My Mother

These two photos are my favorites. The one was taken when she was about 18 and the other was taken when she was in her early 50s.

Before she was my mother, she was a lovely, slender, dark curly-haired, brown-eyed young woman who came from a large family. She married my father and they had three sons. Ten years later they had a baby girl - me!

My mother could always walk faster than I. Even when I went to college and learned to really hustle, she could still out-walk me!

The slender young woman turned into my mother who was short and plump. She said she was 5'2" but I think she was probably a little over 5'. She was always interested in hearing about everything I did, the clothes I wore, etc.

When I was growing up, she was forward looking - as much or more so that my friends' mothers - and she was about ten years older than most of them.

She wrote a weekly letter to me from the time I went away to school until she moved to Colorado to live with Bill - that was probably about 1990. I always looked forward to those letters. She always took great pride in her spelling. I began to notice in her later years that she mispelled words she never would have mispelled when she was younger.

She attended high school one year. The next year she couldn't attend because she was bed-ridden with rheumatoid arthritis. So she never went back to school. I didn't know this until I was 35 years old. She was really amazing. She read magazines more than books and taught herself many things just by reading.

She was a tough little old survivor. She was widowed at 53, never dated or remarried even though she had the opportunity. She raised me alone from the time I was nearly 15. I think she did a pretty good job of it. Bill helped her after Daddy died.

How lucky I was to have this kind of lady for my mother. She always told me how proud she was of me. She told one story that I just loved to hear. When I was born, she was in Grace Hospital in Hutchinson. She would come out of the anesthetic (or whatever they gave her) and she'd ask Daddy, "Was the baby a girl?" Daddy would tell her that the baby was a girl. Then Mother would say, "Oh, I am so glad!" Evidently, this happened each time she came out of the fog. So I always knew how much I was wanted and loved. What a blessing!

Games, Card Games and Books

We played lots of indoor games - card games, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers (with marbles) and regular Checkers. The card games were Slap Jack, Old Maid, Crazy 8s, Authors (how I learned who the famous authors were and what they wrote), Rook, Hearts, 10 point pitch, Auction Bridge (Mom called it country bridge to differentiate it from Contract Bridge),and Cribbage.

Growing up my brothers were nearly 15 years older and ten years older than I. So by the time I was eight, they had all left home. When Bill came home for a visit, Mom, Daddy and Bill always played cards - so they needed a fourth to play Bridge. I was available and, while I would rather read a book, I got drafted. That is how I learned Contract Bridge. We also played pitch with four of us. Bob and Dick also played cards. The two of them plus Bill taught me how to play Cribbage.

Daddy would sometimes get upset with me because when I had the "dummy" hand in Bridge, I always had a book on my lap and wanted to read. That was not acceptable when we played Bridge.

I think Mom and Daddy had always played cards - when they were young marrieds, they played with a preacher and his wife (not in Ness City). They had to pull the blinds because playing cards was not acceptable to the congregation where this pastor worked.

Mom and Daddy played Bridge with several other couples. Until I got old enough to stay by myself, I always took a book along so I could read.

My brother Bill always had his nose in a book and I learned to love reading from him. I would walk to the library every other day in the summertime. We could only check out two books at a time - this frustrated me. I was a fast reader; therefore I walked to the library about every other day. I read books about animals, cowboy stories, science fiction, and detective stories. The Nancy Drew books were fun and so were the books about "Cherry Ames" - if I recall, Cherry was a nurse. I still love to read.

1937 Smith Family Group

This is one of the very few photos of me with all my family. I know of only one other. It was taken in Santa Monica, California, in 1937, when we visited Mom's parents and several of her siblings and their families.

The twins had each other and when I came along, suddenly there was someone for Bill. He carried me around long after I was able to walk. I adored him. When he left home after high school, his senior picture was on the library table. I would hang on to the edge of the table and talk to "Billie" and wonder when he would be home again.

The twins wanted to trade this baby girl for an old sway-backed nag. (Several years ago, Dick told me he was glad they hadn't traded me because I lasted lots longer than that old nag!)

Mother intended to name me Betty Jean. Daddy's youngest (and very spoiled)sister told Mother that Betty Jean sounded like a boy's name. So Mother named me Betty Jo! (Do you get a hint of how my Mom felt toward her young sister-in-law?)

Mom always called me Betty Jo, never just Betty. So, to this day, if someone calls me Betty either I don't hear it or it irritates me. That's a bit silly, I guess, but that is the way it is!

Family Photo 1930

This is the only professionally-taken photo of the Smith family. It was taken in Sharon Springs, KS, where my dad taught. This was shortly before the family moved to Ness City where Daddy worked in the post office. Left to right: Bill, Daddy, Mother, Bob seated and Dick standing.

My Dad was 36, Mom was 33, Bill was 9 and Bob and Dick were 5. Daddy and Mother went by their middle names; Daddy so he wasn't confused with his father; and Mother - because she hated her first name.

William was a family name. My grandfather was William Henry Smith - called Henry; my father was William Hays Smith called Hays; Bill was William Hays Smith, Jr., called Bill by family and Smitty by everyone else. The twins were Robert Charles called Bob and Richard Henry called Dick. Mother had brothers named Robert and Charles. Henry came from Grandfather Smith - but I have no idea where the name Richard came from.

Bill had all the attention of our parents until he was about 4 1/2 years old when he was presented with twin brothers. I am sure Mother and Daddy were really busy with the twins. As they grew, they had each other and Bill didn't have anyone.

Short Hair

This is the result of the haircut after I got to K-State.

Long Hair Photo

This is the long hair at the time of my senior picture. This was taken in a studio in Dodge City.

Long Hair

My Mom always wanted me to look my very best. So when I got my "pigtails" cut off, I tried to pincurl my hair but I was very awkward at it. So Mom would pin up my hair. We would use the hair dryer to dry it.

Can you picture the dryer with a "hose" connected to a plastic hood? The dryer blew hot air through the "hose" to the plastic hood I would put on my head. Sometimes I would hum just a bit below the sound of the dryer. Mom would think something was wrong with the dryer. Of course, that was the purpose of the humming!

A few years later, girls rolled their hair on foam rollers. I wasn't good at that either. (Maybe I was just lazy?!) So Mom continued fixing my hair all through high school - and it always looked really nice.

I went off to college at K-State in Manhattan with shoulder-length hair. I got very frustrated trying to roll it up and dry it each time I washed my hair. By the end of the first month, my hair was no longer shoulder-length! It was cut so that it would hang down to my chin. - And I was able to take care of it. It probably didn't look as nice as when Mom did it - but she didn't go to college with me! She did want to know why I had it cut! I wore it about the same length until 1984.