Her Legacy Continues

One of the very beautiful blogs worth visiting is Prairie Flower Cottage. Today, I read her post and am reposting it here with her link back. A lovely story - indeed - about the value and worth of a woman in her home and the legacy we all need to consider and evaluate if we're leaving or not . . .

Gayla writes:

Many years ago while spending time with my husband's family, I learned about my father in law's mother, Fern. She has such an incredible legacy that it is as if I knew her personally. I have spent many hours listening to stories about this woman, all from admiring children and grandchildren. She was a descendant of people from the Isle of Mann,which is a little island in the Irish Sea, between GreatBritain and Ireland. My husband and I took an ancestral trip a few years back and we were blessed to visit there.

We were able to see the actual place where the ancestor was martyred and we stood on the land that belonged to him. It was an amazing trip... but that is another story. My husband's grandmother loved to grow flowers and garden. She raised six kids, east of Windsor, Mo.

In her young years, she was a one room school teacher. She was also a writer, and wrote for the magazine Kitchen Klatter. We have a few of those articles, but not many. Sunday a lady at my church came up to me and told me that she had several magazines that I could look at. I took them and found five articles written by Fern. What a treat! It is wonderful to sit and read to your children words written by their great grandmother about things she remembers from childhood.

Tonight we read an article she wrote talking about an era that I only wish I could be experiencing. It was titled I Remember Grandma's Kitchen. In it she talks about when her grandmother would bake pies from the berries in season. She described what her grandmother's house looked like on the inside. She talks about family gatherings at the house... it was just a wonderful walk down a lane of family history for my children.

How many people can say they can read about what their great -great grandmother did or how her kitchen looked? It was a time of hard work and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. There was one thing she did say that I found to be profound. She closed her article saying, " Yes, I remember Grandma's kitchen. It was important in my learning, for Grandma loved being a woman and making a home just as I do. When I read articles on women's liberation, I feel slightly ill. Perhaps women's place is in the home; otherwise, what is going to become of homes?"

I want to raise my daughter with the same beliefs that her great grandmother had. As a strong woman who is very resourceful, yet gentle and motherly. I want her to see the importance of being a mother and wife. She needs to learn that she will have to go against the grain of society, because society will tell her that she has no credibility as a mother, and be a woman of virtue. I want her children to rise up and call her blessed. I pray the Lord will continue to show me how to do this. I have wonderful stories about my own grandmothers but I will write about them at a later date.

Until next time...

Her Legacy Continues

http://lylahledner.blogspot.com/2009/09/her-legacy-continues.html