Mildred Mary

Everyone called her Millie but for Dad. He called her 'Mil'. She was born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, December 18,1920. She was the fourth of seven children. Mom was a very special lady.

Belonging to a farm family in Pennsylvania meant a lot of hard work. I didn't know my Grandpa, he died at 32 of coal-miners lung disease. He had left the coal mines of PA to raise his family in the fresh, clean country air. Her two brothers did the work in the barn and the fields, milking the cows, hunting, mowing the hay, plowing to plant the crops. Corn, green beans, potatoes, carrots, peas and onions. But it was up to Mom and her sisters to do all the planting, harvesting, cooking, canning, baking, washing and cleaning. It was hard work.

Grandma made sure that her children knew that she loved the the Lord and Sunday was a day to honor Him. The village Church was just a couple miles from the farmstead, and there was always a big fried chicken dinner afterwards with all the trimmings and the whole day was spent together as a family. Mom continued that tradition with her own family as we grew up. She worked just as hard as a housewife and mother as she did when she was a coal-miners daughter on the farm. And she had faith in the Lord.

This is her testimony.

Mom left home right after the depression of the 30's with the dream of making a life for herself in New York City. She had two friends and they had an apartment on 46th ST. The job that supported her was head waitress at the Norse Grill in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. That's where she met my father, a sailor on leave in the big port of New York. They were married in 1946 in the Panama Canal Zone. Dad brought her to live in Oregon where his family resided. My sister Berni had been born and with Grandma to help with her, Mom took a job again at a local restaurant. While waiting on a table, Mom found herself catching a woman patron who was fainting, to keep her safe from a fall. Little did she know that the fainting was from the sudden high fever of Polio.

Mom caught the Polio, too..

Soon, Mom was completely paralyzed, hospitalized and in an Iron Lung to keep her breathing. And they discovered she was expecting a baby. Me! The doctors were not sure whether she or the baby would survive. The paralysis was complete, and it was only a couple months into the pregnancy. The family and Mom, prayed day and night. They could only trust God for a miracle such as this. It was that same period that the Polio Vaccine was discovered. Out of the research came new treatments, and Mom received them! And they worked! God answered the many prayers, and she was 100% normal, no paralysis except for a bit in one side of her neck, and just in time to deliver a healthy baby boy! Me! To her, I was her living testimony of God's faithfulness.

 
This is what made her so special.
This is why I miss her so much.
This is why I'm so thankful that I'll see her again
in Heaven because Jesus makes that possible!