A Tribute to My Mother

My mother was born 110 years ago in February 1914. Her birthday was on Friday the 13^th, right between Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, which was 105 years earlier on Feb. 12, 1809, and St. Valentine’s Day, which had been celebrated on Feb. 14 since 496 A.D.

In 2017, I posted “A Tribute to My Father,” on July 25, the day before the 10^th anniversary of his death. Now, just before the 110^th anniversary of my mother’s birth, I am posting this tribute to her.*¹    

Helen (Cousins) Seat (2005)

To tell the truth, from my boyhood until the end of their lives, I held my father in higher regard than my mother, although certainly I never had any notable conflict or disrespect for her. I am glad now to be sharing this long-overdue tribute to her.

Helen Lena Cousins was born in rural Mercer County, Missouri, the third child (and third daughter) of J. Ray and Laura Kathryn (Hamilton) Cousins. In 1925 the Cousins family moved to Worth County, Mo.

Mom and my father were married in 1935, two years after they graduated from high school in Grant City, Mo.—the same high school I graduated from 22 years later. She passed away 13 days after her 94^th birthday in 2008, having lived most of her long life in Worth County.

There is so much I appreciate about my mother, beginning with my pre-school years. Neither of my parents had any formal education beyond high school, and Mom had not been a very good student as a girl. (She had to repeat one grade in elementary school, but that was partly because of illness.)

As a woman of her times, she was a traditional wife, mother, and homemaker in the best sense of the word. She was a good housekeeper, an excellent cook, a skillful seamstress, and a successful gardener. But more than anything else, she excelled in encouragement and support.

In my life story book, I wrote that Mom “seemed to know how to encourage/support very effectively my desire to learn.”*² Thanks to her, I had learned to read and to do arithmetic so well that a week after I started elementary school, I was promoted to the second grade.

Through the decades Mom’s unwavering support and encouragement continued not only for me and my younger sister but also for her six grandchildren, whom she loved dearly.

In 1966 when June and I left with our two children for Japan as missionaries, taking with us Mom’s only grandchildren at the time, she never complained. I deeply appreciate her (and my father’s) understanding and prayer support of us during our missionary career in Japan which didn’t end until 2004.

The following words of tribute to my mother were heard by the family members and friends who gathered on March 1, 2008, for her funeral and listened to the sermon I preached on that occasion. I am glad to share just a bit of that sermon with you Thinking Friends now.*³

In it, I said that because of Mom’s quiet encouragement, my sister Ann became a medical doctor and I was able to earn the Ph.D. degree. But she was never pushy; she never tried to tell us what we ought to do. With only rare exceptions, if any, Mom always believed in us and always encouraged us.

Since Mom always took great pride in her children and their accomplishments, "we thought that nothing would have pleased her more today than for Ann to furnish the music and for me to preach the funeral sermon.”

Through the many decades of her life, Mom was a faithful Christian and church member. She “was constantly thinking of others—mainly her husband and children, but others outside the family and around the world, as well.”

Mom was also never one to complain—about her work or her health. She didn’t read a lot, but she knew by nature what Norman Vincent Peale wrote about in The Power of Positive Thinking.

At times in her later years when she was not feeling well and someone would inquire about her health, she would usually reply, “I’m getting better.”

After sharing those words in the funeral sermon, partly because the end of her long life was marred by progressive dementia, I said that “now she really is better—and in a better place, the place that Jesus had prepared for her.”

_____

*¹ Ten years ago, on 2/13/14, I posted “One Hundred Years Ago,” but only a few sentences at the beginning were about my mother’s birth on 2/13/1914.

*² About six weeks ago I published A Wonderful Life: The Story of My Life from My Birth until My 85^th Birthday (1938~2023). One definite reason why I have been so bold as to refer to my life so far as a wonderful life is because of my mother.

*³ I certainly don’t expect many of you to take the time to read all or even any of that sermon, but if you are interested, here is the digital link to it. In March 1959, 49 years earlier, I also preached the sermon at my mother’s mother’s (my Grandma Cousins’) funeral when I was still a twenty-year-old college student—but already an ordained pastor. 

One Hundred Years Ago

Helen Lena Cousins, my mother, was born 100 years ago today, on Friday the 13^th of February 1914. She was born near Half Rock, Missouri, in rural Mercer County. If you don’t know where Half Rock is, it is a few miles southeast of Topsy(!).

Mom married my father, Hollis Seat, in 1935, two years after they graduated from high school in Grant City, Missouri—the same high school I graduated from 22 years later. She passed away 13 days after her 94^th birthday in 2008, having lived most of her long life in Worth Co., Mo.

In 1914, Helen was the second most popular baby girl name (after Mary). Perhaps it was such a popular name in the 1910s because of the fame of Helen Keller, who turned 34 in 1914.

(My father used to tell about a Helen Hunt who worked in the lumber yard at the same time he did in the late 1930s. When customers needed help finding something they were looking for, sometimes they were told, “Go to Helen Hunt for it.”)

In thinking about my mother being born 100 years ago, I began to investigate some into what this country was like in 1914. There had already been a lot of changes between then and the world I first remember, from about 1944. And the changes between 1914 and now are very great indeed.

The population of the U.S. was just over 99,000,000 in 1914; it has now more than tripled to over 317 million. The average lifespan has also grown greatly: in 1914 life expectancy in the U.S. was under 55 years and now it is over 77.5, more than a 40% increase.

Woodrow Wilson, about whom I wrote recently, was President when my mother was born—but her mother did not vote for him. In fact, no Missouri woman voted for Wilson, as women in Mo. were not given the right to vote for President until 1919.

In 1914, Ford Motor Company began using a moving assembly line, dropping the cost of a Model T to $440. It also initiated an eight-hour workday and a daily wage of $5, which was excellent for the time. That reflected Henry Ford’s belief that well paid workers would put up with monotonous work, be loyal, and, most of all, buy his cars.

Speaking of cars, there were already around 1,500,000 motor vehicles on the road in 1914, about 10 for every 660 people. Now there are over 250 million passenger vehicles, around 10 for every 13 persons in the U.S.

There have also been great changes in the availability and use of electricity, telephones, toilet facilities, air travel and so forth. I wonder how old Mom was she when she first had access to electric lights and an inside toilet at home—many years after 1914, I’m sure.

One hundred years ago the most significant world event occurred in June 1914: an Austrian archduke was assassinated. That led to the beginning of the Great War (now known as World War I) on July 28—although the U.S. did not enter the war until 1917.

Since that tragic event is so significant, I plan to write more about it later this year. And it will be interesting to consider how much the world’s political situation now is similar to what it was in 1914.

In their 12/21/13 issue, The Economist wrote that there are now “uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the outbreak of the first world war.” Do you see any of those parallels?