Ninety Years and Counting. . .

Well, I mentioned on FaceBook that I'd post a few pictures of Mom's 90th birthday party on the blog. Of course, you can never capture everything going on at an event like this, so you pretty much just shoot what's out there and hope it captures the "flavor" of whatever happening you're trying to cover.

It started off pretty slow, as you might expect, but the day was gorgeous - and cool enough to make us all forget the summer's oppressive heat. We were thrilled Aunt Dorrace and Uncle Kirksey felt well enough to come down with Joan and Pat. And we made a new friend, Paula, who lives in Austin and is married to one of the kids that lived across the street from us in Quantico 50 years ago. Here's Mom, in the blue blouse, visiting with Paula and Dorrace. Stephen's adjusting the wheelchair.

Most of the attendees were family, of one sort or another. Here's Stephen with Ethan, testing his Skeletor personna in preparation for Halloween. You may remember Ethan from the summer wedding photos, when he and his dad, Matt,  joined "the Family".

After the summer we struggled through, it's hard not to appreciate a picture of people just standing around talking. . . and NOT ONE OF THEM is SWEATING!!!

We were pleased to see Stan's mother, who came down from Tyler. And Virginia and Jack drove in from Bastrop, where their house survived the horrendous wildfires of early September. As Jack said, "It was too close."

Ever on the lookout for eye candy, I found Natalie with a beautiful smile in a lush background - exotic plants, even a Tiki torch - how could it get any better than that.

More of the same here, except for one thing. Stan (at left) has a phone stuck in his ear. He's talking to David, who was calling from Australia to wish Grandmother a Happy Birthday. He made the most of it by talking as well to several cousins, aunt's and uncles. . . and me.

The youngsters found that Uncle Richard had replaced his tired old trampoline with a new one. Lauren, Blake and Ethan worked off dinner while the entire assemblage awaited the cake cutting.

This Black Forest cake was large - and a real treat by anyone's standard. (I've got a bit stashed in my refrigerator. It makes "regular" days "special".) Karen put a portrait of Mom in uniform (1944) on the table perhaps to suggest that things weren't always as they are now; that we weren't always who we are now. I decided to add a few more pictures of Mom taken through the years. What a wonderful woman!

 

Mom's in the middle here with her two younger sisters, Helen and Jean. "Uncle John" is the tall fellow on the left, and Grandad is taking time out from his work to satisfy the photographer.

Mom graduated from Mercy School of Nursing in Canton, OH in the autumn of 1942. She wasn't yet 21, so she had to wait 6 months to take the State Board exams. As soon as she passed her exams, she joined the Navy Nurse Corps, took her first train ride to Naval Training Center Great Lakes, north of Chicago, and was soon off to her first duty station, NAS Pensacola, FL.

 

Here's a picture of Mom and Dad when they were courting, sitting on the steps of the nurses' quarters at Pensacola. Dad was there for advanced flight training and they met in the hospital when he broke his leg in an aircraft accident.

A few years after they were married, Mom was ready to take her two babies (by herself) to the island of Guam where Dad was stationed. Grandmother took the news in stride; Granddad muttered, "All the fools aren't dead yet."

Several years later, someone managed to take this portrait of her with none of the (now four) kids in the picture. . . a real rarity.

Time compresses as we get older. Five more kids and a bunch of years later, Mom received this gag gift at a family camp out at Inks Lake State Park. Buzzard's Glory was her one room grade school, back in Ohio.

In October 2001, we convened for Mom's 80th birthday and took over a beautiful B&B in Fredericksburg, TX for the weekend event. Here she is rocking on the front porch with Stephen while all her kids minded all her grandkids.

And, a few years ago, I found Mom and my five sisters posing with a few of her granddaughters in and about one of the live oaks in Mary's back yard. All in all, it's been a pretty remarkable 90 years.