On this Mothers’ Day, 2019, my loving thoughts are of three women who helped me survive to old age and made me the man I am today.
In 1930, Dorothy Musgrave experienced an unplanned pregnancy just a year before earning her nursing degree. She dropped out of school, married my father, and provided a loving home for my brother. When he was entering his teens, she experienced another unplanned pregnancy. I was a “bonus baby” neither she nor my father planned on. She used all of her nursing skills and love to get me through Measles, Mumps, Chicken Pox, Whooping Cough and Histoplasmosis. She was TLC (tender loving care) personified. I was entering my teen years when God called her home to be with Him. She is gone from this life, but never forgotten.
Macel Martin was a widow who grew up on a farm. She had raised two children both of whom were married with a child of their own. She was working and living alone in the city, feeling unneeded and unfulfilled. At that same time, my father was overwhelmed with grief, loneliness and the responsibility of maintaining a home for the two of us. A mutual friend brought them together and they were married about six months after they met. She lovingly took on the job of caring for my father and me through my high school years. She made sure we always had clean clothes, a neat and clean home and delicious home cooked meals on the table. She was a wonderful, loving, Christian woman who put up with this teenager who was still struggling with the loss of my mother. She qualifies as a saint for what I put her through and I now fondly remember her as my second mom.
In 1959, Carol Marenholtz was about to start her senior year of high school at a strange new school. A girlfriend from her home town came to visit her that summer and to see her boyfriend who had also moved from Indiana to Missouri. The boyfriend arranged a blind date for Carol so she would feel included and that is how I met the love of my life. She and I not only shared the same home town experiences and the move to another state because of our father’s job, but we also shared a strong Christian faith. In 1962, she agreed to marry me when I returned from Okinawa and on December 7, 1963, she became my wife. Carol always told me she wanted three sons, although I know she would have been happy with daughters instead. In spite of our desire to be parents, we were not blessed with children during our fifty years of marriage. I know she would have made a wonderful mother because she too was tender loving care personified. I can’t help but think that God is putting her to work in heaven caring for all of those nameless, motherless aborted babies.
I hope each man reading this will pay a special tribute today to the mothers in his life. I wish each woman reading this, whether she is a mom or longs to be one, a very special and blessed day.