A Birthday We Never Forget - January 27th

Linda's Thoughts from Duluth

Well, I wrote this last week before Saturday, to post on Saturday, which was my Mother in Law’s Birthday. I came down with the stomach flu in the middle of the night Friday and was sick all weekend. Too sick for me to get out of bed, let alone come near the computer. So, tonight, I am finally feeling better, so here is the post that was meant for Saturday.

January 27th was always my Mother in Law’s Birthday. We did not forget it, or we would face her wrath. She was very good at remembering birthdays, and she expected that no one should ever forget hers. We always made sure that we had her for dinner on her birthday, and that we had a cake with lots of very sweet icing, as she was a big sweets lover. We have so many good memories of those birthday celebrations. I think I took a picture most every year, so have lots of photos of our celebrations.

When she was 75, she threw her own big party at her house. We helped her. All the relatives came, and many of her friends. That party was the greatest. She and I made all the food, and she had homemade pasta, meatballs, ribs, beef roast, pork roast, breaded pork chops and at least 3 or more “hot dishes” (Minnesota word for casserole). Of course, all the side dishes and trimmings to go with the main dishes.

When her 80th Birthday came along, I planned a big party, invited everyone. The relatives out of town said it would depend on the January weather if they could come. The ones in town said they’d be there. The morning of the party, was the coldest day of a long stretch of below zero temps here in Duluth. It was -25 below zero with dangerous wind chills of -60 below. I started getting phone calls, one family couldn’t get their car started, even when they tried to jump it. Another family called to say they had broken water pipes to deal with at their house. Calls from out of town saying they couldn’t travel in this cold. (by the way, when it gets that bad in Duluth, the weather man does advise no travel, or limited travel – especially if it’s on a weekend when people don’t have to go out to work, and this was a Sunday.) Dolly didn’t even want to come out of her house, and told me to cancel it. We always planned to re-schedule the party, but you know how things go, it just didn’t get done. I always felt bad. I thought I would do it the following year, but again it didn’t get it scheduled, so we celebrated the 81st here just our family.

Oh, Dolly was smart, when she had her 75th party she had it in July! That’s what I should have done!

It seems so funny when the 27th comes, that we are not celebrating her birthday in person, but I know that Bob and I and the grandchildren never forget that 27th was her day, and we spend that day with her on our minds.

Last year around Mother’s Day I wrote a post about her. In case you didn’t catch it then, I am going to re-post it today, (see below) in honor of her birthday.