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Saturday will be the 4th of July, a celebration of our nation’s independence. Let’s also celebrate our own independence. During America’s early history, females were denied some of the basic rights enjoyed by male citizens. Among other things, women couldn’t own property, had no legal claim to money they earned and weren’t allowed to vote in elections.

I think being independent is defining the word for myself–not having someone else tell me what I should do. While growing up, I longed to be free from control, influence, support or help of others. As I matured, I realized that to marry the man I loved and have a family, I would have to make some adjustments. I quit my office job to be a housewife and mother, but that didn’t mean my husband was in charge. We learned to compromise and help each other. He mows the lawn, takes care of a dripping faucet and opens a new jar of mayonnaise. I cook the meals, write the checks to pay our bills and keep our social calendar.

When our three were rug rate, medical expenses piled up and we needed more income. We looked at the dollars and cents of my returning to an office job and hiring care for our kids. Together we decided it would be wiser for him to moonlight like many of his fellow deputies. After our children were enrolled in school, I found part-time employment as Durand Township Clerk and community correspondent for the Rockford Morning Star. Most of the work could be done at home.

As I age, I want to maintain my independence. Last Thanksgiving, I was putting the finishing touches on our family dinner. When I was pouring gravy from a large, frying pan into a bowl, Katelyn stepped up and asked, “Can I help you, Grandma?”

I replied, “No thanks, I’ve got it.” After turning down her offer, I realized it would have been easier if I’d accepted it. I also need to recognize when I can use help.

How do you define independence?

I started walking around Durand when we moved here in 1966. I had no choice–Ken drove our car to Rockford for his job with the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police. Our house was only two blocks from the main drag where we rented a post office box for our mail and I shopped. Small businesses included a hardware, a women’s clothier, a drug store, a bank, a furniture store and two grocers. Prices may have been a little higher than big city establishments, but a portion of the sales taxes I paid went toward fixing our streets and keeping the sewer running.

On snowy, winter nights, after I covered a civic meeting for the newspaper, it was quicker and no colder to walk three blocks home from the village hall or the school than to clear off the car and drive.

I no longer attend board meetings and only the post office, a pharmacy and a grocery store remain downtown, but I still walk after our mail, do what shopping I can and follow the paved path in Saelens Park.

If the benefits of walking outdoors could be bottled, a snake oil salesman would be hawking it on a busy corner. An afternoon stroll makes me happy, boosts energy, strengthens my heart, lowers disease risk and helps prevent dementia. A brisk walk keeps weight in check and tones legs, stomach and rear. Speed walking tones arms. Swing my arms faster and walk faster. The sun has been named a villain causing skin cancer, but I need its vitamin D.

The weather needs to cooperate for me to do my daily constitutional. Walking in the rain may be considered romantic, but I don’t do it. I’m not taking a chance that getting wet brings on a cold. In the winter, the thermometer has to reach at least twenty degrees for me to venture outside.

If you can walk, do you?

The old Spelman’s gas station in Durand was recently knocked down. It had become another business before the building was abandoned, but, like so many things in a small town, the longtime owner’s name was what everyone remembered. That week, The Volunteer devoted most of its front page to reminiscences from a son who spent evenings pumping gas and washing windshields when he was a teenager in the fifties plus his friend who hung out there with him.

It reminded me of the many nights Dad killed time at Spelman’s when I was a high schooler. He brought me to Durand to participate in rehearsals needed for plays and choral concerts. The sessions didn’t last long enough for him to drive the five miles home and return to town to pick me up. When I celebrated my sixteenth birthday and obtained my driver’s license, I hoped to make the trip by myself, but Dad continued to be my chauffeur. He didn’t want his little girl driving alone after dark.

My father was a dairy farmer whose days began with milking the cows at five o’clock every morning and ended in the barn twelve hours later. There were probably evenings he would have preferred sitting in the living room with Mom, listening to the radio and falling asleep in his chair instead of taking me to town, but he never complained. He said he enjoyed visiting with Howard, the single fellow who worked the evening shift at the oil station.

My parents lived by the saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” Dad never said, “I love you,” but I knew I was the center of his universe. He was only 63 when he died forty-four years ago. I will always miss him.

How did your father express his love for you?

Saturday, I’ll celebrate forty years of survival. I’ll begin by listening to George Jones sing, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” That song was popular in the summer of 1980 and brought Ken to tears as he worried about me.

On Friday, the thirteenth of June, 1980, I came home after spending three weeks at St. Clare Hospital in Monroe, Wisconsin. My left lung had collapsed and was surgically removed because I had histoplasmosis, an infection caused by a common fungus found in the soil, often from bird droppings. During my final check-up,I’d asked the surgeon, Dr. Curry, “Is there anything I can’t do?”

The physician, a brusque man, replied, “Do anything you want to.”

“How about things I don’t want to do?” I was thinking of housecleaning.

“Do those, too. It’s good for you.”

I was tempted to tell my husband that the doctor had said I was no longer able to do heavy housework, but I never lied to him. Besides, if I was going to play the invalid, I’d have to go all the way. I was afraid something would come along I wanted to do that was just as strenuous as vacuuming and scrubbing. I could hear my husband asking, “How can you do that if you can’t clean the house?” I’d follow Dr. Curry’s advice.

At first, I was anxious. My large incision healed quickly, but I wasn’t comfortable wearing a bra until after the new year. The only time I’ve noticed a change in my stamina was during a short trip to Las Vegas. Ken and I needed to hurry to catch a bus on The Strip. He ran but I found I could only walk fast. He prevailed on the driver to wait for me. Most of the time, I don’t even think about having one lung.

Have you survived a serious illness?

Knowledge is acquired through education or observation. The good judgment of wisdom is only obtained through experience. Older women have lots of experience. Those things that went extremely right and the ones that went terribly wrong stick in our memories. Sometimes a wrong decision turns into a good thing later.

When I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to be a hairstylist. Before I could take the state board exam and obtain a license, I had to have a thousand hours of instruction. I immediately began the six month course at the Rockford School of Beauty Culture in case winter roads caused me to miss some days.

It took only a month for me to admit Mom was right and I was wrong. I should have tried office work using the skills I’d learned in high school. I hated doing hair. I was ready to quit, but Mom said no–tuition had been paid.

The following January, I finished the training, passed the test and obtained my liense. I was immediately offered an office job. I enjoyed assisting farmers to take advantage of federal goverment programs.

A year later, my persistent cough was diagnosed as tuberculosis. I spent five months in the Rockford Municipal Sanitarium recovering from the disease. After the first ten weeks of treatment, including twice-a-week shots of streptomycin in the butt, I felt much better. The director agreed I was well enough to be the resident hair stylist for the other eight female patients. Suddenly, I was glad I was a registered cosmetologist and had mailed in the dollar annual fee to renew my license. Mom brought the permanent kit I’d purchased while I was a student and picked up the needed supplies at the beauty school. A haircut or a permanent made my clients feel better and it gave me something productive to do.

What experiences have you had that seemed useless at the time, but proved to be beneficial later?

May is Bike Month sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists. When our three were growing up in the ’70s, posters went up this time of year to remind motorists to be cautious during summer vacation. Those bicycles that filled the rack at the Durand Grade School would be on the streets and kids weren’t always looking for cars.

Do preteens still use bikes? Most riders who pass our house are adults getting their exercise, some on 3-wheelers. Once in a while, I see a family including a little shaver astride a miniature bicycle with training wheels.

Linda, Lisa and Kurt had to each be at least eight years old for their feet to reach the pedals while sitting on the seat of their big bikes and strong enough to pick it up when they tipped over while learning to ride. After the balancing act was mastered, they ran errands, visited a friend’s house or rode for fun. Their 2-wheelers became squad cars to play cops and robbers with the neighbor kids. When their tires were low, the air hose was free at Spelman’s gas station downtown.

I sent our kids outside to burn off their noisy energy, keep cool and give me a little peace and quiet, but now, I see no children playing outdoors. Sons and daughters using electronic devices in air-conditioned houses are quiet and don’t bother the parents. Since the 1970s, the obesity rate among children has tripled according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Can we as grandparents urge kids to play outside in the fresh air and sunshine?

Monday will be Memorial Day. Don’t wish me a happy Memorial Day. To me, that is the biggest oxymoron in the American language. It’s like saying, “Have fun at the funeral.”

A little background. In 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, people began laying flowers on the graves of soldiers killed in the bloodiest four years in American History. May 30 was referred to as Decoration Day or Memorial Day. In 1970, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act designating the last Monday in May as Memorial Day, a federal holiday.

In the Durand area, the Legion members place a small American flag on the grave of every veteran. People decorate family cemetery plots with flowers. The Stars and Stripes line Center Street in the village, but the usual service honoring those who died will not be held because of the Coronavirus. Neither will VFW Buddy Poppies be sold. The artificial flowers, assembled by disabled and needy veterans in VA hospitals, remind us of the World War I poem by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrea. The Canadian physician described the Belgium cemetery, “In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row.”

On Memorial weekend, many things vie for our attention. Stores advertise bargains. Campers, grills and patio furniture will be dusted off for the unofficial beginning of summer. This year, people practicing social distancing will forego parties.

I hope everyone will take a few minutes to ponder the meaning of Memorial Day and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for our freedom preserved with peoples’ lives.

How will you observe Memorial Day?

Are you sheltering-in-place? If you’re working from home, you’re getting a preview of retirement–more meals to provide and more togetherness with your mate or, if you live alone, more hours by yourself. Not primping to meet the public or commuting gives you time to think about what you want to do in the future.

In the sixties, I did as expected and quit my office job to be a housewife and mother. When our three children were all enrolled in school, I acquired two part-time jobs–the Durand Township clerk and a community correspondent reporting our local news to the Rockford Morning Star daily newspaper. Most of the work could be done on my own at home.

I taught our daughters and our son to do all of the necessary homemaking things. I told them, “Unless you’re a rich adult and can afford to hire someone to do the work, you’ll be doing it.”

They asked, “Why doesn’t Dad have to?”

I explained that their father grew up in the era when outside chores were designated “man’s work” and inside tasks were deemed “woman’s work.” I wasn’t about to change that stubborn man.

Ken retired in 2003 after serving in law enforcement for 37 years. I’d cooked and cleaned for 44 years and suggested my retiring, but his retort was, “I never heard of a housewife retiring.”

It’s been a long time since I thought of myself as “just a housewife,” but I continue to do the tasks necessary to make our house a home. If I’m gone or sick, my husband takes care of the daily duties. Otherwise, he does what he wants to do when he wants to do it.

After serving 46 years as clerk, I declined to run in the 2017 election for township officials. I will never retire from writing as long as my mind and fingers work.

Are you retired, looking forward to retirement or hoping to never retire?

It took a few years to realize how fortunate I’d been to be a bored, only child hearing Mom tell stories over and over about her life before becoming my mother. I learned to understand her because I knew about her past.

Edith, the youngest of four children, was only seven years old when her mother died at home followed by the funeral held there. Elder sisters, Frances and Laura, soon married and moved to their own houses. Her dad raised her and her brother, Laurence, who was two years older and had epilepsy. Their farm could be a dangerous place for him because at that time there was no medication to control his seizures.

In the nineteen twenties and thirties, country people lived a primitive lifestyle. Her dad carried water by the pail full from the hand pump in the yard into the house. During cold weather, stoves in their home burned wood to provide heat. The fires went out overnight.

After eight years of walking to a nearby country school, she rode her horse five miles to town to attend Durand High School. To wash her face on winter mornings, she broke the ice in the pail, poured water into a pan and heated it on the stove. After dressing and bundling up, she went out to the barn to saddle Molly. Halfway to town she stopped at her sister Fran’s house to warm up and eat breakfast. When she arrived in Durand, she left her horse at the livery stable uptown and walked to the high school on the southwest edge of the village. Her senior year, she drove the new ’29 Dodge her dad had bought, unless the dirt roads were too muddy.

Edith met Alex, my father, when the car had a flat tire along the road and he came by riding his horse. She could have changed it herself, but I’m sure she enjoyed standing back and watching this cute, young guy who was new to the neighborhood do the work.

In the month of December when she was 21, her father went to the hospital for surgery. He died there right before Christmas. The following February, Edith and Alex were married and started farming. I was born 2 1/2 years later. Mom never let it show that the holidays continued to evoke sad memories for her.

Although Mom said, “I didn’t have anyone to teach me to be a mother or a grandmother,” she was the ideal mother for me and grandmother to our children.

Are you telling the younger generation your stories?

Dandelions and violets are blooming in our yard. Obviously, anything green is allowed to grow, not just luxurious grass.

The flowers remind me of my country grade school days. This week, I would have used my spare time to make May baskets from colorful, construction paper. First, I’d cut a half-inch strip from the wide side of the sheet to use as the handle. Then, I’d snip in about an inch from four edges to make a square basket. Before pasting the corners of the folded sides, I used a rebus to tell the recipient My heart pants for you. I wrote My, drew pictures of a heart and a pair of pants and finished with 4 you. I added the handle by pasting its ends to the middle of each long side.

On May 1, Mom made a batch of fudge. I’d bring the baskets home from school, pick flowers and add pieces of fudge. I would place the filled containers in the wire basket on the front of my bike and ride to neighbors’ houses. I would set a basket on the doorstep, knock, shout “May basket” and quickly pedal away. The object was not to get caught.

With schoolchildren at home this week because of the Coronavirus shutdown, I wonder if modern parents know about May baskets as an art project or can show their kids how to make one. The homemade fudge could be replaced with something bought individually wrapped. Because the object is to be anonymous, the child could leave the basket on a neighbor’s stoop without making contact.

Did you hang May baskets when you were a grade schooler or are you too young to have participated in the ritual?