Happy (a few days belated!) Birthday to my Mom, who would be 63 this year.
“Women didn’t count” – three words that drove my Mom to action.
Her father told her that in 1995, in his good-humored, insightful, smile-curling way of delivering a line, a technique my Mom also cultivated over the years.
“Women didn’t count” was not my Grandpa’s personal opinion. Far from it, especially considering the strength – both physically and mentally – of his wife.
Grandpa was, instead, pointing out how this was a fact of life in the late 1800s and early 1900s… at least for certain subjects. Tombstones were one part of life where it held.
Rather than, say, “Mr. Joe Smith & Mrs. Beverly Smith”, some tombstones would simply say, “Mr. & Mrs. Joe Smith.”
Why? “Women didn’t count.”
She wrote about the chat with her Dad, and many more stories, in her book about Glueckstal Lutheran Church. I’m very proud she completed it.
After lots of effort researching records, sleuthing family connections, conducting interviews, and writing, my Mom accomplished her goal of ensuring the women’s names and contributions of the early days of the Glueckstal Lutheran Church in North Dakota were remembered.
I’m so glad my Mom wanted to ensure people were recognized for their efforts, even when the standard of the past was not so equitable.
Happy Birthday Mom, I love you ❤️