Mildred Morris, a Grandmother for all Ages
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As I approach my sixtieth birthday and reflect back on my life up to this point, I find that my grandmother is much on my mind, even though she has been gone for 37 years. My memories of her are very vivid. I attribute my strong recollections to her unique inner strength of character and her singular resoluteness about life in general. One of her favorite expressions was “Life is like a bowl cherries but watch out for the pits!” She made a difference in my life and is certainly responsible for much of my own success today. Born in 1904, my diminutive grandmother lived her life in the Queen Anne’s County area of Maryland on a farm. She was so small at birth that she was christened by many with the nickname of “Ducky” because she was the size of a small duck or so the story goes.

Small or not, she was a pistol, as my grandfather used to say, and she raised four children through the Depression era, World War II and the ensuing decades with all of the problems and joys of any other family.
She was a strong person who lived her life in such a manner as to profoundly influence all of us in different ways. She was not one to brood about things, she simply took the attitude that if it needed to get done, let’s just do it!! Once her mind was made up, it was singularly on track to complete the task. It was to me one of her most endearing and enduring characteristics. I admired the structure of her life and even as a little girl, I was resolved to pattern my life after hers as much as possible. It may seem old fashioned these days but her weekly division of chores worked then as it works in my life now. Certain days of the week were designated for laundry, for cleaning, for grocery buying, for bill paying and for seeing the family. I loved spending time in her old summer kitchen, slurping freshly perked Maxwell House coffee out of depression era cups with deep saucers.

All through college in Baltimore, she was one of the first people I would go see when I went home for a weekend. She loved to hear about my “adventures” in the big city. She would slip me a few dollars or give me home-baked goodies to take back on Sunday afternoons as I climbed back on the old Greyhound bus that would see me gone for another week. She had knack for knowing when I needed a dollar or two, which in those days went far. She paid cash for just about everything. She was a saver of nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies. Every Christmas was paid for with change. . When she passed, hundreds of dollars in change was found around the house in different types of jars.

My grandmother was a heroine in my eyes. She may never have done anything to make headlines in a newspaper but she was a devoted and selfless woman who raised her family with love and encouragement and she set an example for all of us to live by.

The basic values she passed on to all of us will never go out of style.

A tribute by granddaughter Margaret C. Collier

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