March 13 — Moment of Strength: share a story where a female
ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation.
Again, my mother is at the top of my list on this one!
My parents were raising their three little girls in the coal camps of West Virginia when Dad was drafted into the Navy. He was the only one in the coal camps to be drafted.
This left my mom and my three older sisters to fend for themselves while Dad was away at Pearl Harbor. Fern, Jean and Betty would have been around the ages of 7, 5 and 2 years old.
They were poor to begin with, and even poorer after Dad left. Mom managed to keep everyone fed, mostly with beans. Occasionally, the local butcher would see Mom coming and put back a nice piece of meat for her, assuring her that it wasn't horsemeat.
During this time, Mom also became very sick. Her father heard about it and came over from Kentucky to help care for her. When it became apparent that she was indeed, very, very sick, he made arrangements to have her taken to Columbus, Ohio and he brought the girls back home to Kentucky. Mom had a very serious goiter that was wrapping itself around her throat, threatening to strangle her. She lost a tremendous amount of weight, and it took a long time to recover.
For the remainder of her life, her neck bore a large scar that went from one side to the other where they had to operate to save her life.
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