Whew-

It's been a long time since I've posted.   So much to say, so little motivation... I hate bloviating, but
since it's the occasion of the 13th anniversary of my dear mother, Helen's passing, I thought I would compile a little tribute to her.
To say that God broke the mold when He made her would be the understatement of the year. She was certainly a trailblazing woman of the 20th century.  But she had faults aplenty.

Here is a tribute I put together of her today that includes some sweet poems she had written for family and friends.  Love you, mom!

 A tribute to

Helen Southard Johnson

June 5, 1914 - July 25, 2000

Helen, the oldest of 10 in a poor Irish Catholic family skipped the 2^nd grade (she was a bright one) and most of 4^th when she and her 3 younger brothers were quarantined with Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever for four straight months in the late 1920s (her poor mother!)

After graduating high school early at age 16, she wanted to enter nurses’ training, and tried to pass herself off as 17 to the nuns who ran Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.  When they suspected that she wasn’t being truthful, and they told her, “go home to your mother, dear,” she spent the next year working on a river boat with the cook, her aunt Kate Sweeney, on the Ohio river between Pittsburgh and Louisville.  She did enter nurses training at 17 at Johnstown Mercy Hospital.  Helen graduated 2^nd in her class, after some memorable times, like when she defiantly dared one of the nuns  (who had falsely accused her ) to punch her.   After graduating in ’35, in the middle of the Great Depression, she went to work for $ 1 a day, doing twelve hour shifts at the Benson Sanitarium, a private hospital in Philipsburg, PA.  Her first paycheck went to buy shoes for her younger siblings.

She met Burt Johnson when he was a patient of hers in the ‘San’, as she called it. He had been admitted with appendicitis, but, at home, his young wife, Louise, mother of two teenagers, was dying of a brain tumor. Mom fell in love with him, a married man, but said nothing.  A year later, Burt, a recent widower, came looking for her. When he couldn’t locate her in any of the bars in town, he found her walking out of church.  They were married 3 weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  He was 13 years older than she.  At age 27, Helen became a stepmother to two teenagers, and 10 months later, the mother of a newborn – and one year to the day after that, a second son.   In less than two years of marriage, she was a mother of 4!  Five years after that, another son was born another, and five years  later, I came along. 

Now, those of us who knew Helen well also knew all her shortcomings.  She was probably a much more compassionate nurse than a mother, and we wear the scars.  But there were a lot of mitigating circumstances to consider, too.  I’ve heard her described by one of her children as being lazy.  I doubt he knew that she’d had serious problems with anemia all her life, and had to take B 12 shots regularly, as well having suffered debilitating migraines, which took her to John’s Hopkins hospital in Baltimore for answers.  Anyone who was ever critical of her wanting to retire when she became a widow at 54 didn’t know the history.

But retiring didn’t exactly mean sitting in a rocker. Mom was a good neighbor, always gave generously to the poor and had a very big heart. I remember her going to deliver the babies of our neighbors (who lived in squalor) and their knocking on the door at night.  Mom discovered during one of the deliveries that the baby was actually twins- which she delivered with no help - and one was breech!   She also took three little children and their mother into her home for several months who had been left to freeze in their house in the middle of the winter by angry relatives.

In her retirement, she tried acting at age 55.  She was fearless and quite a natural.  She also began to volunteer teaching reading.  One of her students was the daughter of a friend who had been a Special Ed teacher, but who’d never been able to teach her Down Syndrome daughter to read.  Mom succeeded, and that was a source of great pride in her life. In her later years, she was a daily mass goer and lector.  Mom  was well aware of her faults and spent a lot of time asking forgiveness and  trying to make amends.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a bit about her legacy.  Today is the 13^th anniversary of her passing.  Below are some of the poems she had written to grandchildren, other family members and friends.

If you’ve enjoyed this short tribute, lease pass the link to anyone who you think might be interested. 

And I'd love to hear your memories of Helen!

Thanks!  

 

Julie (Johnson) Linn

Morning

The sun is shining~

It’s almost blinding!

But oh so warm and lovely.

Let’s hope the clouds and rain nearby

Stay well above-ly.

‘Tis the Night Before Easter

‘Tis the night before Easter

And all over the house

My family is sleeping

On beds, floor and couch.

Bright eggs have been hidden

For children to find,

And I go to bed with

An easier mind.

They’ve gotten here safely

From journeys so long.

Thanks, God, all my worries

Have been proven wrong!

A Prayer

Bless us, O Lord

And the things that we do.

Let all of our actions

Show true love for You.

Bless, too, Lord those who aren’t

With us today

And those who have, over the years,

Gone astray.

Through your mercy and grace

As we love them and pray,

Let their hearts turn again

To your Son’s perfect Way.

A Diary 

A gift to Kelley Johnson

Write all your secrets and dreams

In me.

I’ll never tell, and you have

The key.

Frustrations and anger and

Happiness, too,

Can all go in here, but known only

To you.

When we’ve gotten old, and you have

Turned gray,

You can read me again, and I know you

Will say,

“Dear diary, thanks!”

Then put me away.

                                                                                                (I love you. Gram)

To Christy

Ten

I can’t believe you’re 10 years old.

Are you quite sure of this?

Did you have ten candles on your cake,

Blow them out and make a wish?

Your mother and father surely know

And have the papers to prove it’s so.

I know I’m getting old and slow,

But how could you grow-

So fast, so tall?

You used

To be

so

small.

On the back of that paper, she had written this: (a daily puzzle/hobby)

                                    Moribund

            Morbid            Morn                        Mound            Mind            Round

Rind                        Bound                        Bond                        Bind                        Bund

Burn            Born            Undo            Drum             Dorm            Dour            Dumb            Drub   (18)

(I think she made some of these up ;)

A Wedding Prayer

For a friend’s  daughter

My prayer for you

My dear young friends

Asks God to bless you

Through the years.

He gives the grace,

If you ask for it,

To share your happiness

And tears.

His love is great

It’s always there

And when you call on Him

He hears!

Valentines

(for her grandkids )

Thank you for the Valentines,

Thank you for the notes,

And thank you for the picture

Of four kids on whom I dote.

I took pictures of my pictures

(there are ten of you,  you see)

If they are good, I’ll send you one

And they are bound to be!

Each subject is so sweet and dear

And bright and kind and free.

Every one who looks at them

Says they ‘take after’ me!  J

On Your Retirement

To her sister, Virginia,

on her retirement from Honeywell

The ‘poems’ I write

Are short and trite

And this one’s no exception.

I have for my sister, Mary V.

A very great affection.

We have lived together

For more than a year

And I’ll say she’s a pretty

Good sport!

A suggestion was made

That I should give

A sort of progress report.

Well…

She finished school in ‘41

And went to work for

Mother Bell

She traveled east and south and west

Then ended here at Honeywell

.         (cont’d.)

Her years with you

I’m sure you know

Were good and quite enjoyable

But she’s not old enough

To hang it up

So, she’s once more

Employable!

Prednisone

I’m chasing after 82

And believe you me,

I know it.

If I just make it to June the 5^th

In case I don’t and blow it…

I’m up to 140 lbs

Through no fault of my own

All I am and expect to be

I owe to this bitter

Prednisone.

College Degree Time

To Trish Santoro- fellow thespian

At last, at last, you have done it!

You’ve gotten your lovely degree!           

You deserve every one of your credits,

And who should know better than we?

We have hoped for you, prayed for you, sweat for you,

As you rode along on the bus.

And your acting for Pennhurst Players

Has been a great asset to us.

So, good luck and best wishes, Patricia

In everything more that you do.

Wherever you go, just remember

We’ll be clapping and cheering for you!

To Clarabelle Bock, a friend

Happy Anniversary!

Since you’ve been married all these years,

There isn’t much to say.

I know you’ve shared both tears and laughter

All along the way.

There isn’t much in the way of advice-

What you should or shouldn’t do,

That I, a wrinkled old friend of yours

Can prudently offer you.

You watch your grandchildren growing up,

You see your hair turn gray.

Let’s face it, you two ‘old darlings,’

The age is here to stay!

I pray God gives you much more time

To live and love and grow together,

With a sense of humor to pep it up

And very few aches and pains to weather.

Love,

Helen