Mothers' Day Reflections

           On August 12, 1911, Margaret Bales was born in Lone Grove, Llano County, Texas. A few weeks later, on September 7, 1911, Muriel Stevenson was born in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. They would not meet until the late nineteen fifties when Margaret’s daughter, Peggy Ratliff, and Muriel’s son, David George met at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas.

            Margaret Bales Ratliff grew up on a small farm in a dry, rocky area of Texas. Like a lot of people in rural American then, they were poor by today’s standards but rich in some important ways. Margaret had a dream of becoming a teacher and went to Mary Hardin Baylor College. She and her sister had two dresses each and they would trade on weekends. She started teaching before she graduated and finished in the summers. Her brother, Albert, was killed in action in the Pacific during World War II. She married, Wortham  Ratliff, whose family operated a dairy farm, and moved to San Antonio when he got a job in aircraft maintenance at Kelly Air Force Base. They had two daughters. Margaret continued to teach in the public schools. The family was active in a Baptist church. She taught Sunday School and was active in the Child Evangelism Fellowship and the Bible Memory Association. In retirement she continued to teach adults, sometimes including men, in Sunday School in Kingsland, Texas. She died on June 24, 20089, at the age of 96, in Lakeway, Texas, near Austin.

            Muriel Stevenson George grew up in a small town in Northeast Louisiana. Her mother died when she was two, and she and her infant brother were boarded with another family until their father remarried. Her relationship with her stepmother was not good and made her childhood difficult. After high school she went to work in the office of the Ouachita Candy Company in Monroe. There she met Evans George who had come from Central Arkansas to work. They had two sons. They tried to start their own business in the late forties, but it failed, and the family started over again in Texas. Muriel went to work in a bank in San Antonio. Evans became sales manager for Gebhart Mexican Foods. They raised their children in church and maintained membership in Baptist Churches wherever they moved. In later years they lived in Denver, Colorado, where she died August 19, 2006, just short of her ninety-fifth birthday.

            Both of these women came of age and married during the Great Depression. They lived through two world wars and the tumultuous years that followed. They established good marriages and good homes. They lived in small, modest houses with few of the modern conveniences we enjoy today. They worked hard and found employment outside the home to help their families. They put all their children through college. They supported their churches. Both have lived their last years as widows, as most wives do, having nursed their husbands through their final illness.

            As we come to Mother’s Day this year, I am keenly aware of the importance of these two women and countless others like them who have been faithful to God and to their families through so many years. We have their DNA, their examples, their teaching, and their love to thank for our lives and those of our children. Mother’s Day is a time to remember and give thanks.