Ruth Cleveland Cecilia Dunphy Krueger

July, 1989

My mother, whose first name I share, was a warm, wonderful perfect mother.  She was 5’2″, slender, with auburn red hair and blue eyes.   Mother became the sister I never had.  My mother was a “home body” and that home was cleaned everyday. Sometimes when I feel a little depressed a tiny tear will trickle down my cheek and I’ll say wistfully, “I want my mother to talk to.”

Here are some of the things I remember most about her:

1. Mother had a lovely singing voice (inherited by my brother Richard). After her massive stroke, she could not speak but could sing words in songs she had known.
2. Mother had an Irish wit and always livened up a party or situation. She drank very little but we jokingly said all she had to do was smell the cork!
3. I remember Mother’s strong faith in God. She was a real Irish Catholic. During the days of the Big Depression, she would sit in her chair reading her prayer book or saying her rosary to Our Lady of Perpetual Help.   I am fortunate to have her rosary (75 years of age in 1989) and her prayer book as a remembrance. Her favorite expression during the depression  years was  “God will provide.”
4. Because my mother at age 16 had to care for her ill and widowed mother, she never finished high school. But Mother attended High School and College vicariously through her 2 children. Mother had a terrific ability to spell words. I never needed a dictionary. She was my correct spelling computer.
5. In the thirties we had only one car driven by my Dad so she never drove. Her social contacts were daily phone calls to her sister Adelaide and a friend Catherine Sherman.
6. When Dick and I left the home nest, mother began art work.  It was often just paint by the numbers, but very good.
7. Mother’s foods I most remember were German chocolate cake, vanilla custard, apple pie and fried chicken.

It was difficult for mother to see her youngest child marry and move to L.A.  We wrote letters daily to each other for that first year. After I had my first child, mother came out to spend a week with me.  We talked late into the night and used up boxes of Kleenex laughing until we cried! I remember so many, many more wonderful things about my dear mother.   I hope to exude as much happiness and smiles as Mother who during her last 5 years of life was stricken by a massive stroke, which left her without her speech, and paralyzed on the right side.  She was a fighter until the end and died with that smile on her face.  I love you, Mother.