My Mom--Lucy

Lucy

Today my mother, née Freddie Lucille King, would have turned 95. She was born at a time before the roles of women started to change, although they were evolving. Lucy met my Dad while attending secretarial college in San Antonio. Even in the 1930s she was preparing for a career, but the only types of work available to women at that time were mostly teaching, nursing, and secretarial jobs.

Having been brought up in a traditional family, getting married and raising a family were her main focus. She and Dad fell in love, married, and started a family. Nurturing her children was tantamount to Lucy. For many years she was a member of a Christian organization named The Child Nurture Club. She was a very nurturing mother, and I realized after I was grown how important that is to a child's self-confidence and self-image.

Lucy and baby Ann

Lucy worked outside the home, but that was mostly after her children were in school. I'm not saying women can't have a career and be nurturing. It's more about the quality of the relationships a mother can have with her children.

I learned many valuable things from my Mom--organizational skills, the ability to keep a home clean and neat, cooking, love and appreciation of the natural world, kindness, assertiveness, recognition of a spiritual presence in our lives. She had a big influence on how I viewed nature and learned to love being out in nature. There was nothing she loved more than taking me and maybe another mother and her child from church out to City Park, which is on Lake Austin. We would go really early and she would build a campfire and cook bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee over the campfire. Nothing in the world tasted better. The child and I would run around in the park, and swim in the lake if it was summer, while the two mothers would spend time talking about things that young mothers share with each other.

Material things were not that important to Lucy. She appreciated having a nice, clean and tidy home. She appreciated having food on the table and clothing to wear. But she did not seek money for its own sake or for buying items associated with status. In fact, I think she would have been embarrassed if anyone would have thought differently. She was a devoted Christian and had a very strong faith.

Lucy was pretty and liked to make sure her appearance was pleasing, but she was not obsessed with trying to make herself beautiful. Her aim was more toward inner beauty. She was intelligent, a good conversationalist, and could ask questions of a person that would rival that of a lawyer. Once my cousin Carolyn visited with her boyfriend, and later said she learned more about him from all the questions my Mom asked him than she had ever known.

I could tell many stories about Lucy, but suffice it to say she had a great life, was an exemplary mother, and was a good role model to her children--both her daughters and her son. She encouraged us, disciplined us, gave us structure, and loved us unconditionally. You really can't get better than that. I miss her a lot. I appreciate all that she did for me and the person I became through being her daughter.