By Ethel (Huber) Orthner – Kelowna, B.C.
My mother was born in 1902 and died in 1994. Although she’s been gone for some time now, remembering her, I think of her hands. All she ever wore on her hands was the plain wedding band. The one dad placed on her finger when they married in 1925. Her hands were strong and could do almost anything. She was a talented lady.
Had she hoped to marry an up-and-coming business man or a farmer that worked the sod? I’m not sure, but marrying a farmer she soon learned to milk cows and churn cream into butter, and raise chickens the old-fashioned way, setting the eggs under a clucking hen.
She grew a big garden and learned to provide healthy meals for her family. She found out how make do with very little during the Depression. One skill was to rip apart old hand-me-down coats to make over for a member of the family. We were always well-dressed.
Those same hands could turn out beautifully embroidered tea towels and pillowcases from bleached snowy-white flour bags, knit pairs of socks and many mittens.
Smell of homemade bread
Her hands made good bread that she baked each week for us. I can see her with that big blue enamel bread bowl, punching the dough, and forming the loaves, and I can remember the smell of that homemade bread when we came home from school, famished. Those hands also rubbed our chests when colds laid us low.
I can see her hands on a busy washday, hanging clothes on the line in her special way with everything sorted – socks all in a row and towels on the line, side by side. In winter, she nearly froze her fingers hanging clothes outdoors, then, hauling them in frozen stiff as boards.
There was the folding and ironing and teaching us to do all these things. Sometimes her hands were chapped and sore from the cold winds, but they were always willing to help someone in need.
The years crept up on her and so did ill health. Her hands were unable to do what she once did so capably. Failing eyesight left her unable to do much more than dress herself. Her mind became feeble and finally was unable to remember the names of us five children she had cared for.
Between fog and vitality
I can see her there, sitting with her hands folded in her lap, resting after so many years of dedicated service. She changed frequently between periods of fog and seeming vitality which sparked hope in us. Finally, of the disorientation and declining energy and memory which gravely saddened us.
Her last few years have touched deep emotions and we wished for her to be released from the invisible cage she was in.
I wonder what would life have been without our mom. She gave us life, nurtured us, fed us, and clothed us. She made sure we helped her in so many ways: doing dishes, picking berries, weeding the garden, hauling in wood and water and snow, and carrying out the slop.
Some days we would rather have had a new dress instead of having a bit of lace or buttons to make the old one look new again, but now we understand. She never made us feel sorry that we had to wear those pretty sackcloth dresses.
Thank you mom, for all the things you taught me to do with my hands.
