Memories of Mom on her 95^th Birthday: September 19, 2011

Mom’s gardening skills:

Mom was one of the original Organic Gardeners.  Mom would trim roses, always at the 5 or 7 leaf point so that she would receive many more red beauties throughout the Summer.  She put banana peels and coffee grounds around their base to add potassium, and attract the beneficial worms. She always had beautiful roses in front of the house, though our hydrangea, which she dutifully cared for never seemed to want to bloom.  It was a beautiful green bush though.

Mom would collect rainwater in pails on the back sidewalk, much like the folks that are installing rain barrels these days. We would pour the rainwater into the glass milk gallons, and store them in the basement, so Mom would have plenty of unclorinated water to water her house plants with. She would put egg shells in the watering can to add more nutrients to the water as she watered them several times each week.

We always had a large vegetable garden in the back yard with tomatoes, green beans, green peppers, bib lettuce, parsley, chives and kale. Occasionally we would have strawberries, radishes, & broccoli.  We used our compost pile and manure from the farmer by the Jewel for fertilizer. For one of her birthdays, perhaps her 50^th(?) she asked us to buy her a blue spruce tree to grow in the backyard. It was less than waist high, and if I remember correctly, it cost $25 or $30.00, a small fortune for those of us who only earned .60 cents a day delivering newspapers at a penny a paper per day. She made sure that it was planted far from the fences and neighbors’ garage so that it could be perfect and not have any flat spots or interfere with the power lines, or the Dutch elm in the center. I remember trimming it with hedge clippers each summer, even after she had moved to the Holland Home. It is as high as the power lines today.

One of our strange games that John & I played as kids was catching honey bees by the hen & chicken flower plants on the side of the garage with a pickle bottle and a metal lid. The contest was to see how many we could gather in the same jar without losing any. Eventually we would get stung, and run into the house crying. Mom would ask how we got stung, and we would tell her we were “just playing” by the flower beds, and the bees would just sting us. Mom had a cure for bee stings and slivers that involved chewing up a piece of bread, and applying the dough to the sliver. According to Mom, her father (Grandpa Bieze), had done the same thing one time when he had a sliver, and the next day the sliver was in the bread dough after sleeping with it applied overnight. I have yet to experience that miraculous extraction. 

Another myth that Mom used to remind us of, was that maggots live in melon rinds, so be sure to seal them in a plastic bag before throwing them in the trash. We were told that we should also always take those rinds outside to the trash immediately after a meal, so the “worms” wouldn’t crawl out in the house. Perhaps there is something to spontaneous generation after all !!!

One of my other more painful memories involved having my fingers slammed in the car door on several occasions. It seemed I always had a finger nail missing as I was growing up. Mom would always manage to stop my screaming, and tell me that the finger nail would grow back, as her Dad lost quite a few in his day, and they grew back too.

Mom had a thing about pets.  As kids, we were always asking Mom if we could have a pet. We always wanted a dog, but would settle for a turtle, a fish, or anything that we would find or gather from friends or the pet store. We were told “No Pets” on several occasions. We did manage to have a painted turtle name “Turk” (Davey McGuire, the neighbors toddler couldn’t say turtle yet, but rather “Turk” and the name “Turk the Turtle” stuck. We kept Turk outside, which was OK with Mom. Unfortunately Turk only lasted a few days.  We let it out in the lawn for some exercise, while we played nearby, and we forgot about it until it was out of sight.  

We had a mouse that John brought home. It was kept in the garage on top of the charcoal grill or on the shelf with the plant food and rose dust on the back wall of the garage. The cage had a very squeaky running wheel for exercise purposes. That mouse really knew how to make that wheel spin & squeak, to the point where it would get dizzy and wipe out. This was another reason why Mom didn’t want it in the house as the squeaks would wake up dad & everyone else. We lined the bottom of the mouse cage with newspapers for easy cleanup. One morning we came out to the garage to check on the mouse for his food & water bottle, and found that that lowly brown mouse had built a huge castle inside it’s cage from chewing up the newspaper from the bottom of the cage into Paper Mache’ .

We had a pet Sunfish for a day each time we went fishing at the pond by St. Xavier’s or Maple Lake with Mr. Boomsma. We put the fish in Mom’s aluminum pan/pail that she used to collect rainwater. Unfortunately it would die each time. It probably had something to do with the chlorinated hose water we used to fill the pan.

On August 5, 1967, when I was 9, we finally managed to get a permanent pet. We rescued an alley cat kitten that the neighbor, Mark Mariska, was trying to pelt with stones. It was probably only about a week old. We begged Mom to let us keep it for only a day, to save it from certain death. She reluctantly agreed. That “Day” became 17 years of Mom’s dedicated service to the cat.

We came up with a creative name for our new pet. We named it “Kitty”, and the name stuck, as we remarked that it always answered when we called it by name. Mom always pretended that she didn’t really like the cat due to its shedding, claw sharpening, and strange movements when it was “in heat”. At least that was her official stance, though we soon learned differently. Mom liked to save the best parts of her Red Snapper and other choice restaurant meals for the cat. Mom would eat the edges and lesser portions, but the prime filet was saved in a doggie-- no –a KITTY bag for the cat.

The cat was always kept on a chain and leash, often tied to Mom’s clothes line. Occasionally Kitty would escape, one time overnight. At other times all of the teenagers John had over for Pinochle would have to rush outside to search for the cat they had allowed to escape. I still remember Bill VanderLaan’s husky voice repeating “Here Cat” Here Cat” as he strolled the alley and beat the bushes to recapture that darn cat which always hid. Kitty had a ladder in the basement to climb so she could look out the window into the garden. She would pound the window with hers paws & Hiss whenever an Opossum would come to dine on the compost pile. Kitty also had a prime perch in the front window, sitting on the table on a cloth. The same table the rest of us were rarely allowed to touch in the living room, better known as the museum room (Look but don’t touch or sit, let alone spill ;)

I think I have finally learned some of the secrets to old age. The first rule of course is to pick the correct relatives, those that came before you who lived to a very old age. Mom’s mother, Grandma Bieze, lived to 91 or 92 and so did Grandma Bieze’s brother, Uncle John Venhuizen. Her other brother, Uncle Louie, lived well into his 80’s, all the while avoiding Doctors and hospitals.

One of the other secrets to long life is eating right. Mom was one of the original Health Food advocates from an early age. Mom would send dad to the SouthTown Health Food store each week near 95^th & Western to purchase rare items such as Dr. Gaymont’s plain yogurt, 7 grain bread, wheat germ, natural peanut butter with the oil floating on the top, and bran. There were always vitamins C & E to be taken, along with a spoonful of Cod liver oil. These habits may be one of the reasons why Mom survived a thyroid tumor, after going to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

Some of Mom’s other healthy habits that may have rubbed off on us along the way include having a full green lettuce salad with a variety of raw vegetables: radishes, carrots, celery, cucumbers, spinach, and sometimes parsley before every meal. We were quite often full when it came time for the meal, especially on days when hogs liver (specially ordered from the butcher) was on the menu. Mom always had a green vegetable, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, squash, besides the meat and potatoes, as according to Mom & her Prevention Magazines, potatoes really weren’t much of a vegetable.  Probably ¾ of each meal was comprised of vegetables.

Favorite meals growing up included Francois Pope’s leg of lamb, basted & marinated with a mixture of Mogan David wine, ketchup, and herbs. Hamburger sized meat balls covered in cream of mushroom soup, thanksgiving turkey with bacon draped over the top to give it a smoky taste. The frequent pork roasts and roasted chickens were also tasty. Desert favorites were her fudge, as well as those scrumptious sticky buns and German chocolate cakes for our birthdays. The least favorite was of course liver, followed by a close second of tuna casserole with potato chip crumbled on the top.

Mom was also a crafter. She made many a Christmas ornament from recycled egg cartons with Mrs. Volz and Elsie Rohman. She also made a few Afghans in her day, along with some nice doilies and a crocheted dining room table cloth.

Mom had a heart for visiting the sick, as well as making sure the widow, widower and others were invited over for Sunday Dinner. These folks included Mr. Hoving, Grandma Bieze’s friend at the Holland Home -Mrs. VanderLaan, Mrs. Christiansen down the street, Mrs. Plieter and Doc at Rest Haven. We visited Rest Haven on a weekly basis when I was a child. I was there so often, I was prequalified for my Christian Service Merit Badge in Cadets.

In closing, Mom, it’s been wonderful having you there for us as long as 95 years. You taught us well how to eat healthy, and care for the sick & lonely, we even managed to enjoy having pets of our own. You survived the Depression and WWII, and never complained about all of the tough times while you raised us. We hope you had a nice day today, and wish you many more good memories yet to be made. Happy 95^th Birthday.

 We love you.

Fred