Mom Continued

Well I finally got time to finish writing about Mom. The stories get all mixed up in my mind since I have heard bits and pieces my whole life. I remember Mom talking about after the war. The Red Cross put all of the children on trains to take them back to their families. They told Mom that her family was all dead. The train stopped in an area close to where her Aunt had lived. She wanted to get off the train and go check her Aunt's house. They told her there were no houses standing in the area where the house had been. Mom snuck off the train and found her Aunt's house. When she knocked on the door her father answered.

There was very little food in the area that they were in. Grandma and Grandpa divorced and Grandma took all of the kids and moved out to a farm where they lived and worked for the farmer. They slept over the goat barn. Mom said she woke up at night and there was a rat eating my Aunt Evelyn's hair. Grandma had twin babies. I don't know the sex of both of them because one died at birth. The other was my Uncle Mario. He was really, really small and couldn't drink cows milk. That's why they lived on the farm they lived on so he could have goats milk. Uncle Hans had really bad asthma and nearly died when he was a child also. I think the lady who owned the farm was Old Lady Klutzberger (spelling). After I was an adult my Mom said something about being terrified of lightning storms. I told her I never knew she was scared of them. She said she had been ever since she was working in the fields with some other people and the man right next to her got hit with lightning. I know this all happened when she was a teenager.

Some how my Mom's Grandfather was there. He would take my Mom out for special times. He took her out for rabbit at a restaurant. Mom had to go to the bathroom and as she walked down the hall she saw cats hanging in the kitchen. My Mom never again would eat rabbit.

My Grandma met and married an American service man. She went to America with the other 3 children. Mom was living with her Dad and Step-mother. Mom wanted to go to America also but she wasn't old enough to go with out her Dad's consent. He would not let her go so she married a young man who was going to America. When she got here my Grandma had a restaurant in Oregon City. Mom and her husband lived in Oregon City and my Mom worked at a huge hotel that used to be in West Linn. She was a waitress. The Americans made fun of her because she couldn't speak English so she learned English and would never again speak German. Mom says that Grandma interfered in their lives so much that her and her husband got a divorce.

Mom then met my Dad and after 6 weeks they got married. 10 months later they were blessed with me. My parents were married for 12 years and then they too got a divorce. Mom married my Step-Dad Tom about a year later. They were married for 31 years and Tom passed away.

Mom will be 77 years old in a couple of weeks. She is one tough lady. She has never given up and works from sun up till sun down. She was the best Mom she knew how to be. She took good care of me and loved me and did everything she could to help me to grow into a responsible adult. I am her only child and I feel bad that we live so far from her now. I think someday she will move to Illinois with us. Love you Mom!