A Legacy

The two blank cassette tapes cost a dollar.

Having returned to school, as an adult, I was given the assignment to write a history of an American woman who had lived through an era of great changes. I chose my mother, bought the tapes, and sent them to her in the Health Center where she lived, with a list of questions.

In my mother's voice, I learned of an epidemic—"Quarantine" signs—my little Swedish grandmother shopping for groceries and medicine, wearing a face-mask, making her deliveries, along with loaves of her freshly baked rye bread, throughout the neighborhood.

My mother's first babysitting job, at age 12 or 13, included scrubbing woodwork and floors, and ironing with a flat iron, paying her $2.00 a week.

At 19 she married an "older" widower-minister with two small children, becoming a wife, mother, and parsonage-wife in one fell swoop. Through the years, Mom spoke of serving God, the Church, and Daddy as though they were one and the same!

Living through wars, depression, family and church challenges, at 57 she re-entered the working world as my perceptive father prepared for her "alone years" ahead. Owning no property, with $10,000 cash they bought a small "doll house" in a deteriorating neighborhood.

After Daddy died, she felt afraid during sleepless nights, until one day reading Psalm 121, which states that God neither slumbers nor sleeps, she decided that if God wasn't sleeping, there was no reason for her to lie awake too. Problem solved!

Myriad scenarios, enduring hard times, always with trust, faith, and a commitment to help others—an unswerving purpose in life. If lost, these tapes could not be duplicated. Money would be nice; real estate enjoyable; investments useful; antiques beautiful. All seen as true inheritances by most. Yet I am rich. I daily give thanks for my legacy—recorded on two $1.00 cassette tapes.