Celebrating the Life of a Working Mom

99 years, and well more than half of it working.

Born of hardworking immigrant stock, Ellie had aspirations.  She wanted a career, and so she moved from her small community of Holliston, MA to the big city.  She enrolled in nursing school at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton, MA.  A trolly car ride away from Boston city lights.  And the watering hole that she and her roommates would visit on a Saturday night.  She was a fun-loving young woman, who loved to dance.

Ellie took her commitment to nursing seriously.  And it as a serious time in our nation’s history – World War II.  She joined the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps. Never heard of it?  Well, it was a federal program established in 1943 to address the shortage of nurses during World War II – both at home and overseas.  It provided subsidized training and a stipend to promising young women who agreed to serve in military or civilian settings during the war. By 1945, Cadet Nurses were providing 80% of the nursing care in U.S. hospitals. (Read more about it here and here.)  Ellie served here at home.

And it was here, in her hometown, that Ellie met and married her husband of 54 years.  Charlie was a dashing young man, who had served in the Navy and Merchant Marines.  Their first of five children was born shortly thereafter.

The Mom and the Nurse

And Ellie kept working.  Getting those kids up, fed, and off to school. Endless laundry and ironing of school uniforms, attending to tummy aches and runny noses, and seeing to the occasional need for a kid’s stitches.  Making sure that dinner fixings were there for Charlie to make when he got home from work. Because she had this second job —  the one she trained for.

Five days a week (usually including part of a weekend), she donned her nurses uniform, cap, white stockings and shoes for the 3:00-11:00 pm shift — first as a private duty nurse and then as a floor nurse at the local hospital.  And somehow always finding time to attend a glee club concert, a baseball game, or chaperone a kid’s field trip. Hard to estimate the working hours entailed in all that.

Retirement – What’s That About?

Finally, the kids are grown and out of the house.  Time to realize a dream. Retire, build a small house on a lot that Charlie had purchased years earlier, and move to Maine.  To the place where they had vacationed for a week or two every summer of their married lives. Packing up a car with 5 squabbling kids (who gets to sit in the front seat??) and a trunk full of clothes was a job in itself.

And so they did it.  And soon found that full-on retirement was not really their cup of tea.  Charlie took a part-time job at a local hardware store.  Ellie said she had enough of caregiving and so went to work for the New York Times!  Well, kind of.  She went to work for the local weekly paper –the York County Star – which was owned by the NYT.  She worked in the back and was quickly given supervisory responsibilities for getting the paper out on time. She was given the apt title of “Lead Person.”

After a couple of years, she tried retirement again. But that didn’t last long, either.  Sitting around  just wasn’t in her working-class blood.  The local Catholic church ran a weekly food pantry, so she volunteered. And quickly became the pantry’s ad hoc manager — organizing schedules and managing volunteer staff. The staff and clients loved her.  And she loved them.  To the day of her passing in a nursing home, Ellie had a photo of her beloved food pantry men on the wall by her bed.  And despite being bedridden, she still had some “joie de vivre” – singing songs and reminiscing about her life.  Which was a good one.

Bottom Line

Ellie’s story isn’t all that special.  So many others of her generation have similar stories to tell. But she was my mom and let me tell you – she was special to her family and to her many friends and worker colleagues.

She passed away earlier this week.  I write this to honor her, thank her, and to celebrate her life.