At 2:30 on Sunday, October 23rd, my mother drew her last breath, 93 years, 4 months and 11 days after her first one. She was a great mother, a fine wife, a hard worker and I loved her deeply. Wanda Houser, nee Holloway, was born just outside the tiny Kansas town of Anson to a tenet farmer and his wife. She and her twin sister were welcomed by five older brothers. From the beginning she was a survivor. The baby twins were victims of the swine flu epidemic that swept the country in 1918. Mom’s sister died, but Mom recovered. As a child she loved school, and saw education as her escape from the poverty she knew. Soon she realized that if things were to be different for her, she would have to leave Anson and discover the rest of the world. The school in her little town only went to the 10th grade, so at age 15 she went to the town of Wellington to finish high school. Going to school by day, this teenager served a family as a live-in babysitter to support her education ambition. Her dream was to become a teacher, but to do that she would have to attend college and that obstacle proved to be a financial impossibility, so she found a new dream. She chose to continue learning at a business college and received training to be a secretary. To manage this, she had to move to the relatively large city of Wichita and work as a live-in caretaker of an elderly lady to make ends meet. By age 20 she had her training, a good job and she was living in the city.
Soon she found love and married Gene Farris. Not long thereafter, along came my sister, Glenda Jo (Jody). A few months later, Mom found herself carrying her second child. At age 25 all her dreams seemed to be coming true. Suddenly, that all changed when she got the call every wife fears most. Her husband suddenly died on a business trip in Kansas City. Instead of being a working wife and mother of two, she became a widow and had a miscarriage. But mom survived. Her father, who was quite elderly by then, told her that if she found a place where he could keep his cow, he and my grandmother would come and help her “take care of that girl.” So Mom bought a house and some extra lots on what was then the edge of the city. She continued her work for the vice-president (and later the attorney) of the Wichita Bank for Cooperatives and raised my sister with Grandma’s help.
Four years later my mom found love again. She met my dad, Veryle Houser, at a small hamburger café, and after a year’s courtship married him. Four years later along came Claude Raymond (yours truly, Ray). My mother loved her job, but she wasn’t so much a working mother as she was a mother who worked. I always knew that I was her priority. She went the extra mile to be involved in my life. When I was in grade school and they needed a room mother to put on the little classroom parties for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day, my mom took time off work to be there. When I was sick, mom would manage to get away from work to make sure that I was cared for. I don’t think mom ever missed a ball game, Boy Scout event, or anything else that was important to me when I was small.
Mom’s belief in the importance of education extended to her kids. Neither my sister nor I ever considered doing anything after high school except go to college. The question about college was not if, it was where. Mom and Dad made great sacrifices to see that Jody and I were the first in the family to get that college education which elluded Mom. When many of my friends at the small Christian college I attended had to sweat out how they would pay for each semester and finished school thousands of dollars in debt, I could relax because my folks paid for it all. I worked through high school to save for college, but I got to use the money I had saved for student trips to Rome, Athens, Israel, and Peru. At college the pay for the few hours I worked each week was used for personal items and my dating life.
Jody fulfilled Mom’s dream by becoming a teacher, and I became a pastor. Both of us extended our educations beyond Mom’s dream by getting master’s degrees in our fields (to be precise, I earned two). Mom was proud of us. On the day after I graduated from seminary, she rode with me from Anderson, Indiana, where I went to school, to the Louisville, Kentucky area where I was to be married a few days later. Mom, who seldom shared her feelings, said to me, “I don’t know what I am supposed to do now. You and Jody are through school, and now you will both have your own families. I feel like I have done what I was supposed to do.” Her mission was accomplished. She was proud and satisfied.
A couple of years later she retired and began traveling with Dad. For the next 15 or so years they covered all the contiguous states and part of Canada. It was great for her, because she got to satisfy her curiosity and learn many wonderful things. Finally, her body began to betray her and her mobility was limited. Her last trip was to attend my son’s wedding in 2003. I know the trip was very uncomfortable for her, but she would not be denied the chance to be there. The last few years of her life my Dad was her caregiver. He helped her with everything and pushed her wheelchair wherever she needed to go. They celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary last September.
My mom had a good life. She was a survivor …. more than that, she was a hero. She overcame a very difficult beginning and tough times along the way to build the life she hoped for. She passed on her love for learning, her sense of fair play, and her devotion to her spouse and family to Jody and I.
I am going to miss you, Mom. I love you. You hated the word good-bye, so I will say what you usually said: so long, I’ll see you later.
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