One hundred years ago

This lovely woman was born on August 31 in 1913. Her father's brother, Uncle Floyd, lived to be a centenarian, and for a while, it looked at though Roena Shafer Simpkins, my mother, would follow suit. But a broken leg at age 94 led to her death just three months later.

Roena Elizabeth Shafter was the oldest of three children born to Martha (Wilson) Shafer and Carl (Don Carlos) Shafer, a home birth in a house on the other side of a swinging bridge in Athens Couty, Ohio. Though her sister was 13 years younger and her brother a few years younger, she outlived both of them. My dad pronounced her both the prettiest and the smartest girl he'd ever encountered, and I'm sure it was true. They married when she was not yet 19, smack-dab in the middle of the Great Depression, and she went on to give birth six times. It must have been heart-breaking to her to have lost her first child, Robert, on the first day of his life, but it was probably far from uncommon. 

The first of many things that was unusual about my mother is her name. She must have been named after the Lady Rowena in the novel Ivanhoe that many of us had to read in school. Lady Rowena became Rowena the Queen of Beauty and Love. Other than that, Sir Walter Scott doesn't tell his readers much about Rowena except that she is "mild, timid, and gentle" by nature and that she is "fair and beautiful." Somewhere there is the intimation that she is somewhat proud and snobby due to her sheltered upbringing. The only adjective here that does not apply to my mother is "snobby," though I do think she held herself a bit above the Simpkins lot, for which we all can easily forgive her, since she came from a home of greater refinement and sensibilities than did the moonshinin', fist-fightin' and hell-raisin' Simpkins clan.

Never having met or heard of another Roena, I checked ssa.gov's website for the last 100 years and found no record of "Roena" in the top 1000 baby names for any year. Under the spelling "Rowena," however, I discovered that it was the 458th most popular out of 1,000 in the year she was born..

Describing my mother factually is not generally my way, since I'm not especially interested in facts. But it was often her way, and if not factually, then thoroughly and with no details missing. She was, as I wrote years ago, our Chief Operating Officer to my dad's Chief Executive Officer. She never lost her marbles, never showed a hint of dementia even into her 94th and early 95th year. And with her beautiful fair skin largely unwrinkled and her keen interest in everyone around her, she kept her spark, her love for keeping order, her empathy for others, and both her inner and outer beauty until the end. And here's proof of what I write in a picture taken of her shortly before her 94th birthday on the day she and Daddy marked their 75th wedding anniversary.

Our last words to each other went something like this:

Momma (after setting the record straight about my being an unplanned and "unwanted" child and I responding half-jokingly with, "But aren't you glad you had me?"): Well, you never brought me shame. And I was always proud of you...especially your grades. But I never understood you.

Nannygoat (setting her lunch on the table and reaching to embrace her): That's okay, Momma, I never understood you either, but I love you.

Momma (not being a demonstrative woman and a bit flustered by my embrace): We English don't hug. 

It was true that I always knew I was "an apostrophe child," for having planned her first three children two years apart, she had more than fulfilled her motherhood role before my sister and I came along six and seven years later. But she was always there for all of us, never wavered in her devotion to her family, wanted -- no, needed -- to know all of the details of our lives. For after all, she had sacrificed her own dreams and ambitions for all of us. Valedictorian of her class and designated the student most likely to have "lots of letters" [degrees] following her name, she, like multitudes of women before and since that time, accepted her lot in life, adapted to circumstances, and soldiered on without complaint. She was a real trooper, my mom. She gave new meaning to "the ties that bind," setting an example that was awfully hard to follow but making me proud to be her daughter and wistful that I couldn't be more like her.

So here she is at nearly 89 with her brood of chicks, all grown up and accounted for. It is true that I never understood her any better than she understood me, but love is far greater than understanding. And I wish she were still here to celebrate that 100-year milestone. She loved life and didn't want to give up on it. Maybe I understand you better now, and I admire you more than ever. Happy Birthday, Momma.