My mother moved to Kansas in 1957—the same year I moved here. I lived with her in a duplex owned by my brother Carlyle. After a fire there, she moved to a little cottage also owned by Carlyle. Once Orlando and I moved our family out of the house we were renting on 24th Street into our new home on 22nd Street, mother moved into the rental we vacated.
I called her every morning to check on her. One day she didn’t answer the phone so I went to her house to see what was going on. I found her on the bathroom floor and called her doctor to get her checked out. She was hospitalized and diagnosed as having an aneurysm. When she was dismissed, we moved her to our home. After living with us for about a year, she moved to Bethel Nursing Home. She lived there for about six months. One morning I received a phone call with the message that she was probably in the last hours of her life. I took the children next door to the neighbors and went to the nursing home.
I found her to be awake and more cheerful than I’d seen her for a long time. We visited a little bit, then I went back home to check on the kids. After picking them up, I drove in our garage and heard the phone ringing. It was the nursing home. Mom had just died. What a shock!
After getting this news, I started making the phone calls to notify my siblings of her death.
I phoned the funeral home and made arrangements for her body to be flown back to Freeman for her funeral and burial beside her husband. I also phoned my home church and made arrangements for a time for the funeral.
After the funeral at the full church, we had a meal and visited with many people. All my siblings and their families were there, and I had arranged for a local photographer to take our picture. Later after many shots, we found out he didn’t have any film in his camera.
The life of a wonderful mother and grandmother was now gone.
