When I compose posts for this blog, so often the mothers who are important characters in the post just disappear into the background. The biggest reason for that is the fact that the census entries for people back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s are not given occupations other than “housekeeper”. I do not say this enough, but a housekeeper was and is a monumental occupation. Many of the mothers in our posts were farmer’s wives, and when a farmer’s wife was called a housekeeper, it meant so much. Those women would cook the meals, launder the clothes, sew and alter the clothes, grow the garden, tend the chickens, and raise the children, among too many other household and farm chores to mention. Wives whose husbands had other occupations also contributed so much to a family’s success. Unfortunately, I find it very difficult to discover all of these important jobs while looking at the kinds of records I am able to display on this blog. I even have found quite a few obituaries for these mothers which use names like “Mrs. George Wirth” without even mentioning her first name. These wonderful mothers often go unrecognized. Today is my meager effort to highlight those mothers.
I know that I have written several stories that call the woman in the story, “Mama”. I did a search for them and found quite a few with Mama in the title. I am going to list just a few of them here.
I cannot even begin to mention all of the mothers in our stories who died in childbirth. Or the ones who lost their husbands and spent most of their lives as widows, raising their families by themselves. Or the mothers who were willing to welcome orphans into their families when the need arose.
I confess that one of my favorite Lutheran mothers was Christiane Buenger, who came to America shortly after her husband died in Germany and brought 8 children. Many of her sons became influential contributors to the growth of Lutheranism in this country as they served as full-time church workers. And several of her daughters married men who also qualified as important characters in early American Lutheran history, such as C.F.W. Walther, Ottomar Fuerbringer, and Friedrich Lochner. That is why I titled my book, Mama Buenger: Mother of a Synod. As it turned out, Mama Buenger only lived 10 years in this country before succumbing to cholera in 1849.
The latest census entries that the public is allowed to view come from the census taken in 1950, the year that I was born. I know that when I was growing up, it was still a time when most mothers were “stay-at-home” women who had no other occupation other than housekeeping. I know that I will not be writing stories on this blog forever, If anyone takes my place in the future, they should be able to find more recent stories about women with all sorts of other occupations. Sadly, I think such a blog writer will also discover that many women became heads of their households in which they were single mothers in broken relationships.
As for me, I am happy to write stories that are mostly about families that stayed together and worshiped together. Divorce has been a word that shows up on this blog only on rare occasions. I know there are many reasons that this is the case, but today I am gong to mention the fact that it was the mothers who were the glue that held the families together despite very difficult times and circumstances. I will also mention that those long-ago families were more often found sitting in the same pew while regularly attending Lutheran worship services. I will describe those worship experiences as being some more of the “family glue” that held families together.
I know that I have the opportunity this morning to worship with my wife, who is a wonderful mother of 3 daughters and grandmother of 6 grandchildren. One of those daughters will be joining us, and I will recognize her as being another terrific mother of 2 daughters. My family now includes 4 mothers, and I am proud of all of them. If you have family nearby, I encourage you to worship with them today. While you’re at it, thank God for mothers. Don’t ever let the mothers in your life disappear into the background.