As Mother’s Day has just passed, I have been recalling many memories of my mother, Mary Steiner.
She and my father, who were married in 1910, had four children and I was the youngest. She had two sisters and two brothers. Her early years were spent living at 84 Munson St. in Greenfield.
My grandmother and grandfather had come from Berne, Switzerland to start a new life in America. My uncle Fritz was only two years old at that time. They bought a small farm on Munson Street and raised their family there.
My mother and father were very religious, and my mother was a charter member when the Robbins Memorial Church was founded. Many members of the Steiner family attended the church, including my second cousins who are still very dedicated to the church.
Because my parents did not own or drive a car and we lived on High Street, my mother sent me instead to the Second Congregational Church on Court Square, where I went to Sunday school and became a Boy Scout. I became a member of the church in 1947, and at 91, I am still a member.
My mother had little formal education, but she knew very well what was right and what was wrong. She could have been an excellent teacher, for she taught me in so many ways.
At Christmas time, there was a long, woolen stocking hung by the cast iron stove, where her wonderful home-cooked meals were made. Inside the stocking there would be an orange, apple, some nuts that had to be cracked open to eat the contents, and some pieces of coal. The coal was a reminder to me that at times during the year, I had not been at my best behavior.
My mother was a cancer survivor who underwent an operation for breast cancer, and she had serious leg ulcers that had to be treated almost every day. My parents were married more than 60 years and the remaining years of their lives were spent in the Franklin Nursing Home on Conway Street, now the location of Valley Medical Group.
I will always be so thankful that I had a caring, loving mother. She had little or no money at times during the Depression years, but she kept our family together during some very difficult times.
My mother died at the age of 92 and my father at age 86. I will always miss their presence in my own life for what they did for me.