My mother, Ruby Trela, was born June 15, 1926. Her parents had emigrated from Denmark and she was their only child. As many other children born and raised through those terrible times, she was greatly influenced by the sorrow she witnessed. It would remain with her for all her years. When he was aggravated by some family member’s wastefulness, she would yell, ‘I hope we have another depression like before so you all won’t be so wasteful’! One terrified son finally asked her, ‘mom, you say the depression was so terrible, then why would you wish it on any of us’? She looked stunned by the question. She never repeated her hope ever again.

Her dad died when she was only 8 years old. Her mother later remarried when Ruby was 16. But more on her dads later.

Mom attended grammar school and graduated from high school. She helped with her mother’s catering business. The Great Depression finally ended, but then World War Two broke out and she worked in a plant that built bombers, a real honest to goodness Rosie the Riveter. Soon Mom met the love of her life, Tony. They married after the war & both worked at various jobs just trying to eek out a living. One of the jobs Tony had was working for a roofing company. Mom & Dad put their heads together and decided they could start their own company and Trela Roofing was launched in April of 1952. Mom as cofounder, ‘did the books and answered the phone’ and Tony or as he was now better known as AJ, did the installs and sales. Mom not only did the accounting & secretarial, but she bore and raised 3 sons, John, Robert and Dale. She sent all three to Lutheran Grammar school and 2 out of 3 attended Lutheran high school. One chose public high.

All three sons attended college. One son attended for one week, another son attended for 3 and &frac;34;  quarter years, just short of graduating with 2 degrees and the other son earned not only his degree, but also his masters and doctorate.

Mom totally had her hands full with raising three sons. One night, after going out on the town with Dad, she came home and promptly fell on Keester, because unbeknownst to her, 2 of her sons had decided to spray Pledge the furniture polish on the kitchen floor and then they would run and slide like crazy with their flannel PJ’s on the floor. Luckily she didn’t break anything, except may be some eardrums of neighbors when she started screaming at those darn kids after she stood and collected herself.

Another time she wasn’t so lucky. She broke her finger trying to catch a sixteen inch softball tossed by one of her boys.

Mom had an icy stare when she needed it. She could find out anything, like who broke this or that by just locking that look on anyone of her 3 three sons.

Mom loved to dance and she loved parties. She loved being around family and friends. Most of her son’s friends considered her their second mom. Most family parties were held at our house, usually down in the basement. Son number 2 vividly remembers the time a totally inebriated niece’s husband, danced around a table with his white shirt pocket full of lasagna while being egged on by the rest.

Mom could make new friends almost instantaneously. A simple conversation led to lifetimes of friendship. Dad and her had friends all over the world and would try their best to keep in contact with all of them.

Somewhat unbelievably, Mom had three dads, of course 2 were step dads, but who is counting. This lead to an unbelievable adventure for son #2 who could actually tell his Lutheran high school teachers that he had to take off school for a week in the middle of November to fly to Florida to attend his grandmother’s wedding!

Mom once carried son #3 for an entire driving trip vacation to California because said son had a cast on his leg from his toes to his thigh. The cast was a result of son #1 running over son #3 with a push type lawnmower, with son #2 witnessing. Mom said there was no way in heck that she would let those darn kids put the kaibash on her long planned trip. Kaibash was one of her favorite words.

On the same trip west, while in Albuquerque, son #2 decided to kick the crap out of ant hill built by fire ants. He got bit like crazy by those critters and mom had to take him to the hospital!

Mom fiercely defended her children. One son to this days recalls his utter embarrassment at baseball games of hearing his own mother scream out in a voice loud enough to be heard on Pluto, ‘how dare you call by son out’, even though he was out by a mile.

She also had to defend her young sons to the Chicago Police and the FBI! Two of her geniuses while walking to school in the alley, found live 50 caliber machine gun bullets in a neighbors trash and of course, had to bring them to school in their satchels and of course had to braggingly show them to their schoolmates, who of course had to rat them out to the teachers and principal. Cops and G-men were summoned, even think the bomb squad was called out. She kept us from going to reform school that fine day. Later, the other genius that was not at that machine gun bullet escapade, just had to go and pull the fire alarm at school and of course, like a true idiot, he did this in front of witnesses. Again, Mom successfully bailed him out but I do think the offense is still on his official school record.

Lord knows, mom had her faults. She smoked Parliaments and loved her manhattans. She could also out swear any longshoreman.

Mom had a major heart attack 37 years ago and she barely survived. She had over a month stay in Loyola Hospital while being on a balloon pump heart machine. She beat all the doctor’s dire predictions. I think she survived because she wanted to meet her first grandson. He was born while she was in the hospital. As frail as she was while lying in her bed at home, she was able to hold her first grandson in her arms for a few minutes, while tears streamed down her face.

Most don’t realize just how sick Mom was for all those years. Many times when she was taken to the hospital, EKG tests were performed and immediately they would call a Code Blue, hospital lingo for emergency, someone is about to die. Little did the staff realize, they were looking at what was mom’s new normal EKG. One of her sons would routinely carry around a previous EKG and warn the staff ahead a time so they wouldn’t be calling a code blue on her.

Mom and dad loved to go to Vegas. They loved it so much they even took all their grandchildren out to sin city.

Tony & Ruby spent 60 years together. Dad’s last years were full of medical issues and treatments. Mom took care of the lion’s share of his needs, dialysis treatments and hospital stays. Dad died 10 years ago and Mom soldiered on. She sold her beloved home in Evergreen Park and moved to a townhome in Tinley Park.

Many times mom was near death, but miraculously pulled through. She had many more than nine lives.

Now next time you look into a dictionary or use Wikipedia, check out the word ‘tough’. You might be very surprised to see a picture of our Mom, one of the toughest persons you will ever know. So light up a Parliament and raise up your Manhattans and say cheers to Mom. May her and Dad live in the Vegas wing of heaven forever!