What it Means to be a Rural Woman, Part III

Living alone, or as Mother put it, a ‘grass widow’.

My Mother (1959 – 1971)

In November 1971  — Turning 16 years of age on November 7, Gravel Roads was issued a bona fide driver’s license by Saskatchewan Government Insurance, as would anyone else passing the driver’s and written test.

In November 1971  —  After being issued said license, Mother and I packed a few things in my 1966, two-door Ford Galaxy 500 and started out for Red Lake, Ontario.

In November 1971  —  The temperatures were freezing, the roads, although salted for ice, were still treacherous.

In November 1971  —  Dad was earning a union wage along with isolation pay working on a mine-site, in a remote part of Ontario. He hadn’t been home for a few months.

In November 1971  —  Mother missed him. A lot.

Why was he there and not at home?

Something called grain prices. Let’s just say everything went to heck-in-a-handcart in the mid to late 60’s, early 70’s.

Tutoring from Mother and Orest earned Dad his journeyman carpenter’s certificate and a union card. A bottle or two of Seagram’s 7 and Mother’s perogies and cabbage roll dinners for the union rep earned him a recommendation for jobs.

Farms across the prairies were falling apart. And ours was no exception. Additional income was crucial for survival.

That’s why.

Getting back to Mother’s faith in my driving 800 miles on icy highways half-way across the country

I know, I know. Licensed for all of a few days. How could a mother do this to her daughter?

Willingly on the part of the daughter, trustingly on the part of the mother. What more is there to say? I was confident.

That’s how she raised me. To be confident.

We completed the trip with nary a mishap, stopping only for coffee, sandwiches, donuts and potty-time in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.

12 hours later we were there

Almost.

We parked the car as directed. There were two snowmobiles awaiting us. For a trip across a mile or more of ice (Red Lake). Much shorter than the black-ice road winding and climbing through the rock and timber around the lake.

About those snowmobiles. Dad commissioned two security guards from the mine to escort us across the ice.

There’s something else you should know about my Mother. She’s never, ever worn slacks. Ever. A lot like Donna Reed or Mrs. Cleaver never wearing flats.

So, we each mount our separate snowmobiles. Mother did acquiesce to wearing snow-mobile pants under her plaid dress. Wearing her green church hat under the snow-mobile hood.

So, away we went. No camera. My memory is all I have to offer. Red heels under those pants. Velvet green hat under that hood.

Some may say she was foolish. I say she was my Mother. Trying to look her ‘grass-widow’-best to greet Dad.

The green hat was a gift from him on their last trip to Regina.

Back to 1959

If you’ve read Auntie Tillie, you know that I suffered from rheumatic fever  — which in the day was simply a precursor for rheumatoid arthritis, et al. From the age of four I was prescribed daily dosages of aspirin to manage the fever and the pain  —  a practice which today in young children, is linked to Reyes’s Syndrome, a severe brain disorder.

At best, Mother was told to expect the worst.

She remained vigilant for years to come, praying with the Nun over my fluctuating 40 pounds, and body temperature hovering at 104º. Cold compresses on the forehead. Massaging my tender limbs with liniment. Reading children’s stories. Playing music from the front room. No light permitted. Could injure my eyesight, as per doctor’s orders.

Report cards recorded my highest attendance was for 60 days in fourth grade.

My Mother would accept nothing less than a full recovery. Steadfast, strong, certainly determined.

That was Mother in all her undertakings.

 

Gravel Roads is alive and well.

Don’t consider myself brain-damaged.

Don’t consider myself physically incapacitated.

Don’t consider myself anything less than a “Rural Woman’s Daughter”.

Seems fitting to finally introduce this rural woman, wife and mother. Being the last installment in the series, and all.

She is Josephine Sworak (nee Sianchuk).

Mostly Jean, though.

Yes’m. Jean fits quite nicely.