The best memories often last a lifetime
Dear Mom,
This a long overdue thankyou letter from Richard, one of your eight Archbold grandkids. I know it’s a little late — like 61 years late. But a wise grandmother, Eleanore Schmitt Archbold — otherwise known as Mom — used to tell me when I was tardy in getting chores done, “Better late than never, Richard, but don’t do it again!”
I don’t want to make excuses, but when you died in 1960, I was working at my first journalism job as statehouse reporter for United Press International in Lincoln, Nebraska. I was 22 at the time but never had time to thank you for all you did in raising the eight of us after our mother died in 1944.
Today is Grandparents Day, which was created in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter proclaimed the first Sunday after Labor Day a national holiday honoring grandfathers and grandmothers. At that time, I was busy moving from Miami to my managing editor’s job at the Press-Telegram and being a new father.
The years flew by. And it wasn’t until I became a grandfather myself to three fabulous granddaughters that I began to really appreciate all that you and Pop did to raise the eight of us. So here is a belated thank-you letter on your special day.
It’s hard for me to imagine how hard it must have been for you and Pop to decide to raise us after our mother died Dec. 2, 1944. There were eight of us,
the youngest in diapers at 2, the oldest at 12 and still in elementary school. And a father devastated by the loss of his wife, our mother, at 34. All living in a small, crowded Chicago apartment.
World War II still was raging. You had gone through the Great Depression before that. You were born Sept. 25, 1887, in Quincy, Illinois, with a strong German heritage. Your grandfather, born in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, came to the U.S. by steamer and drove a wagon pulled by oxen halfway across the country, finally settling in Quincy.
Who was going to take care of us?
Our father couldn’t do it alone. He was working as an attorney for the Chicago & North Western Railroad in downtown Chicago.
There was talk of splitting us up, with some going with this uncle and some going with that aunt. That’s when Pop stepped in and said that you and he should raise us — but he needed your approval. You were 57 and thinking of enjoying your senior years, not raising eight kids. But, lucky for us, you said yes to Pop, based on two conditions: First, that we move to a bigger home. And second, that Pop wouldn’t complain when you asked him for money to pay bills for clothes, house maintenance, etc.
Pop agreed. So we all moved in 1946 into a Victorian home in Lombard, Illinois, a suburb 20 miles west of Chicago.
There was no doubt who was boss there. Our dad was busy with his job. Our grandfather dabbled in real estate, gardening and playing with us. You ran the house and our young lives.
For this letter, I asked all of my siblings for their memories of you. There are seven of us now. We lost Bill, our oldest, to cancer in 2000.
Every sibling started off with almost the same remembrance:
“Boy, she was strict,” our oldest sister, Joan, said. “We all had our chores to do and you never argued with her.”
I remember you putting notes on a magnetic board in the kitchen telling each of us what our jobs were for that day. One of your notes to me said, “Richard, before you go play baseball, you clean your room, sweep the sidewalk and do the dishes.”
My youngest sister, Mary, remembered how she had chores to do at a very early age.
“I think I was only 4 or so and so small I could hardly see the tabletop,” she said, “and Mom had me doing dishes.”
Brother Dave remembered a rule you had about us playing basketball in our old barn next to the house. We had converted the second floor into a basketball court with a net and backboard at one end. It was a popular place for us and neighborhood friends.
“Mom had a rule that we were to stop playing by 10 or so at night because it was so late,” Dave said. “One night, a friend, Sam Cipriano, was driving to the basket when Mom turned off the lights. She had a switch in the kitchen. Sam would always tell a story that he lost his balance when the lights went out and crashed into the wall, injuring his shoulder.”
I think you invented tough love before it became a popular expression in 1968.
“Mom loved us and cared for us,” brother Tom said. “Who else would have done what she did for us? She was a wonderful woman. She was just austere and had rules for us to live by.”
Tom noted that you made sure we all had a good education and instilled values in us that have stayed with us.
“We’ve all turned out well, thanks a lot to Mom,” he told me.
Tom also remembered how you used to sweat over doing our laundry in the basement, using a scrub board and a hand crank to dry the clothes.
“She told me I could get the clothes cleaner using the scrub board than those new washer and dryer machines,” he said.
Joan remembered the time that you got your hand caught in the clothes wringer — but you never complained. Patsy remembered hanging the clothes to dry on lines outside in the yard during spring and summer. In winter, she said, clothes were pinned on lines in the furnace room in the basement. And then, after the washing and drying, came the ironing.
Everyone agreed that you had a tough job keeping everything clean with so many people, including eight children, a son and a husband.
When I look back at how you influenced me, you had a major impact on my life.
You made sure I got a paper route and got up early to deliver the papers before school.
“A job worth doing is worth doing well,” you told me a million times when I got a little lazy.
You made sure I was an altar boy with Dave at Sacred Heart Church, where you took all of us every Sunday. You also gave me permission to attend the University of Illinois as a freshman.
You also could be tough on me.
In a letter to Joan, who had just gotten married, you gave an account of what was happening at our house on 41 N. Main in Lombard.
“Richard and Patsy never came home until midnight so they are in disgrace,” you wrote. “I guess they had quite a time (until) they got home.”
You were referring to me driving to a high school football game with sister Patsy and not getting home until after the curfew you imposed. No excuses. Lesson learned — and I deserved it.
Many of my siblings remembered how you liked nice things and enjoyed shopping. As a treat, you would take some of us on the train to Marshall Field’s, in downtown Chicago, to buy clothes and just look around.
Everyone remembered, too, how you used to sit in your bedroom smoking Pall Mall cigarettes while watching your favorite shows on TV, like Bishop Sheen’s “Life is Worth Living,” Ed Sullivan’s show and boxing matches.
I must confess that once in a while I’d sneak into your bedroom, take a few cigarettes and smoke them behind the barn.
Peter, our youngest sibling, remembered you for teaching him how to pull weeds and plant flowers in the garden.
“When I was 10 or so, she would give me 75 cents to buy two packs of Pall Malls at Bradley’s Drugstore,” Peter said. “She wrote out a note telling the Bradleys it was OK to sell the cigarettes to me.”
He also remembered that before he went to school, he was known as Bobby because he had been christened Robert Peter.
“But Mom thought Peter was a stronger, biblical name,” Peter said, “so when she enrolled me in the first grade, she enrolled me as R. Peter and everyone started calling me Peter.”
My brothers and sisters pretty much agreed that cooking was not your strength.
“She liked liver and onions and always cooked the liver too long,” Joan said, “so it tasted like leather.”
I know you had health issues, mainly with your heart, in the late 1950s, and it became harder and harder for you to maintain the house. But you still tried. You never gave up.
Your heart finally gave out a few days after Christmas in 1960. You died Dec. 29. You were 73.
We kids are all grown up now, with our own families living in California, Illinois and Florida. But we have remained close, thanks to cellphones and emails. You never experienced such technological marvels.
Many years have passed, Mom, but I think of you every day and the sacrifices you made for us at such a later stage in your life. My brothers, sisters and I want to thank you for all you did for us. We hope that you are proud of us.
Happy Grandparents Day.