Celebrate Your Mother on Mother’s Day

On May 14, we celebrate Mother’s Day, a nostalgic time for me, a septuagenarian.

 My mother, Mildred Ruth Anderson, nee Butler, was born in Ringwood, Indian Territory, to Laura Nichols and Jude Butler on Jan. 21, 1904. Actually, her parents crossed into Indian Territory from Kansas in 1896 after the Cherokee Strip “Run” occurred in September 1893. The Cherokee Strip was a 60-mile-wide swath that ran across the northern stateline of what is now Oklahoma. After the Civil War, because the Cherokee Indian Nation sided with the Confederates, the Union took the land and opened it up for “white” settlement.

 On a hot September 16, 1893, the Run began with the settlers lined up at the Kansas stateline. With the firing of guns by the Army, the settlers rushed across the border to stake a land claim on the Strip. Some settlers sneaked across early and were termed “Sooners.” Of course, that is where the “Sooners” of Oklahoma University got their name.

 In the years from 1896 to 1906, mother’s father established banks in four towns in the “Strip.”

 Unfortunately, in the prime of his life, mother’s father died of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1914 when she was 10, and the family lost the banks.

 However, Mildred graduated from high school, and with her mother’s urging, she enrolled at the Teacher’s College at Alva, Okla. 

 In a different era, when women were held in respect and admiration, my mother not only spent her weekends at home in Enid, Okla. but also hitchhiked safely back and forth to the teacher’s college at Alva, some 60 miles away.

 After she earned her teaching degree, she taught elementary school in Enid.

 On June 4, 1929, she married B. Frank Anderson, an oil refinery worker, and I, her only child, was born on Sept. 11, 1930. 

 In the early 1930’s, she brought me to the nursery of the Methodist Church, but I cried when she tried to leave for services. She didn’t leave, nor did she attend the services. From that time, and for 50 years, she remained in the Methodist Church nursery, caring for the babies and the children of its members, eventually becoming a staff member of the Methodist Church.

 As a child, an adolescent and young man, I remember mother as a strict disciplinarian and staunch Methodist. She was as unwavering in her views on honesty and faith in God as she was in her views on temperance.

 When thinking of my childhood, I am reminded of my little Boston terrier, Pepper. Mother raised and trained that dog with a clap of her hand and a stern reprimand. Pepper might chase a cat across the yard but would literally skid on his backside when mother clapped her hands.

Because of mother’s training, Pepper just never ran into the street. Mother taught Pepper, well. And, like Pepper, she taught me well, too.

 I remember the winter evenings, studying by the fireside, learning by rote as mother prompted me again and again to memorize a passage from a poem, a multiplication table or a mathematical formula.

 Aside from the discipline, the learning, the growing up, was the Sunday afternoon drives; or staying at home and listening to “One Man’s Family” on the radio; or the family picnics. And, oh, there were the operettas that mother sang. Her voice was not professional, of course. But, I, too, learned to sing those operettas, the music and lyrics. She made me take piano lessons. Most importantly, she instilled culture into my being.

 My friends always called her “Mrs. A.” In our teenage years, when my friends and I went joy riding in the family car instead of washing it, we got caught and my friends ran. Later, when reprimanded, they would offer outlandish excuses to “Mrs. A.” Nevertheless, she would scold us all for our travesties, while all of us laughed inside. “Mrs. A” had a unique sense of humor.

  My mother died Feb. 15, 1992, at 88 years old. I am sure she never felt important, nor felt she was “one of those” who built this country with morals and respect for others. 

 Celebrate your mother on Mother’s Day. She helped to make you what you are.

Burton Anderson, a U.S. Marine veteran of the Korean War, has lived in California for about 50 years. He has a background in aerospace industry. He can be reached at ba****@ao*.com.