It’s been a difficult year for my family, moving my mom into a nursing home after Daddy could no longer take care of her at home. But she’s doing well, my dad has moved to be closer to her, and we’re adjusting to a new normal. A couple of weeks ago, my sisters and I talked our dad into taking us on a drive to places from our childhood in Kansas and to the places where he and our mom grew up and where they dated and fell in love. They’ve been sweethearts ever since they were eight years old and Mothe saw Daddy sitting on a fence showing off. (We call my mom “Mothe”…short for Mother).
We started with lunch at City Sundries Soda Fountain in Marquette, KS where my dad grew up. This is the same malt shop he frequented as a teenager, still in business!
The building beside the soda fountain is where the movie theater used to be. Here, where my dad is standing is where the popcorn stand was. Daddy grew popping corn and sold it to the vendor, who was the father of the man my dad’s sister married.
We drove by beautiful farmland, and the places where Daddy lived and went to school and worked. Then we drove to the place where my mom grew up, and where my grandparents lived for many years. My dad’s brother lives there now. My uncle and aunt built a new home, but the place where my grandparents house stood is like a beautiful little park now, complete with the arched arbor between the hedges that I remember as a kid.
We drove by the farm where we all grew up, we dropped in on some childhood friends, and keeping a childhood tradition, we stopped for ice cream cones at Dairy Queen before heading back to Wichita.
It was such a fun day, though bittersweet because my mom isn’t well enough to be with us. But we took lots of pictures (my sisters took most of the photos in this post) and we talked about Mothe a lot as we revisited old memories. And we made some happy new memories to carry with us.
Where are your “Memory Lanes”? Do you still live where you grew up, or have you ever gotten a chance to travel back to your childhood haunts?
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Very special memories! Brought tears to my eyes. We just put my Mom in a nursing home. Next week she will be 87, my Dad 90; and they will celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary.
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It’s so hard, isn’t it, Susan, to see our parents age. And while I’m so grateful my dad is doing so well (80 going on 60!) it’s made my mom’s decline all the more difficult. We are so blessed that my dad’s commitment to Mothe has never wavered. He’s my hero!
Something that happened not long after I got married and moved back to the town I grew up in comes to mind. When I was growing up there weren’t street signs in our small town. In the years I was away they were put up along with house numbers. I helped my new husband with the town’s Cub Scout pack and needed to take something to the home of one of the scouts. The mom gave me the address and it meant nothing to me, so I asked for directions (things didn’t even register at this point), imagine my embarrassment when I pulled up and realized they lived in the house my family had moved into when I was 7 and still lived in when I moved out after graduation!
What a cool story, MaryAnn! I bet you were shocked! Hard to imagine the days when small towns didn’t even need street names. But I remember when we were first married and lived in my husband’s hometown, that you could get anyone’s info by calling the post office—or asking anyone on the street!
Enjoyed traveling down memory Lane with you. I still live in the town where I grew up. My mother still lives in the house we moved in when I was 8 years old, some 52 years ago. The saddest day for me was walking down the street in the neighborhood where I spent many of my growing up years with my grandparents. The tornado that hit Tuscaloosa on April 27th, 2011 had wiped out many of the houses on that street although my grandparents old house still stood.
It is heartbreaking to see places we once loved, places that are such a part of our lives and our history, torn down or blown away. It feels so personal. I’m so sorry you had that experience, Gail. And I’m so grateful that God has given us the gift of memories. We all carry a mental scrapbook of sorts and I love that through His grace, we can fill it with the happy memories, and we can give the sadder ones to the Lord to hold for us.
Your trip down memory lane sounds similar to what I did with two of my sisters a couple of years ago. My dad grew up in Meade, KS but moved to Manitoba, Canada a few years after my mom and dad got married. Because of this, we made many trips to Kansas over the years to visit relatives when we were younger. Now my dad has passed away and my mom is in a nursing home, but us sisters decided to travel back to Meade to make a “trip down memory lane” as well. We got one of my dad’s sisters to tour us around and the feelings were bittersweet as we went to the old church, farmyard, etc. where we remembered spending happy times as children.
Fun to learn that you have Kansas roots and memories, Gaylene! Even though it’s bittersweet, I don’t think you’ll ever regret that tour your aunt took you on. There’s something about seeing those places and reliving those memories that seals them into our hearts and makes them even more a part of who we are.
Loved this post, Deb! I’m so glad you all had that special day together.
What a blessing your Dad is doing well, and I truly understand how difficult it is having your Mom in a nursing home.
My childhood years were in the little town where the BIG Atlanta Airport is. Part of the town still looks pretty much the same, but there have been many changes—the biggest one for me is there is now a runway where our old neighborhood street was. 🙁 It was pretty neat, though, as a child—riding our bikes one block and standing at a fence to see the jets taxiing down the runway, and the pilots would wave at us! 🙂 (Yes, we were THAT close to the runway—things have certainly changed now).
Thank you for sharing your memories with us.
Hugs, Patti Jo
Patti Jo, your story about watching the jets taxiing and the pilots waving at you reminded me of when I was little, growing up on a farm, we lived on a fairly busy highway, Highway 14 in central Kansas. Semi trucks would go by and we’d stand out in the front yard and try to get them to honk at us, by making the hand motion of pulling the chain that made their horn blow. One day my mom put us all down for naps and dozed off herself. She was awakened by a terrible noise and ran outside to see what had happened. Turned out a semi-driver had a heart attack and lost control of his rig. It careened off the highway into our yard and under the clothesline near where we played. My mom’s first thought was that we kids were playing out there. She was so frazzled that for a minute she forgot we were all safely in the house napping.