Of snowstorms and one strong woman
No storm as powerful as the strength of a mother's love
WATERLOO —- Mornings like the one that produced the 11-plus inches of snow we received in Waterloo Tuesday remind me of cold snowy mornings half a century ago — and my mom.
She would get up early, shovel the walk to get her beauty shop open and then get us all fed and off to school.
Our wakeup call was her snow shovel scraping against the sidewalk. That meant we better get a move on and help her shovel out the walks and driveway on our big corner lot.
A cup of hot instant breakfast, maybe a Jiffy muffin or toaster pastry and we were on our way, shivering and waiting for that green "cold" light on the dash of our '64 Chevy Bel Air to switch off and feel some heat in the car.
Mom might have some cancellations on days like this, but she took nothing to chance and was ready to roll.
”Those ladies are our bread and butter!” she told us. Many times.
And if we didn't get moving, she said she was going to get us up 10 minutes earlier every morning until we did.
And if you think that was tough, you should have seen her dealing with male car dealers or bankers who maybe didn't take a woman so seriously back in 1970. And one or two padres from church.
New sheriff in town, boys.
After a divorce, in her late 40s, with three of her five kids still at home, she put herself through cosmetology school and remodeled our dining room into her beauty shop. She drew up those remodeling plans with same skill with which she’d diagram a hair follicle. It was same skill with which she reamed mortar rounds in her mid-20s at Associated Manufacturing in Waterloo during World War II. .
She was a businesswoman and a mom under the same roof. Her commute was from the kitchen to the beauty shop. And if we heard that loud rap of her hairbrush against the door between her shop and the kitchen, well, whatever we were up to, we’d better knock it off.
She worked in that shop for 31 years — on her feet all day, around loud hair dryers. She worked until she was almost 79 and lived until 97.
Mom was living her dream and living for us kids. And if I could be even a third of the parent she was I'd be doing pretty good. She just put her head down, pushed straight ahead and did it. We were pretty blessed. And loved.
She was, and remains, my inspiration, my role model, my friend and my hero.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who worked or still work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
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This is a beautiful story
Great, great piece. Smart timing on when to run this, too. You were indeed a fortunate son.