My mother, Mary Louise Henderson, was born April 7, 1914 in Hot Springs, South Dakota. She was the 2nd of four children of Emmaline (Bemus) and Thomas Henderson. Her mother died a week and four days after her 11th birthday. There was no family in the area, so because of the laws then, a father was not allowed to be a single father. The children were made wards of the State and she was put in a boarding school on the Pine Grove Indian Reservation. She lived there full time during her elementary years, and then was sent to a boarding school in Western Nebraska for her high school years. She rarely saw her father during those years, especially when she was sent to Nebraska. Her father died the year after she graduated high school.

When she graduated high school, she moved to Omaha, Nebraska, found a job, and after about a year, she met and married her first husband. They went on to have nine children. Her first husband died when her youngest child was two years old. He was sick for four years before he died, and because there was no health insurance then, they spent all their savings on his healthcare. She was left destitute. His family would not help her. They never accepted her because she was Catholic, and not from a “good” family. Also, in those days, women with children were not allowed to work outside the home. As a result, she was forced to go onto government assistance and live in government housing.

In 1946 she met my father, Levi (Lee) Kane. They married in 1948 and my father adopted all nine of her children. They went on to have two children of their own, me and my younger brother. My father was also a widower and had a son and a daughter. His son was allowed to stay with us from time to time. The same thing happened with him, in that fathers were not allowed to be single parents. His children were put into foster care and adopted. The last time he saw his daughter was a time before she was formally adopted. I believe she was 10 or 11 years old (not sure of the exact age). Her adoptive parents brought her to our house and told her she could decide if she wanted to be with them or live with us. She chose to go with her adoptive parents, as she would be an only child. I remember when this happened and my father sitting at the kitchen table sobbing after she left. He never saw her again after that until she was grown. She was a teller in his bank and he would see her from time to time. But she never tried to reach out or spend time with him or his family.

My father’s parents also never accepted my mother, because she was Catholic, and my father became a Catholic in order to marry my mother. Because of that I only saw my grandparents 4 or 5 times in my entire life.

Mary got her practical nurse training at the same time she was going to high school, so after my parents married, she began working outside the home and worked the rest of her career as a practical nurse in senior living facilities.

My mother worked outside the home all the time I was growing up. She would come home every day and cook dinner for all of us. She never missed. She would get up every morning at 4:30 and do a load of laundry before work. She worked so hard for us. I remember every spring and fall washing windows and putting on either screens or storm windows (back before combination windows were invented). I remember her washing and waxing our hardwood floors on her hands and knees, before my sisters pooled their money and bought her an electric floor scrubber. Once a year we would have to help wash all the walls and woodwork in our house.

For much of my growing up years, both my parents worked a full time and a part time job. They would clean offices for a couple of hours in the evenings and the older children would babysit the younger children (me being the second to the youngest).

She always made a wonderful holiday meals with all the trimmings, including homemade pies. She would make six pies for our family. Sometimes we would have outside guests for holiday meals, so she would make 7 or 8 pies! And everything she made was from scratch, no processed anything. She would peel 10 pounds of potatoes for one meal for our family. She never failed to be there, to provide for us, to keep our house in order.

I never heard my mother complain. She always seemed to have a good attitude. She would tell us to be thankful and that there was always someone worse off than we were. At the end of her life, she told me she had a good life and had no regrets.

I wanted to share this to honor her. There were so many women like her in those years, the quiet ones who never complained, so they never received any recognition for raising their families. My mother wasn’t perfect, but she did her best to be a good mother. I am grateful she was my mother. I only realized later in life how much she taught me.