Mom's 75th Birthday

My mom has been dead for eleven years. She died in April, 1993. She was 63, way too young to be leaving this life, as far as I'm concerned.

Today, she would be 75. She was born on June 7th, 1929, in Galveston, Texas. She was the first and only child of Albert and Hulda Rebsch. Albert was an optometrist (or perhaps training for the job?), after a variety of jobs, including working with the Santa Fe railways. Hulda (Nana to me) was the youngest of eight children, transplanted from Nebraska, and happy to be in Texas with her husband. She was 27 when my mother was born. I imagine her being a nervous, anxious new mother, although she always claimed she had, "enough milk to be a Jersey cow."

My mother was born four-and-a-half months before the stock market crash of 1929, and the beginning of the Depression. Pictures my sister and I have of her, she appears to be a pretty baby with big round eyes and a happy, sweet expression on her face. She was a small-framed women, with tiny ankles and wrists. Because of her frame, both my sister and I were delivered Caesarean. Mom always felt self-conscious about her weight, though. If she could have had it her way, she would have been svelte and beautiful. I think the only person in the world who made her feel special was her father, someone she absolutely adored.

I miss you, Mom. Happy Birthday!