A Single Mom in the ’60s: An Interview with My Grandma

Some days, when being a mom has run me through the ringer, I go to bed hoping I’m doing OK. Am I nailing it? Screwing it up? But many moms have come out on the other side, sent all their kids off to live on their own, and can look back on their experience with 20/20 clarity. It’s encouraging to learn from their experiences. Possibly the most experienced parent I know, and am lucky to receive advice from, is my grandmother. She raised five children on her own, helped children raise their kids, and now is preparing to welcome her 19th great-grandchild into the world.

While the world around us has changed quite a bit in the past 20 years, the challenges and blessings that come with motherhood have remained similar for centuries.

My grandmother’s life as a mom came with challenges. She had five kids in seven years, and when her youngest was just two year old, her husband left. After nine years of being home with her children, she was forced to go back to work. Although under very different circumstances, this wasn’t the first time she was entering the work force. She first got a job after graduating high school at 16 years old.

“That was a hard time for me. I really wanted one summer off, but I had to get a job and give money to the family. I cried when I had to leave school.”

But even when unexpectedly left to raise five children on her own, she was quick to land on her feet. She took a job working the night shift at Wonder Bakery for $60 a week. Her youngest sister, Trudy, moved in with her to help with the kids.

“Trudy was a kid at heart,” she said. “She was the perfect person to take care of my little kids.”

Plus, times were different in the ’50s. Back then, she could put her two youngest on the bus on Monday morning and send them off to meet their grandma, who would care for them all week and bring them home on Friday.

“I knew all the bus drivers, so [my kids] would ride the bus by themselves at two and four years old, and their grandmother would meet the bus to welcome them. That was in the ’50s. You couldn’t do that today.

Trudy stayed with me until she re-married, and around that time I met a young girl, Becky, and she moved in and helped with the kids. Becky had two little boys the same age as my youngest two, so that worked out really well. She stayed with me for about four years or so, and then she remarried. At that point, I didn’t want to go back to work making $60 a week, so I went to work for Humble Oil and started out making $150 a week. I stayed with them until I remarried.”

With her family assembled to help her, I can imagine how she got through, but I’m still left scratching my head envisioning raising five kids on $15o a week—and before the days of online shopping and frozen pizzas!

“When I was raising the kids, you couldn’t go buy prepared foods,” she explained. “Maybe chips, but that was about all. Grocery stores are very different now.”

But having grown up on made-from-scratch meals, it was all she was used to.

“My mother was a marvelous cook. She always had homemade bread, and we would always have some of her rolls and loaves of bread. We had many fruit trees in our yard, and my mom would can the fruits or make jams and jellies. She canned tomato sauce for spaghetti. We always had plenty of yummy food in the winter. But, my mother never allowed us in the kitchen to cook, not even to make a sandwich. The first meal I cooked was when I was married, and I made fried chicken. I had seen my mom make it many times. That chicken was rubber! We couldn’t even eat it! But you learn quickly, or you just don’t eat. In about two or three months I was cooking pretty good. Swiss steak was my favorite. I never see people make that anymore.”

I have never tried swiss steak myself, but I found a delicious-looking swiss steak recipe here.

“When I was a child, I never had anything store-bought. Food or clothes, my grandmother made everything for my sister and me. We had the nicest clothes. I suppose that’s where I got my knack for sewing. I took a sewing class in high school, but I was 10 years old when I started sewing. Those first years I would make tea towels as gifts for my grandmother.”

From my grandma’s childhood to raising her own children, the world around her changed.

“If you would have spent five years back when I was growing up, you would say, ‘I never want this to change.’ I was happy. I had good friends. My dad never taught me anything—he wasn’t really a parent to me—but my mother made up for it. Nobody locked their doors. You might have it closed, but you didn’t lock it. I remember playing out on the block and as it started to get dark someone’s parents would call for them to come home, and we all knew it was time to head back, usually about the time the street lights were coming on. I would go out at night and didn’t worry. An accident was the worst thing you would ever hear about. And we never excluded anybody, because we were all alike. It didn’t matter if anyone looked different. Getting over WWII there was not hate, but during the ’50s and ’60s, so much hate came in. I have to say, now is not a nice era. I really hate what everybody is living through right now. I don’t think God intended for us to live this way. It will change eventually—times do change—but I don’t know what they will change into.”

While the world started changing, she says she was too busy raising babies to notice too much.

“As far as raising babies, that part was the easiest for me. It got harder as they were older. Especially the boys. They were always getting into someone’s yard or messing with someone’s cat. I was always getting calls about the boys. When Lane [the oldest] was 14, he almost died. He was shot. I got a call from the police, and they said, ‘We have your son in the hospital. He’s been shot.’ He had just been admitted. They couldn’t tell me how bad it was, but they said I better come right away. It was just two kids playing; Lane’s friend didn’t mean to shoot him. They had no idea there was a bullet in the gun. With Lane, stuff was always happening. One year he burned his face with fireworks. Another time he was taking the trash out and stepped on some glass in the yard. I had him sit in the tub and went to get him some ice. By the time I got back, the whole bottom of the tub was filled with blood. That was scary, but he survived.

The best part of it was all of the love I got from the kids. I got so many hugs. They weren’t affectionate all the time, but when one wasn’t affectionate, another one was.”

Certainly she had no shortages of scares and challenges, but now she knows it all turned out OK. I wondered if she would do anything differently, if she could go back now.

“I would have worked harder at being a stay-at-home mom. I should have tried to figure out a way to get child support. I wasn’t forceful enough at first because I didn’t have the money to go to an attorney. Now I know that if I would have taken him to court, I could have won. I would have taken in kids at home, or done something where I could be home for my kids. Once the kids were all in high school, I would go to work then.”

Her advice to moms?

“Spend as much time as you can with your kids.”

That sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it? Maybe we’re all doing OK.

Anna
I was born and raised in Houston, but I got to S.A. as fast as I could. I'm staying here for the tacos, the parades, the hill country, and the caring people. This city only has cedar fever to keep us from being too perfect. I'm momma to a strong willed girl, an adventure loving boy, and a rescue mutt. Wifey to a man working in the oil field. Don't mistake me for Laura Ingalls, but I do love homeschooling, baking, candle making, nature exploring, coffee sipping, and photo taking. Favorite Restaurant: Bird Bakery (cake and pies, duh!) Favorite Landmark: Hemisfair Park Favorite San Antonio Tradition: Cascarones