MAUDIE

1915

Happy Mother's Day to all!

This seems like a good day to publish some more of the letter/memoir "My Mother," that Barbara wrote somewhere around 1988, but left behind in her things with a note to pass it on to me. It's a loving tribute from a daughter to her mother—our clan matriarch, Edna Alice McAfee Bader (beloved to her children as "Maudie").

"My mother was gently reared in a middle-class family in New England. Born in 1893, she was the 2nd of 4 children born to George McAfee and Frances Cowell, both of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and wed in 1887 at Worcester, Mass.

"Mother did all the things young girls of that era engaged in. There were picnics, boating and ice-skating parties, sleigh rides, and church activities. Among Mother's swains was a young man she nearly married who went on to become the Fire Chief of the Worcester Fire Dept.

"My father was an impecunious but extremely well-educated young minister just up from Boston Univ. Divinity School on one of his first charges as assistant pastor to the Methodist Church in Worcester. He came from a well-to-do family in Fremont, Nebraska.

"Mother and Father courted and wed in Worcester, Mass. He was 27 and she 22 at the time of their wedding in July, 1915.

"Their 1st son [Bobby] was born in Worcester and their 2nd son [Ernie] in Boston. When their 2nd son was a few weeks old, they moved to Clay Center, Nebr.—a tiny village and a totally new environment for my mother.

"She pitched in as a loving and loyal pastor's wife, learned to cook, keep house, and attend her husband and young family, and partake in church activities.

Maudie on vacation, ca 1927

"Their 3rd child and first daughter [Barbara] was born while they lived in Clay Center, but delivered in the Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebr. My mother was to have a second daughter [Jeannie] and 3rd son [Carl George Jr.] before returning to visit her family in New England. It had been 12 years then since she'd seen her family and her native heath.

"My mother was strong of spirit, but frail physically. Finally, after a serious stomach operation the church parishioners raised funds—and presented my mother with a lovely wristwatch, and an even more lovely round-trip ticket to New England. I was 8 at the time and spent the period of her trip with my paternal grandparents [J. R. and Emma Elsner Bader] in Fremont, Nebr, along with my sister and younger brother. My 2 older brothers went to summer camp.

Clan Bader, 1946

"The hot and dry Nebraska summers, along with the harsh, bitter cold winters must have been totally foreign and forbidding to Mother. Nonetheless, she loved her husband and children and did all she could to make a good life for them all.

"Mother took us on long walks of a Sunday afternoon so Father could nap in peace. We would return to pop corn and make fudge before evening service. On Valentine's Day, Mother made little boats and baskets by folding paper. She filled them with candy hearts, popcorn, and gum drops. On May Day, she made paper baskets, filling them with candy corn, popcorn, and flowers, and hanging them on the front door for us to discover.


"Meanwhile, she sang in the church choir, acted in church plays, taught Sunday School, entertained at endless Ladies Aid socials and church suppers. She even "preached" once or twice, when Father was ill. In those days, the Methodist Church moved their pastors every 3 or 4 years, so she became acquainted with a great part of the state of Nebraska.

"Mother took care of the needs of us all. Not once through ups and downs were we ever deprived of her unswerving love and interest and devotion."

Barbara concludes, "I will never forget my mother or cease to miss her every day. I hope she knows how much she is loved and missed."

I know just how she feels! This post is for Maudie and Barbara, and all the mothers and daughters in our clan.



(Bottom photo, in back: Carl George Jr, Bobby, Philip, baby Mike, Art Jensen, Ernie. Middle: Barbara and Jeannie. Front: Maudie and Carl George Sr. 1946.)