Ninety-One Years Ago Today...

Winnie at Western Kentucky University in the 1940s

... on April 6, 1921, my mother, Winifred, was born, the only child of parents Bessie Mae and Elias Willard Brookshire (both so dearly loved and sorely missed) who lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She grew up during the Great Depression, went to college, joined the Navy during World War Two and fell in love with my father, Joel Edward Buckley. 

Joel Buckley, Army Air Corps photographer

They had some adventures together and, seven years later, I was born, followed by my brother, Joel, four-and-a-half years later. After 25 years of marriage, they called it quits and, a few years after that, Mom remarried - Dad never did. He passed away in 1984 shortly after his 68th birthday (April 3). My mother, who loved her second husband A.J., told me once she never stopped loving my Dad.

At one point during the war, my father was sent to Burma (my mother was stationed in Miami, where she taught English to Chinese and Russian sailors) - this was before the adventures, the marriage, the kids - and my mother was so sad she wrote poetry to get through those troubled times.

A year or two ago she sent me a couple of those poems. This one she wrote in 1944 while on a train ride. I liked it a lot and have paired it here with some photos I took this winter:

Trees - all so stark naked and lonely,

So brazonly naked and homely.

Trees - winter's able hand has robbed them;

Yet they staunchly, quietly await their lover

Who will make their pulses throb

To feel his warmth like heavy cover.

Like them, I wait so staunch and true,

Lonely, coldly, bare of life.

War's hand of blood has robbed me, too,

And I am stripped by its steel knife.

When will my love come to warm me, ever?

My spring will be late - maybe never.


Well, he eventually came home and, well, the rest you already know. There were good times and not-so-good times, but Mom never wavered in her strength and support of our family. 


Mom, I admire your courage and appreciate your humor and respect your beliefs - you are a daily inspiration to me. You gave us life (you also saved mine once - in a swimming pool when I was young, before you taught me how to swim - and you saved your son's life when you climbed up that 30-foot-tall pine tree to bring him down - amazing!) and so we thank you for all that, of course, and much, much more. Have a hip-hop-happy birthday today!

On our cruise last year to celebrate Winnie turning 90

(I may have posted this photo before - but it's still relevant!)
Happy Birthday, Mom - we all love you so very, very much!!! 

Love, Tara