My Mother...

Thought I'd give Mother a break and write about her tonight! She was some lady!Moved out "west" to Couer d'Alene, Idaho when she was 9 years old. She was the youngest in a family of 13! Grandpa Rabideau, Mother's father worked in a sawmill not very far from the house! I don't know too much from her childhood except that she and my Uncle John Rabideau were great "pals". They had a cousin Miles who was a little younger but I guess that really made them a "trio" I do remember one thing that Mother told me about when she was a little girl, Seems all the "older" relatives visited each other quite often and that meant Aunts, Uncles, etc, There was this one Uncle that she told me about! He had a beard and he chewed "snuff" and Mother said every time he or any of the other relatives came, she , my uncle and (I guess it ws my cousin too,) Miles would run like crazy and hide under the bed till they could hear them leave. They said this particular Uncle with the tobacco running down his beard would, if he got the chance swoop the kids up and hug and kiss them! Mother said it sounded like a cow pulling it's foot out of the mud! Poor thing! In my lifetime too I have had Aunts and Uncles who would hug you and kiss you so hard it would make the tears run out of your eyes!Any way when Mother was old enough, (and I don't know how old that was) she decided that she wanted to be a nun! She went into a convent and before she could make her final "vows" became ill and I guess the Mother Superior thought that that was not the life for her so they sent her home to recover from whatever it was that she had! Probably home-sickness for her family! Anyway since she was thinking about being a teaching nun she went to a "Normal School" or a school where they prepared men and women to become teachers! Mother did become a teacher and taught in Wa.and Or. She really loved Oregon! but you applied for jobs wherever they were, which is why she wound up in Wawawai, Wa. where she met and married Dad! In her summer months at "home" in Idaho, she usually wound up helping one or the other of her sisters, who had large families. She, all through her married life, was helping someone besides taking care of her 10 children!! Everyone loved her. She was loved by all her Grandkids and her Great-Grandkids and all or anybody she met. She had a very demanding life on the farm, especially, where she packed fruit in the summers, but still managed her family! This is getting too long so I'll have to sign off for now!