by Nick Gier, Emeritus Professor, University of Idaho
Shorter version published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News (May 13, 2025)
My mother was a remarkable woman. “Lots of spunk” would be a good way to describe her. She was a fiery redhead, and she was just as feisty as Lucille Ball. She never came to blows with my Job-like father, but she did once empty a waste-paper basket on his head.
When my mom praised other people for having “personality plus,” she was definitely including herself. She always complained about why her vivacity did not “rub off” on her two sons, but she did not realize how difficult it was to develop any personality at all in her presence.
Colorful, Provocative Phrases
She had a quick wit and peppered her speech with colorful phrases. Now that I’m older and appreciate my deceased mom more than ever, I find myself repeating many of those phrases. Growing up I thought they were original with her, but I’ve learned that many of them were current in her day.
When I get an invitation, I cannot resist the temptation to say “I’ll be there with bells on, as my mom would always say.” At the sight of a beautiful sight or a nice piece of craftwork (usually her own), she would say “feast your eyes on this.” At an intersection she would declare “the coast is clear,” or an uninvited guest would “barge right in.”
There was one phrase that induces puzzled looks on everyone’s faces. When anyone had failed at a task (and that was often!), my mother would immediately advise: “You’ll just have to lick your calf over again.”
My mother’s family were tight-fisted Scots Irish from Missouri, and my brother and I never understood one of most her provocative statements. We didn’t know if she was teasing or if she were serious when she exclaimed: “Did you know that people from Missouri have blue bellies?!”
We were startled and puzzled by this, but we were too afraid to ask about these strange stomachs. We certainly didn’t want her to show us either, even though I later learned that Missouri was the “Show Me” state.
Even after much internet search, I am none the wiser about my mom’s amazing pronouncement. Because of their blue uniforms and their alleged penchant for cowardice, Union troops were known to crawl on their blue bellies. Missourians, however, supported both sides in the war, so many of them would have gray stomachs instead.
When my dad wanted to take his sons to an elk hunting camp in the Wallowas, my mom would always object. Her dear boys would be subjected to crude language and rude behavior.
The delicious irony, however, was that she was the dirty joke teller in the family. My dad would turn beet red when she told one of her stories. She would always retort that she learned them from him.
Her remarks could also cut to the quick. I remember coming home and showing my first publication to my parents. It was on the religious view of the founders, and my father said something like “Good job, son”! My mother’s response was “I don’t care about those old farts”!
Big Move to Oregon
My mother was a very enterprising woman. She helped her own mother run a boarding house in Evanston, Wyoming, and she always boasted about running her own hot dog stand in the city.
She also bragged about the fact that she overruled her mother about not having a room for a handsome man who showed up in the middle of the night. She gave up her own room, slept on the couch, and married that man after a two-week courtship. They both had to break off previous marital engagements.
As a train master on the Union Pacific Railroad, my father was gone for long periods of time. My brother and I would ran away from this strange man when he came home. This broke my father’s heart, so he gave up a good job with a pension.
My parents loaded everything they could not sell into a 1947 Mercury Coup, drove west on U. S. 30, and bought a dairy farm in Eagle Point, Oregon. I didn’t like the place because the Tom turkeys would chase me, and my mother did not like farm life at all.
An Enterprising Woman
After 18 months, we moved to Medford and my mother managed a mobile home park while my dad was an accountant in the city. She raised chinchillas and tried to sell mobile homes. The market for chinchilla pelts fell dramatically and trailer sales were very slow. Sadly, all of my mother’s business schemes were failures.
A Superb Craftswoman
My mother was a creative craftswoman. She would make beautiful artificial corsages and sell them at local taverns. While my father drank at the bar, my teetotalling mother—all tarted up—would convince men (she didn’t take “No” for an answer) to buy a corsage for their wives. She could easily make $50 in a night.
My mother was featured in the local newspaper for her pheasant feather hats, and in her senior years she recycled and redecorated greeting cards. After reading one of my columns about speaking at a faculty meeting, she created a masterpiece. It is a driftwood collage with carefully chosen gnarled pieces, which looks, uncannily, like craggy, old professors.
I like to say that I am a hybrid of my mother and father. In person I’m very much like my calm and gentle father, but my mom comes out in my political activities and my writing. Thank you, Mother, for giving me that special spirit (albeit sometimes impolitic) and drive that have made me what I am. If there is anything funny in this column, it came straight from her.
UI emeritus professor Gier has enjoyed the beauty of the Palouse and its people for nearly 53 years. Email him at ngier006∂gmail.com.