The blossoms on my heirloom crab apple tree have long since faded and its now covered in hundreds of tiny green apples. She’s been working hard for months now, preparing her food for autumn, when the summer supplies of brambles and chokecherries have all been picked clean.
The Eastern Bluebird has made fewer trips into the open spaces at my woods edge lately, but I can count on his reliability each year to be among the first spring arrivals. This year, I spotted him before I even saw my first Robin. His showy blue feathers striking against the brown monochrome landscape of the early season; a harbinger of the promise of a new life-giving cycle.
The apple blossom and the bluebird; Each spring they flash onto a dreary Midwest landscape with promise and predictability, bringing with them beauty, wonder, abundance, and stability. Extending their gifts freely, they give unconditionally and only ask us to appreciate and accept them in return.
Mamie was born in 1909 in Detroit, Michigan. Both her parents were first generation Americans from German immigrant families. They spoke fluent German as well as English, though Mamie and her brothers were raised to speak only English. As a girl, she grew up in Detroit, in what was then considered a nice middle-class neighborhood. She had 3 brothers, one of whom died of Polio at 2 years old. Her mother had battled sickness on and off for most of her life, and when Mamie was 9 years old, her mother died of gall bladder complications at the age of 36. Shortly afterwards, her grandmother moved in with the family and helped her father with the children. She met her husband, Louis, on a street car in Detroit and was married, age 20, in 1929. Mamie & Louis started their family in Detroit, raising 4 children through Chicken Pox, Measles, Whooping Cough, and Scarlet Fever. After WWII, Louis lost his job at the war plant in Detroit, and the family moved to Springport, a small country town in southern Michigan to make a fresh start. Her life turned to farm work, and the family of 6 lived for awhile with no electricity, running water, indoor toilet, or telephone in a 3 bedroom house. She and Louis raised 3 more children along the way (finally adding electricity and indoor plumbing); the last two children being twins, born when Mamie was 42 years old. Mamie & Louis celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1979, and just a year and a half later, Louis died from heart failure at age 75. After her husband’s death, Mamie lived alone on the farm for nearly 20 years, until she moved in with family. Family was the most important thing to her, and upon her own death at 95 years old, she left behind 7 children, 21 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great grandchild. Due to the times she lived in, Mamie’s life was not easy, being filled with the hardships of poverty, sickness, and death. Though despite her circumstances, she was always able to give love, and taught us about the unconditional and abiding love of the Lord just by being herself. Mamie made such an impression upon us that 14 years since she went home, she is still remembered, loved, and missed by those she left behind.