Henry Lunn's Mother

There were days in the dead of winter when it was very cold in Littleton, Aroostook County, Maine. We would huddle around the old cook stove in the kitchen as we got ready to go to school. Mom would be busy preparing lunches. She would fill our dinner buckets with homemade molasses brown bread sandwiches, cup cakes, hot chocolate and maybe an orange, if the General Store had some when we went into town on our weekly grocery run.

As we waited for Dad to get the old Dodge warmed up to take us to school, our next door neighbors, the Suitter kids, would come get warm and catch a ride to school. During the warming up time, Mom would very quietly check out what the Suitter kids had in the lunch buckets...because...many times their lunch buckets would consist of a biscuit and molasses. Mom would quickly make several more hefty sandwiches and slip them into their lunch buckets.

Mom would ask each of us what we had on our feet. "Do you have on wool socks? How about mittens? Now, keep dry." She KNEW what WE had on, but it was her way of checking out the Suitter kids. All too often the would have bare feet in gum rubber boots. Mom would go to the sock drawer and produce bunches of hand knit wool socks. Then, check us ALL to be sure we would be warm. Quiet thanks would be spoken. Dad and the old Dodge were ready. So were we.

That was our mom.

Henry David Lunn
January 2007