Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer

Hello Kittens & Dawgs, last Saturday (December 8) marked the anniversary of my late MIL’s birthday. I meant to share this with you then but a lot has been going on here, so it didn’t get done.

That being said, late is better than never so today I’m honoring my late MIL in remembering the anniversary of her 91st birthday. This is her 4th year to celebrate in heaven and this year she got to share it again with her husband of 60+ years. She’s always missed but the love she left remains with us. I thought it would be super to honor her on this day by sharing top hits from her birth year, 1927.

Stardust Hoagy Carmichael
My Blue Heaven Gene Austin
Singin’ the Blues Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer
Me And My Shadow Whispering Jack Smith
In A Mist Bix Beiderbecke
Someone To Watch Over Me Gertrude Lawrence
Dark Was The Night (Cold Was the Ground) Blind Willie Johnson
Some of These Days Sophie Tucker ft. Ted Lewis
Ain’t She Sweet Ben Bernie
Charmaine Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians

I used the top 10 songs from playback.fm Top 100 Songs (1927).

Fun Facts about my darling MIL…

Fact #1 She walked more than 4-miles one-way out of a little dirt hollow to the main road to catch the school bus every day in order to finish her education. Sometimes in the winter, she was lucky to get a ride in the back of her uncle’s truck. That sends shivers to my bones. She was the first person to receive her high school diploma off State Line Ridge Road.

Fact #2 This will come as a shock to you all but she didn’t like me when DH and I started dating. Honestly, tell me what mother likes her baby son’s girlfriend? I dare say there are few of them. The good mews is I won her over. 🙂

Fact #3 She was a worrier. I don’t think she would’ve been happy if she wasn’t fretting over a single one of us. She ran…okay walked briskly…after us carrying a coat if we went outdoors without one. If we sneezed, she asked if we were catching a cold or if we fell asleep on the sofa, she put a blanket over us. At Christmas, she always reminded us before we left ‘Don’t forget to unplug your Christmas lights.” and then we arrived at their place, she always asked, “Did you unplug your Christmas lights”? I’m not sure Every time if we had actually forgotten to unplug them, turn around drive another 4-hours to do it and then come back? I don’t think so. Every time we departed for home, she reminded us to call her as soon as we got there. She was a worrier but we let her because we knew this was her way of showing her love.

Fact #4 She had no hobbies to speak of unless you count work as a hobby. For most of her life, she was a school teacher. She cooked all the family’s meals, washed clothes for years on an old wringer style machine and line-dried the laundry, she gardened, canned, sewed most if not all of her clothes and some shirts for her sons and husband, and kept her home tidy all the time. At the time we married this woman was 53 years old. That’s close to my age now and she could run rings around me. She absolutely amazed me!

Fact #5 She was technically challenged. Electronics just wasn’t her forte and barely knew how to use their radio and stereo. You can forget about her working their plasma TV they bought in the early millennium. What often made us smile was her inability to leave a message on our answering machine and in the days before caller id, we knew who called every time. The answering machine would play dead silence before we heard the hang-up click. She would repeat this process two or three times before giving up. We always called her back so to not leave her worrying if we were left for dead somewhere. In her later years, she did progress from the dead silence to finally leaving a message which went something like this, “…(short pause)…Rrrr-ooo-bin, where you? This is mother, give me a call.” We were so proud that she finally caught on to leave a message. I’ll never forget when they got a new caller id. It had a built-in answering machine which she was totally clueless about it and didn’t know why it beeped at her. It was hard not to laugh, never to her face, but it was funny in a kinda cute way. Does that make sense? She was the kindest, sweetest soul on earth!