Introduction
I grew up in a Pennsylvania Dutch home in a small coal mining town in the
50’s. My mother spoke the Pa Dutch
dialect to almost everyone else except me.
I am convinced to this day she did it for the sole purpose of being able
to talk about me in plain sight without me never knowing about it.
My mother
was a small, robust lady with auburn hair and the determination of 20 men. She grew up in impoverished circumstances in
the 20’s after her mother died when she was only a few years old. Her father gave her to relatives to raise and
she spent most of her childhood working around the house to pay for her food
and lodging. She only went to
the 8th
grade in school but was a voracious reader.
She loved to sew, quilt, and garden, all self taught interests.
She had the
ability to tough it through difficult situations and made the best of bad
times. Her ability to make everything
happy and beautiful affected her children and everyone who knew her. My father died when I was 9 of an unexpected
illness. Though she was devastated, she
pushed on into the future fearlessly.
Although she and I had to make it on our own I never once felt worried
or scared about our future. Our home
remained the beautiful, simple stable refuge it had always been.
There are so
many things that I learned from this wonderful woman that I could not begin to
compile them all in one place. In this
book is a short list of those things I learned from her that are rapidly
becoming lost principles in modern society.
Many of these simple ideas can be used to transform a home onto a
wonderful refuge and make life simpler and more enjoyable for the whole family.
As I carry
these lessons with me in my heart and they have made my life a joy, I hope
future generations will take these ideas to make their lives and the world a
better place and eventually better communities.
After all change starts with little things.
Thanks for
reading and don’t forget to outen the lights before you go to bed.
