying married --and parenting faithfully.

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

LIFE WITH MOM --MEMORIAL DAY MEMORIES 09

Rob R. has missed his calling. He should do something in geriatrics. He is so good with my mother who has dementia, at 89.

We had a glorious three day weekend at the lake --best memorial day weather in years. We had stopped going that early because it was too cold to put the pier in. We have a super, fancy- looking metal pier --that is harder than heck to put together --and so it takes some time. Some of the family men have waders to wear, but some do not --and in any case, it has always been chilly --so we had started going in June --only to find that those weekends weren't much better.

So this one was warm and sunny --just lovely--with the Irises and Lillies of the Valley in bloom --and other beautiful flowers around the island.

My Mom didn't do well with the sleeping accommodations. We have a dormer room upstairs with several twin beds --and give that to the family with kids. We thought of putting her up there but feared she might be disoriented in the night and fall down the stairs. The other married child gets the queen bed and a private room--which was fair since she did most all the cooking and food planning/purchasing, etc. (We reimburse, but she plans and buys, and everything is immaculate and so nicely done, and our son, her husband, helps to buy, load and unload, fetch and carry, etc. She cooked roast beef in her slow cooker in that bedroom, I learned, as the kitchen is very small. Had no idea til it started to smell delicious.)

Grandma R., my husband's mother, is 87, has all her mental faculties still, but is physically limited and has to be near a bathroom and can't do steps. So all we can offer her is the couch in the living room --which she always says is good enough. Grandma M., my mother, walks better, and isn't so bathroom dependent, can do the two shallow steps to the porch and back, but she wants to be hotter than Hades all the time, bundled up like an Eskimo. OK , I exaggerate a little -but not much.

Well, my mom was an absolute "princess" --she was NOT sleeping on the fouton double bed on the porch.

"It's COLD on the porch! I never slept on this thing before --I refused to sleep here before, and I'm NOT sleeping here now! And this couch has been used for so many other things--and it's hard --and lumpy"...and on and on. It is actually quite comfortable --as porta beds go.

It was the warmest room in the house as we were air-conditioning the rest of it. Chrissy was going to be out there with her in a fouton chair/single bed. It was warm to the point of being hot and stuffy --but Mother was sure it would be cold --and she got very indignant.

"Well, Mom, I don't have anywhere else to put you!" "

"Well, what about such and such room?" she said.

"Mom, besides the fact that your grandson and wife already have that room, that bed is too high for you --you can't get up into it." (Even though I got a low profile box springs, thinking she might use that room someday, she couldn't get her short-legged self in it in the past. She usually stays in a deluxe first floor room, near a bathroom, at her sister's house --but her sister hasn't arrived at the lake yet.)

"Mom, this is the best I can offer you."

"Well, it's too cold. I can't sleep there."

"It's NOT cold, Mother. It's about 78 degrees in there right now. Do you want to sleep in a chair, because I don't have another bed to offer!"

She was really mad at me about this. Mom's main requirements of life are food she likes (which includes lots of coffee --fortunately she doesn't know the difference between decaf and regular,) a bed she likes and can call "hers" even for a short time, and warmth. She has a germ phobia and washes hands often --always has. And the daily newspaper--which I just subscribed to for her. She's like a child in loving sweets. She's fairly petite, however --in part because we don't think she was eating at all well on her own, before she came to live with us. She would cook her daily egg for breakfast, but we think she lost ability to open cans or use her microwave. Yet, she had a little fit the other day when I gave her a cold bologna sandwich for lunch.

"This is COLD. I can't eat that."

"It's supposed to be cold, Mom. It's a luncheon meat, cold meat sandwich." I finally warmed it for her in the microwave with melted cheese. That was better. She used to feed ME boloney as a kid.

Her daily chores are keeping track of her purse, her glasses, her belongings, and luggage.

So anyway, we tucked her into this perfectly comfortable, good quality fouton bed, with 3 layers of blankets, her nightgown, her robe, and her fleece sweater/jacket --and she admitted she was not cold. But the first night, she whispered to herself all night long and my daughter said she could not sleep for Grandma's indignant whispering.

That brings me back to Rob, whom she adores for staying with her (as he was going to college in her city) during the years when the memory banks were starting to shut down.

We got home here and she asked Rob who had made her bed. I told her it was made up Friday with fresh sheets, and is always made up, and she had slept in it the night before we left for the lake. And then, it occured to me to tease her that I thought Rob might have put his friend Clint in it Sat. night. Clint is a friend through church who came up to help put the pier in but wanted to go home Saturday night. So Rob drove him home and returned the next day.

And she said, "He DID???!!! Put somebody in my bed??"

He said, "Yes --and several hoboes, too --not together of course --but one after the other. They came to the door and said, 'Hey, Gov'nor, can you spare me a dime?' and I said, 'Sure, and would you like to sleep in my Grandma's bed?' and of course they were delighted to do so."

Now, confused as she is, Mom always knows that Rob is kidding her --and she gets this big kick out of it! Thinks he's so funny. And while it loses something in my retelling, he IS funny! And she always knows --that when he tries to charge her 10 dollars for a cup of coffee, he is just being silly. As confused as she is, I don't know how she knows that he's not serious. Though she did wonder if he really put Clint into her bed.

This morning as I was helping her get dressed, she told me when I mentioned my husband, 'I didn't know you were married to him. He just told me this morning. I guess I had forgotten that."

"Well, Mom, did you think we were living in sin? or what? He's the father and I'm the mother of those 4 grown-ups out there --did you think we weren't married? Who did you think he was, coming home to my house every night and being there in the morning when you got up?"

Well, she didn't know --just "didn't remember" that he was my husband --that we had married. "That was too long ago."






"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible