My Mom's Favorite Song: Love at Home

"Love At Home" is my mother's favorite song.  It was a regular at family home evening.

Lyrics

1. 1. There is beauty all around
   When there's love at home;
   There is joy in ev'ry sound
   When there's love at home.
   Peace and plenty here abide,
   Smiling sweet on ev'ry side.
   Time doth softly, sweetly glide
   When there's love at home.
   Love at home, love at home;
   Time doth softly, sweetly glide
   When there's love at home.
2. 2. In the cottage there is joy
   When there's love at home;
   Hate and envy ne'er annoy
   When there's love at home.
   Roses bloom beneath our feet;
   All the earth's a garden sweet,
   Making life a bliss complete
   When there's love at home.
   Love at home, love at home;
   Making life a bliss complete
   When there's love at home.
3. 3. Kindly heaven smiles above
   When there's love at home;
   All the world is filled with love
   When there's love at home.
   Sweeter sings the brooklet by;
   Brighter beams the azure sky.
   Oh, there's One who smiles on high
   When there's love at home.
   Love at home, love at home;
   Oh, there's One who smiles on high
   When there's love at home.
4. Text and music: John Hugh McNaughton, 1829-1891

Mother's Day Book

One of my siblings created a Mother's day book which I rather enjoyed. If they recognize it as theirs I can get it back to them.  My mother has kept it all these years. 

Weldon's Bad Habit and Was Mom a Racist

When Weldon was young and we lived in Othello, he had a bad habit of eating paper.  He would grab wrappers and throw them into his mouth.  I am not sure if he ever swallowed, but he enjoyed chewing on paper.  He was probably early elementary age, first, second or third. grade.  I would have been Kindergarten age at the most.  Often when we drove in the car, mom would catch him chewing on paper.  I remember on time, in her efforts of trying to get him to stop, she explained how there was know way of knowing who had touched the paper and handled the paper in the process of it getting to him.  She explained that perhaps the people who had handled it may not have been very clean.  Now this is the part I am not sure about.  It seems to me she also said the paper could have been handled by a black man, in her efforts to sway Weldon away from this habit.

Mother Keeping Track of Her Kids

Mother Keeping Track of Her Kids by: Ileen Wardle
Living on a big farm, a mother had a hard time keeping track of her kids.  The next two stories are about mother trying to keep track of her kids.  These stories are told by my mother.
One day, Billy came up missing.  I looked everywhere for him for hours and couldn’t find him.  Usually when Billy was missing, you could find him in the strawberry patch, but he wasn’t there.
I found Jim, my husband, and told him that Billy was missing.  He got some of the hired hands and we all went looking for Billy.  My biggest worry was that he might have fallen in the canal.  After looking for him for awhile we found him fast asleep in the corn patch.
my version of the same story
http://whilhelmsthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/01/othello-make-believe-home.html
There was a time when Sara and Connie came up missing.  After looking for them for awhile I found them in the machine shed watching a mother cat have her kittens.  The must have been there for hours.
I was so embarrassed when I saw this and they had so many questions about where those kitten were coming from.  I really had to do some fast explain about birth.

My poetry: The Peace of Home

The Peace of Home

                                      Dedicated to my mother        

When I was young, I often marveled

That the world could torment and trouble,

But when I arrived home all was peace,

As if I’d curled up in a blanket of fleece.

I always took that peace for granted,

As if for free it had been planted…

But not for free, but a mother’s work

Created this peace apart from a world gone berserk.

And now that I’ve become a father,

I’m still confused.  I wonder.  I ponder.

Is there some magic code to release,

That special, loving feeling--feeling of peace?

So it can permeate in my home,

And call to my children when they’re gone,

“Here is a place free from worldly cares.

Come, be refreshed.  Here is peace, free of briars.”

And it dawns on me, there is a key,

A Christ centered man I need to be,

Like my mother; full of love, quick to pray,

Bearing all things, giving kind service each day.

If I can exemplify these traits

In my children’s eyes--I will be great.

Not because of me, no I’m not the one,

Just love God, as my mother also has done.

                                                Billy Wardle