Next Saturday would have marked my mother’s 97th birthday. She passed six years ago, and I miss her every day.
Her name was Hazel Bleecker Lael, and she was born on January 31, 1929. Her mother died when Mom was only eleven months old, and she and her sister, Shirley, were raised in their hometown of Choteau, Montana, by a kind older woman. I remember baking potatoes by leaving them all day on heat vents in the house. Their father was nearby, but he worked long hours as a carpenter and was raising their elder brothers. After all, he was a widower and this was the era of the Great Depression.
Mom grew up and met my dad, Grady “Skip” Lael, future town marshal, and former rodeo cowboy and United States Marine, when she traveled to Northport, Washington to visit her oldest brother, Harry Bleecker, who had married Marian Wiley.
Mom was 19 when she and Dad were married, and 20 when she gave birth to me. At the time, we lived in a ramshackle cabin on some land my grandfather had given them—more stories about that later.
She was always a voracious reader and she was a born writer, too. She actually published a small piece in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, a very big deal back then.
I may have mentioned that she turned me into a writer by handing me a stack of Nancy Drew books from the library one day, when I was home from school, sick.
Years later, I asked her why she’d never written a book, since she’d clearly had the talent. She laughed—her sense of humor was remarkable—and replied, “I didn’t want to do the work.”
This is getting long, so let me just say, Happy Birthday, Mom. I miss you so much.
And Happy Birthday to my favorite (and only) brother, Jerry Lael. You see, Mom and Jerry shared the same date of birth, January 31. Synchronicity? Get this. My dad and I were both born on June 10. Go figure.
