I had the privilege of knowing Malinda Beck for almost 30 years. She was the remarkable mother of my friend Pauline Beck. Here is the eulogy Pauline wrote for her mother....
Eulogy
for Malinda Beck –
July 12, 1914 to March 14, 2013
written March 19, 2013 by Pauline Beck
We
were trying to chronicle someone’s life that spanned almost a century. Seventeen different US presidents served
during her lifetime.
There
was plenty material for the board, as she was wonderfully photogenic. Even at
the end, during the four years she was at River Way Place assisted living – she
still was engaged in life, and there was plenty to record. Time had slowed, and
my brother and I learned to enjoy the simpler things along with her – the
rambunctious squirrels outside her window, the glistening Milwaukee River she
could see in winter through leaf-less trees, the pretty decorations on
everyone’s door.
My
niece was amazed at all that her grandma had accomplished in her life, and we
started wondering: What will be on our boards, some day? How will people
measure us, and chronicle our time on earth?
We
all complain that we lead such busy lives these days.
But
here was a woman who, with her husband, raised five children, made all their
meals from scratch, serving home-canned and home-frozen fruits and vegetables
that they grew themselves – sewed some of their clothes – kept the house clean
-- did the laundry with a wringer washer her entire life – and had two acres
that she and her husband truck-gardened, selling the produce to drive-up
customers and to grocery stores.
Daddy
had a full-time job at the West Bend Co., so Mom did most of the chores during
the day, and he worked on the garden and orchard in the evenings. It seems
amazing – but not unlike the stories that many of our other relatives could
tell.
And
it wasn’t just all work and no play – you can see by the boards that Malinda
had many hobbies and interests.
It
was work, though, that gave her life meaning. She always had lists of jobs she
needed to do that day, and it gave her purpose, even when she was in her 90s.
Her neighbor, Paul Frings, would call over from his backyard: “Malinda! How’s
that list coming today?!”
Sometimes
when I was visiting Mom, my sister would call, and couldn’t reach us. When she
did get through, she’d ask where the heck we were -- it was dark outside!
Mom
would reply that we were working in the flowerbed next to the curb, under the
street light. My friend Bo, who grew up in the South, would say: She worked from can to cain’t. Sunrise to sundown.
When
she was in her mid-80s, I remember that she called me once, and was relaying to
me what she’d all done the other day. She ate breakfast and cleaned up the
house a little, did a load of wash and hung it out to dry, watered some new
transplants, thinned out the carrots…and then she decided to run out to
Bernie’s since it was a calm day with little wind – ideal for spraying their
potatoes. They were up north, and she had said she’d check on their garden for
them. So, I hear all this, and think, well, she had quite a day…busier than I’d
been.
Then
she said: “After I left Bernie’s house, I stopped at Fleet Farm. I was on that
end of town anyway, and wanted to pick up a few things. But,” she said, “they
weren’t open.”
I was wracking my brain, trying to think what
had happened that day - - was it a holiday? I asked, “Why were they closed?”
She
replied, “Well, they don’t open until 9 a.m. So I sat in the parking lot and
waited 15 minutes.”
Achhhhh!
I couldn’t believe it! She’d done all of that work before the stores were even
opened.
I
found an old note, where I’d written someone that Mom said she was slowing down
a bit in 2004. But that spring, when she was almost 90, she took down her own
snow fence, pulling out the tall metal posts, rolling it all up, and getting it
over to where she stored it.
I
probably will never emulate Mom’s work habits, at least not to that extent –
but I hope to have her same zest for life, and the ability to look at things
with fresh eyes.
We were driving up to my sister’s cottage one day, and we both looked to the west. It was one of those sunsets you see when it’s a humid, sultry summer day. The sun was a hazy red pearl, just suspended above the horizon. I noticed that she was sitting on the edge of her seat, staring at it out the car window. She said, “I’ve never seen anything like that!”
And
I thought, holy mackerel, to be in her mid-80s and still be excited by a sight in
nature. I hope I can always view my world as fresh and new.
One
Christmas, my husband and I bought her a clock – it wasn’t digital, it had
hands – but it was one of those that changed time automatically for
daylight-savings time. She was flabbergasted; she didn’t know technology like
that existed.
When
fall came, and the clock was going to lose an hour, she knew that those hands
would have to go around forwards through 11 hours to straighten itself out. So
she got up in the middle of the night – waited about an hour in the kitchen,
and then was rewarded with that magical action – watching those hands moving
around and around the clock face, all on their own. She said she got to see
“time fly.” I loved her wonderment about life.
Reflecting
on Malinda, maybe you’ll wonder about your own picture boards, what will be on
them to summarize your life…and will
you be sitting on the edge of your seat, at some new sight, saying: “I never
saw such a thing!”
I’ll
conclude with something Mom would say, if she were remarking on her own death.
It was something she’d always say, when someone elderly had died: “Well, she lived her life!”
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