Margie

Margie

Margie had a great big heart.

a first generation American born Swede,

She grew up in a large family on a rural farm.

Life was frugal and hard, but she was a happy child.

Margie thought she’d end up a farmer’s wife, but she managed to get herself an education, graduating from High School in town.

Then a city boy named Paul stole her heart and together they started a family , having twins.

But the girls died shortly after a premature birth.

So they tried again and successfully had a son.

Two years later their big plans came to abrupt end when Paul’s heart gave out,

leaving  Margie a widow with no support.

She and her young son moved in with Lillian and Harry, a kindly couple

and  Margie went to work.

Unskilled , Margie got what work she could, operating a punch press in a factory making card table chairs.

Young, lonely, and in need of support she gravitated to a new relationship, marrying again.

Husband Dick and she had another son, but it turned out Dick loved his car far more than Margie .That marriage failed and Margie again was back to operating a factory piece-work job, this time making sewing machine parts .

Margie now had two children to provide for herself as Dick was also a deadbeat.

She put her oldest son through college working in that factory stretching the budget so

far in support of that son’s education that she and younger son John lived on beans for a year.

John went astray doing drugs in Vietnam. He received a Navy discharge.

He broke Margie’s heart, but she still supported him working and doing without herself.

Finally, he “found Jesus” and moved east.

Margie reached retirement . The factory honored her 30 some years service with a cake and a pin.

Margie moved in with her older son .

She had long dreamed of being able to go to Hawaii.

It was her fervent heart’s desire, but knew she could not afford it. 

So, Margie found joy in belonging to “Women of the Moose,” social organization.

Her heart swelled with pride in being elected the “Senior Regent,” head of that group.

Margie thought it her greatest honor.

Still, anytime she would hear of a friend’s vacation to Hawaii, Margie’s heart would ache.

So her eldest son sent her there on a long vacation.

It was all she talked about for the next two years.

Then, Margie was struck with multiple strokes.

Paralyzed on one side with no speech Margie spent her days in a nursing home.

She tried to hang on , but her big heart was so weak it couldn’t sustain even her thin   body.

Margie died only a year after the strokes,

but she left fulfilled in having made her dream trip to Hawaii.

In honor of My Mother, Marguerite Wendt Rakow (Margie) 1912-1984