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11:18 a.m. - 2004-12-07
A most remarkable woman

My Mother

I found my dream home today and I was going to load some pictures up and show you but then something...and I don't know what...got me thinking about my Mother. My dream home is just a dream and my Mother was very real and such an influence in my life. I will write about her instead.

My mother, Dorothy Slanchik Steffgen, was quite possibly the most intelligent, intuitive human being I have ever known, which made it virtually impossible to pull any shenanigans when I was growing up and which I am sure fuled my intense feelings of always being at odds with her. I didn't really appreciate her until I was 35 and sober. She died when I was 40 and so I had a brief 5 years in which to truly appreciate her, unlike my sister who had always been very close to her. Where I saw an adversary, Linda saw a best freind.

Mom was an interesting person with a hunger to step outside herself and her surroundings. She was born in a steel mill town in the West Virginia pan handle and from the stories my Grandmother told me, I get the impression of a smart,stubborn, and saucy girl. She was also physically beautiful with thick black hair and sparkling eyes. The youthful pictures I have of her bely a bit of the devil.

When Mom was a young woman looking to her future, she went to travel school where she learned all the necessary skills to work in the travel industry. She worked in Washington DC for a while, then moved on to Chicago and got a job with Capitol Airlines which has since become United Airlines. I am sure that her young dreams included lots of travel and excitement and she even took flying lessons and learned how to fly a Piper Cub.

Charmed by my handsome, funny, fun loving and good natured father, she chose instead to settle down in a typical Chicago suburban lifestyle that included 3 children.

I am not sure that my Mother was suited to the trappings of suburban Motherhood but like anything else she did, she did it well and took it seriously. We didn't get away with anything. There was no wool thick enough to pull over her eyes and she instinctivly knew exactly what you were up to. To this day, I can't figure out how she knew that we had bought some marijuana with the girl next door and were planning on smoking it out in the back yard in a pup tent in the wee hours of the night. She never found the pot and never caught us high but she knew and our plan was foiled.

We were always well dressed, went to church regularly, did our homework, were quiet and pretty much obedient and had a clean healthy home with good food to eat and plenty of family interaction. We also traveled. My family was an airline family and we went many interesting places.

One of the things she loved was Antiques. I remember her buying sorry looking cabinets and commodes at auctions for 25 cents and turning them into beautiful peices. During the years that she was into refinishing, she got into a "green" phase where everything she refinished was painted that antiqued olive green color that became popular in 1968. We lived with that color green through most of our childhood and often teased her about it as adults. I remember my Brother In Law joking about not asking her for help with a refinishing project because if she got ahold of it, she would paint it green.

Mom loved proverbs and sayings. She collected them like little gems to be pulled out and used at just the right moment. One little proverb used just the right way and delivered with just the right spin or zing could replace a dozen lectures. If we started an argument with her using the words "But IF"....out would come "If frogs had wings, they wouldn't hop on their ass!!!!".

If we whined and begged for something we couldn't have, she would snap, "People In Hell Want Ice Water."

One that wasn't so sarcastic and of which I didn't believe was, "Pride Goeth Before The Fall." She said this to me when I was all full of myself and heading in a direction that she knew would cause me pain....I headed in that direction and guess what...it caused me pain. I will never forget that one. It is one that is on my mind right now when I get myself too puffed up or pumped up over this job I am still interviewing for.

After my Father died in 1975, leaving her with 3 teenage girls, one of which, (me), was heading into a life of drugs and booze, she didn't give up. Life was tough for her and I am sure there were times she just wanted to go run away, but she hung in there and finished raising her family.

She was a the coolest grandma a kid could have. The grandchildren who are lucky enough to remember her enjoyed wonderful little experiences with her like learing how to knit a little tube of yarn with an old spool and a bobby pin that could be rolled up and used to make a pot holder. No one was better at making an adventure out of walking up and down the hallways of her condominium exploring the inner workings of elevators and laundry rooms or sitting on a parkway watching big rolling machines pave a parking lot. Memories of these little excursions are worth 10 trips to Disney World.

Needing to return to work, she went back to the travel industry and in her senior years, she would skimp and save on some things to be extravagant with travel. She went to many places in the U.S. as well as abroad.

She took a trip to Europe and visited some Eastern block countries with a freind who volunteered for an organization who smuggled Bibles and philosophy books into Soviet controlled countries like Poland and Hungary. They were even stopped on a train by Soviet soldiers who boarded with weapons pointing, barking scary orders she could not understand while they were hiding a stack of highly illegal books under their jackets.

Her travels also took her to China. Mom liked the hard trips. You wouldn't find her going to the Bahamas to enjoy fine dining and the chance to lay around on a beach. She loved seeing the cultural sites and sounds of a country, but what she enjoyed most was interacting with the people. When in Europe, they stayed in a private home and paid a couple to cook for them and act as their tour guides. When in China, she befriended a young woman who's greatest desire was to come and get an education in the United States.

I still remember going through her things with my sister when she died. Along with old newspapers announcing the deaths of great Americans like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, we found letters from people who's lives she had helped change. One letter was from this young Chinese woman thanking her for sending the books she needed to qualify for entrance in a program in which she would be allowed to earn her Masters Degree in the U.S., and return home to China to help her people embark in the new economy based on some of the free enterprise their government was just beginning to allow. I guess in a way you can say that Mom had a role in the little bit of economic growth the Chinese are starting to enjoy.

I don't know if she knew what an imprint she left on the people she touched. She was much to humble to take credit for anything she did that came out of her natural love for people and country and her inborn interest to always seek higher ground.

I sure miss her now and wish that I had been worthy of her. I also am grateful for the sober years I have that leave me able to appreciate such a Mother.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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