Memorial Day Picnic Buffet

Remembering Mother
Resident News
Ferol Martin
Please help us by alerting the
Front Desk by 4:00 p.m. on
Saturday if you will be out for
the Sunday Noon Meal.
Your cooperation is very much
appreciated! Chef Brenda
Menu Meeting
with Chef Brenda
Tuesday, May 14 at
10:30 a. m.
in the Tulip Room
Please join us for our
Memorial Day Picnic Buffet
at Noon, Monday, May 27, 2013
Please RSVP at 429-0701 by May 24 to
enable us to plan food and space needed
Don’t forget to purchase your “blue bracelet”
for $1.00 at the Front Desk to wear for
“Blue Day” May 1. Proceeds benefit JDRF.
Come, view and enjoy
Dean Davis Watercolor Exhibit
Dean is one of our own residents who was
named 2010 Vanderburgh County Artist of
the Year. He has exhibited his watercolor
paintings in over 20 shows nationwide and
taught workshops and juried art shows
all over the country. His work hangs in
collections across America as well as in
Europe and Japan.
Check out our cutest baby
and pet pictures contest in
the Front Lobby until May 10.
The picture with the most $$
wins! Proceeds benefit the
Juvenile Diabetes Research
Foundation.
A Message from our
Maintenance Man
Please do not leave
the heat lamp in the
bathroom on all day.
Use it while in the
bathroom and turn it
off when you leave.
I was number ten of eleven children growing up on a farm in
Cass County, Indiana. When I was only three years old, my
mother died. Five of my older brothers and sisters had left home by then, but
two of my sisters, Elizabeth and Huldah, took over the care of the four younger
ones. That first year after my mother died, Elizabeth, a school teacher, took
me with her to class every day, and I would play quietly in the back of the
room. I was potty trained, but I kept having bathroom accidents. I had
observed that the other children wrote their names on the blackboard when
they went to use the bathroom, and I couldn’t write my name, so I thought I
couldn’t go to the bathroom. Eventually, I learned to scribble something on the
board that I thought was my name, and the bathroom accidents stopped.
After that first year Elizabeth married and went to live in Akron, Ohio, and
when I was fifteen I went to live with her. However, right after she married I
stayed at home with Huldah, the four other children, and Father. Huldah was
only sixteen, yet she took over all the responsibilities of a mother and
housekeeper. She seemed to be born with an awareness of how to deal with
children. She taught us to be helpful doing chores, but she never criticized
what we did. Instead, she praised and appreciated it, which made us want to
do even better the next time. She made me feel very secure and deeply loved.
We were a self-sufficient farm family, and we became responsible at a very
early age. The minute I was able to do something, it became my job. All of us
children felt like an important and necessary part of the family. Underneath
this sense of responsibility was the understanding that Father was the head of
the family, that he set the rules. Never would it occur to any of us to disobey
him.
My family wasn’t physically affectionate, but I knew deep down in my heart
that Huldah and Elizabeth took care of me because they loved me. They didn’t
have to do it. So I almost never did anything that would displease them. Once
I did act up when I was in the sixth grade class that Huldah was teaching at
our school, and Huldah had to take me aside and ask me why I was acting that
way. Years later I realized I had acted badly because I didn’t want to share her
with the other children. Sometimes Huldah would buy me a bag of peanut
candy and we would eat it together while walking home from school. Then I
had her all to myself.
Although my mother died before I could know her, I never felt sorry for
myself or felt deprived. I felt I knew my mother through the two daughters she
raised who so willingly took care of me and showed me so much love.
Remembering Mother
“I Love Paris”
Dan Mitchell
I was very attached to my mother. I was her only child, and I didn’t
really know my father because he was often in a TB sanitarium and
died when I was seven. So my mother became both mother and father to me, and
she was good at everything she did. She cooked very well, and that was fortunate
for me, because I was growing up during the Depression, and in those days you
ate everything on your plate whether you liked it or not. She was also very
creative. She painted and played the piano and encouraged me to attempt those
things too. That’s when I discovered there were some God-given talents that God
had not given me. I remember when I was about ten I had a difficult assignment
for my school art class. We had to draw a young George Washington as a
surveyor. My mother agreed to help me, but she told me it would be my drawing
and not hers. First she drew her idea of Washington and then had me draw my
idea. I didn’t learn anything about art from that experience, but I learned a lasting
lesson about honesty.
My mother was also very protective. She felt football was too rough for me, so
I played a modified version. When I met some boys in school that she didn’t think
were good company for me, she told me not to hang out with them, and that was
all she had to say. Well-brought-up children didn’t rebel in those days.
She was a very courageous person. Once I had to learn to ride a horse. I was
a little boy and was terrified of the giant horse, and I didn’t even want to get up on
him, much less kick him in the sides. My mother wanted to make sure it was safe
for me and I could manage, so she rode the horse first, and then encouraged me
to give it a try. When my grandmother died, my mother bravely left everything
behind in Arizona, and we moved to Evansville to live with my grandfather, Daniel
Wertz, and help take care of him.
My mother gave me my strong Christian faith. She was a good Christian
example -- willing and anxious to help people and always kind and gentle. She
persuaded me, rather than ordered me. Children were expected to be in school
and church plays, but I knew I had no talent as a performer. Somehow, Mother
would gently persuade me to participate if she thought it would be good for me.
She had a tremendous influence on me, and I was devastated when she died. I
was only seventeen and she was in the hospital for surgery and contracted tetanus. I wish I hadn’t lost her so soon and hadn’t seen what she had to go through
at the end, but I’m very glad and grateful to have had such a fine mother, a devoted mother, who in the short time we had together, taught me how to love and
to be loved.
Patrons of the Paris Cafe
Patrons of the Paris Cafe
Thelma still a model
Thelma modeling
in the 1950’s
A few of our “Glitters &
Traditions” Models
Paris Model
Mary Ellen
An Evening in Paris
Can - Can Dancers
Paris Model