Harvard seniors gathered for a recent luncheon at Hildreth House in celebration of Mother’s Day. They paid tribute to their own mothers with personal stories and pearls of wisdom they’ve carried close to their hearts for decades. Some folks proudly showed framed photographs of their mothers in a poignant display of love and remembrance.
Martha Guptill holds a photo of her mother. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Anu Pirn spoke of growing up in World War II and fleeing Estonia as a refugee.
Ken Van Wormer holds a picture drawn by his mother when she was in sixth grade.
COA Director Debbie Thompson holds a photo of her mom in a bathing suit.
Carol Panek-Clark with a photo of her mom.
Debbie Thompson, Council on Aging director, gleefully showed off a photo of her mom June, circa 1939, as a teenager, posing in a swimsuit. “So many lessons from mothers are nonverbal,” said Thompson. “They teach us things without even saying it.” As a young person, June immigrated to Boston from Nova Scotia and eventually enrolled in nursing school. Plans got derailed when she started having children, but a valuable life lesson emerged. “A lesson I learned from my mother is it’s never too late to start again … Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and start again,” Thompson said.
Arline Marteney spoke fondly of her mother Frieda, whom she recalled as an adventure seeker. “She taught me that adventures are wonderful,” Marteney said. Frieda continued her love affair with travel well into her 80s, a fact that still amazes her daughter. “I look in the mirror now, and I say, I look like her,” Marteney said, still pleasantly surprised by that realization.
Phyllis Konop said her mother Alice was a great cook who taught her to sew. She also inspired a love of music, said Konop, a former piano teacher. “She prodded me on to begin my career in music.”
Martha Guptill eagerly held up her mother Irene’s photo from 1931, the year she was married. Guptill pointed in admiration to her mother’s “marcel wave” hairstyle and claimed she inherited her high forehead, if not her dark hair and eyes. She went on to relay an interesting anecdote about a picture titled “Three O’clock in the Morning,” which hung in her grandparents’ house during her childhood. It depicted a young lady tiptoeing up the staircase after a night on the town, heels in hand and a finger to her lips as if to say “hush.” Irene used to tell her daughters that the woman in the painting was her. “That’s my picture,” she’d say, and they believed her. After 60 years of searching flea markets for a reprint of that picture, Guptill finally tracked one down with the help of friends from the COA and the magic of the internet. Today that picture hangs in her house, a daily reminder of a “great untrue memory.”
Ken Van Wormer grew emotional while speaking of his mother, whom he described as a “Wonder Woman of sorts.” He carried a framed painting his mother made when she was in sixth grade back in 1917, as he praised her resilience. Once a teacher in a single-room schoolhouse, his mother became a farmer’s wife after marrying his father. “Imagine a farmhouse with no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, heat by wood, taking care of five kids in those conditions,” he said. Tearing up, he went on to say, “I look back and think I’m the luckiest man in the world to have a mother like that … in a culture where no one knew how to spell the word love. Mom, I love you.”
Van Wormer brought several listeners to tears with his touching tribute. But Gerry Curtin lightened the mood a bit with a fun portrayal of his own mother. “She was a wonderful woman who had habits that would be frowned upon today.” Curtin’s mom smoked for 70 years—two cigarettes nightly—and indulged in a martini before dinner for a good 50 years. Over time, the martinis got smaller and smaller, and yet they remained part of her nightly routine, even when she could no longer finish them. “I miss her very much,” he said of his mother, who lived to be 91.
Anu Pirn left Estonia with her family as refugees when she was a child. “My parents managed to get us through World War II and Germany, and I never felt afraid,” she marveled. She recounted how her mother would go begging for food to keep the family fed; her father didn’t like it, but she did it anyway. “Now that I’m older and think of the values my mother taught me, I have tears in my eyes,” she said.
The COA luncheon inspired some laughs and a few tears, as moms were remembered in honor of their special day. Fathers will get their turn in the spotlight next month with a similar event to mark Father’s Day.
Debbie Thompson holds a photo of Phyllis Konop’s mother, Alice, as Konop tells about her mother’s support of her music career.
