November 20th, my Mom, Dorothy I. Jones, went to be with her Savior. She had turned 90 in August. Though she had been declining for months as a consequence of slow congestive heart failure, the end happened quite suddenly and unexpectedly. I’ve been working on this Thanksgiving tribute to Mom for a couple days. Also, here’s a link to her obituary.
I’m thankful for our phone conversations
When I think of my Mom, one of the first blessings that comes to mind is our phone conversations. The chain of them began when I was a freshman at the University of Rochester. Late at night I would sit at the hallway telephone and talk to Mom. Our conversations have never been short and that habit goes back to that year too. Recent years I would get on my cell phone while sitting in my big chair and converse. It was not unusual to be an hour on the phone. We covered a lot of subjects; family news, farm news, church news and upcoming schedules. But Mom also talked about Bible verses she was studying or teaching from, articles or books she had read, things from gardening in the summer and feeding birds in the winter, and even news items of note—she loved Paul Harvey especially. I will miss those conversations.
I’m thankful for her prayers
Another great blessing from my Mom was her prayer life. She had a sense of when we needed prayer and sometimes would ask what had happened on such and such a day because she had felt a special burden for us that day. Up until just a couple years ago, she knew all her grandchildren’s ages and sizes by memory when she gave my sister (MarySue) instructions as to how to help her with Christmas shopping. When we asked her how she remembered all that, she said simply, “I pray for each one by name every day.” MarySue told me that even this last week of her life, she was still going through that list in prayer. That is a great gift she has given us. I believe those prayers will follow her family for generations. (See Ex. 20:5; Deut. 5:9).
Her cooking spoiled us all
Then there was her cooking—it was extraordinary. Mom was one of those old-fashioned cooks who learned as a girl from her Mom and probably hadn’t needed a recipe since her twenties. She used to make pies a half dozen at a time, literally. Of course, she cut pieces that were ¼ of a pie so it took 1 ½ pies to feed our family of six for supper. One time when I came home from college, she offered the pie to me and asked how much I wanted. I jokingly replied that half of it would be good and my brother Phil quipped that he would be glad for the other half. To our surprise, Mom cut the pie down the middle and gave us each half. Even just a few years ago, she was still creating new combinations. One pie that has been nick-named raspberry ribbon, I talked about enough at church that Kathy Scofield called Mom for the recipe. Mom could not tell her how the exquisite creation had been made, probably because it had been another of her “experiments” as she called them.
She gave us the gift of music
One of Mom’s gifts to her family was music. As a girl she took piano lessons from Christine Canfield. As far back as any of us remember, she was playing for services at our home church in Haskinville. When we were very small Dad sat with us children in the back while Mom played. But as soon as we were old enough to learn to sit in church decently, we all sat in the second row right behind were Mom played piano. But that was only the beginning of Mom’s musical influence. At night when we went upstairs to bed, after reading and praying with us, Mom would sit at the piano in the parlor and play and sing to us. Sometimes if it was late enough for Dad to be in from the barn, Dad would sing with her. I remember songs like “The Lord spake unto Noah and bid him build the ark. The Lord knew well the vessel would cheerless be and dark. So God said build a window with outlook toward the sky, and when you’re sad and lonely you’ll see me standing by.” The chorus had great words for days of grief, “The storms may come but fear not, for Noah, I am nigh and when you’re sad and lonely, you’ll see me standing by.” Mom encouraged us in our efforts to play musical instruments too. Actually, encouraged is much too mild a word considering how it is done today. The first year I had a trombone – fourth grade – Mom would set the oven timer for an hour for my practice time. No wonder I was in the band by spring.
Mom loved Christmas
Christmas is coming. It was Mom’s favorite season. The big extended family get-together usually began with a fancy dinner. She had two expandable dining room tables to hold all her family. Keely always said she learned how to set a fancy table from her grandma Jones. The variety of foods would be amazing. We used to count the number of vegetables involved. Including pickles and salads, there could easily be nine. Then it was time for the gifts. But before that could happen, there was the program—always the program. As I recall, this started out as simply reading the Christmas story and singing one Christmas carol. Maybe sometimes we recited again the “pieces” or “recitations” that we had memorized for the church Christmas program. Now about the gifts; Mom was never one to spend much money except at Christmas. She did the shopping for her and Dad, and did she ever. Every Christmas she would have one of the grandchildren help her pass out her gifts. There would be a stack of gifts for each family member. Nearly all the sizes would be right too. Guests would not be forgotten. There would be some expensive things among the presents too, like a new suit for a son in the ministry or a heavy-duty outdoor jacket for Phil to wear while working on the farm. My most memorable childhood gift was received when I was 12. My parents bought me a new leather-bound Thompson Chain Reference Bible, which I still use occasionally.
Mom taught many to follow Jesus
One of Mom’s great passions in life was making disciples for Jesus. This was true in her family, in her Sunday School classes, in her support for missions, and in everyday life. Her last words to her caretaker for the day, just before she died were a perfect testimony to this. “Do you know God?” she had asked. Mom began teaching Sunday school at age 19. When I was a boy and teenager, she taught teens. As children, we peered down from our bedrooms through the registers to glimpse the class parties she would host for her teen class. Later, she taught adults—continuing to teach some at the request of her church until her late eighties—nearly 70 years of total teaching. She also was a great lover of the Bible, studying it herself, and as a member of the Gideons’ auxiliary, personally giving copies away to others frequently. Even at the family Christmas program these last few years, her concern for discipleship could be detected as she picked a song for her children and grandchildren to sing for her entitled, “I Want My Life to Tell for Jesus.” Hers certainly did. As we grieve for her, what a wonderful legacy we can also give thanks for as an extended family.