register |  login
› ARVADA
Loading Ad
Visit Other Hubs:
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Tower
Blog
Blog Entry 70 of 124 Gladys Mercier, Arvada.
I like living in Arvada.I am a member of Trinity Baptist Church and have many good friends there.I lived in the same house in Denver until I married, so as you can see, I am a native.My husband and I adopted 2 Korean sons who are now adults, 1 is a State Patrol Sgt., the other is an upholsterer. My husband died Sept.1st,2005. My family is a real blessing to me.I will probably write most about them, especially my great grandchildren (3)

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~happy

The Simpsons,What Made My Mother Strong.

Contributed by: Gladys Mercier   on 5/22/2007

I have written several times about my mother and how she managed to raise eight of us children alone when my father left. I was about 3 years old and my brother Ed was a toddler.
According to my older brothers, my father was mean, both to mom and to them. Finally, mom got the courage to swear out an arrest warrant if he came back. He had tried to smother one of my brothers with a pillow so she decided that was enough, she could take care of us by herself.
Mom was born in Iowa. When she was small, she and her two sisters were taken to an orphanage in Council Bluffs, Iowa because her father had left her mother and her mother had no way to take care of the three girls.
A farmer and his wife adopted the girls and took them to the family farm near Fleming, Colorado. My mother told me many times that she thought they had adopted them to have help around the house with cooking and cleaning. Mom said they cooked for many farm hands and worked hard from morning to night.
Evidently they were not very good to mom and her sisters and they all ran away.
Mom went to another farm and asked for a job and was hired by a wonderful, kind family, the Marks. She lived there and worked for them for several years. She became friends with their kids, especially Elsie whom she stayed in touch with for years.
Mom also worked for a family near Sterling, the Rheinhardts.
Most of the farm families attended a church near Fleming and mom went with them so she made several good friends there.
One family that I remember visiting was the Sonnenbergs on a farm outside of Sterling. I spent a week with them when I was a teenager, I was so curious to see what life was like on a farm.
I found out that it was good and bad, lots of work, not much fun going on during the day, but in the evening it was different. They would all gather around the piano and sing. I enjoyed that.
I also enjoyed the food. I well remember the thick cream spooned off the milk that we put over strawberries or peaches. I can still taste it!
When she was about eighteen, my mother came to Denver to work for the Gavin sisters on West Colfax. Across the street from them was the JCRS hospital for tuberculosis patients. My dad was a patient there and also did yard work for the Gavins and in so doing, met mom. He was twenty years older than she was but she thought maybe she could finally have a home and roots of her own so they married. They lived together off and on long enough to have eight kids, nine counting my twin sister who died at birth.
The oldest child was my sister Mildred. She was fifteen when my father left. She and my oldest brother Bill were able to get neighborhood jobs to help, but Mildred had met her future husband and wanted to get married so they married when she was just sixteen.
Bill had found a job in a blacksmith shop while out of school for the summer. It was terribly hard work. I can still remember how hot and tired he would be by the time he worked all day and then walked home.
The older boys remember being really poor, wearing hand-me-down clothes that were way too big or small for them and putting cardboard in their shoes when the soles wore out.
Many times when I was in grade school, I could hear the sewing machine going late at night. I had dresses made out of the colorful sacks that flour came in then. Mom would then go to different jobs during the day while we were at school. She worked on truck farms near our house, at a turkey processing plant, at a cracker factory in Swansea, and we all went to Arvada to pick cherries and strawberries in the summer. She was our church janitor.
I don't remember things being that bad because of the hard work the older ones did. When world war two started, my four oldest brothers all enlisted and were able to send my mother an allotment., which really helped us a lot.
That was a difficult time though. I will never forget the fear on mom's face each time the doorbell rang, afraid it would be a black edged telegram saying one of the boys had died in the war. Thank God, they all came home.
Mom died in 1970 and after the funeral, we talked about how thankful we were that she had kept us all together. What a struggle that must have been.
We all turned out okay, a testament to her faith and her desire that we know God.
One of the sadest things I found in her things after she died was a letter she had gotten from the orphanage, telling her that her mother had come back to get the three girls but they had already been adopted.
I wonder what her life would have been like if she could have gone back to live with her mother.
Her two sisters also came to Denver but they lost contact for years....that is another story coming soon!


SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above blog



Current Rating
Based on 7 user ratings.

Talk Back : submit comments to the blog

*Note: you need to log-in to add a comment or rating.

Showing 1-8 of 8 comments
Submitted By: Gladys Mercier
posted on 6/8/2007 @ 10:08:07 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Kim,my mothers friends were Lowell and Florence Sonnenburg. Would Tim be their grandson maybe?
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Kim Price
posted on 6/7/2007 @ 7:33:34 PM
Rated Blog Entry
The Sonnenburg family is still around Sterling! They have a crop insurance agency in town and I know Tim Sonnenburg - he runs the agency with his brother Sam and their dad is retired.
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Michael Rule
posted on 5/28/2007 @ 6:30:54 AM
Rated Blog Entry
Great!
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Tabitha Dial
posted on 5/25/2007 @ 10:02:25 AM
Rated Blog Entry
I always love your photos, Gladys, and how you share your family history.
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Karin Malchow
posted on 5/25/2007 @ 7:00:06 AM
Rated Blog Entry
As always, a great family story, Gladys.
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Gladys Mercier
posted on 5/24/2007 @ 11:17:00 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Thanks to both of you. I did enjoy the story in todays Hub about you and your son, Marty,Bill. He is a cutie. Hope your garden grows!
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Bill Prather
posted on 5/24/2007 @ 9:30:27 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Gladys, thanks. I really enjoy your stories. You truly are of the "Greatest Generation." Please continue to share your story. You have become one of Arvada's treasures! My best to you and yours.
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: William Boucher
posted on 5/24/2007 @ 3:45:39 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Wow. You really need to write a book about your family. I'd first in line.
[Report as objectionable]
Showing 1-8 of 8 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Gladys Mercier

Arvada , CO

Gladys Mercier has posted 124 blog entries and 967 comments since joining on 12/9/2005. Gladys Mercier 's average blog rating is 4.99.
SAVE AND SHARE THIS BLOG ENTRY
BLOG ENTRY RSS FEEDS
BLOG LIST
WANT TO WRITE FOR YOURHUB.COM?
Want to see the stories you write and the photos you shoot featured in the YourHub.com Thursday print section available all over the Front Range and with home subscriptions of the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post? All you have to do is  register,  then post a story or column, start a blog or tell everyonewhat events are happening in town. We will print the best stories, columns, event listings, photos and blog entries in our print sections.

ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Ad

Loading Ad
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Ad

This YourHub.com community is produced by The Denver Newspaper Agency
Web Development and Channel Analytics provided by Indigio

terms of use //  privacy policy
the staff //  advertise //  help & faq
buy photos