Virginia Cornett-Feller Claussen Meitzler – Mom

It’s Mother’s Day and although I couldn’t go visit mom today, I certainly can I write a bit about her. This next week, May 18, mom would be 109 if she were still with us. May 18 was always an exciting day, as all mom’s children that could make it would show up and spend at least a portion of the day at the Meitzler family home. Due to her husband’s military career, Erma wasn’t usually there, as she lived from 1200 to 5000 miles away. My oldest brother, Neil, always came home for Mother’s Day. This was a big deal, as he only came home twice a year – Mother’s Day, and Christmas. In 1980, Mt. St. Helens made mom’s day by blowing its top. Mom claimed that was just for her – celebrating her 69th birthday.

I found a picture yesterday – one that I hadn’t seen in years. It’s of mom, dad, and I. It was taken in about 1954. This photo shows my mother as I remember her in my earliest memories. She had white hair – beautiful white hair. And greenhouses… Mom’s greenhouses…

Mom was born Virginia Cornett, in the same home and room in Canon City, Colorado where her mother, Hazel, was born. That was May 18, 1911. When she was about 5 years old, her parents split and mom and her little brother, Merle, were adopted by her great-aunt and uncle, Fred and Rosa Feller. So she officially became Virginia Frances Feller – that’s what her birth certificate says… She had an interesting childhood. While visiting in Canon City about 1982, mother pointed out a bush across the road from their home on Fowler Ave. She claimed that it was behind the bush that she would daily pin her skirts up to a height that Rosa that would have considered scandalous. Then she’d unpin everything upon arrival at the bush on the way home. At some point, Rosa bought a boarding house in downtown Canon and mom spent many of her teenage years living there, while Fred lived at the farm. Mother helped to feed and house what turned out to be mostly men from the community. Mother whispered to me that it wasn’t the best environment for a young lady – but she survived it.

She graduated from high school in Canon City in 1929, and married Maynard Claussen in Pueblo, Colorado in June. They had 3 children, Neil, Irma, and Beverly. The family lived in Pueblo through at least 1935, and moved to Oregon, where Merle went to work for Borden’s Condensed Milk Company. He worked there until shortly before his death on March 9, 1938. He died of Hodgkin’s Disease in the hospital in Portland, Oregon, leaving mother a young widow with 3 little children. This was at the height of the deprecation, but Maynard just happened to have taken a job that came with a $10,000 life insurance policy. Mom was smart. She took that $10k and bought a small house, a cow, and some chickens. And they survived…

On Jan. 1, 1941, mom married my father, Theodore Canfield Meitzler, eight years her elder. My brother, Steve Meitzler, was born on Feb. 15, 1942 in Albany. Dad got some training in how to weld, and they moved to Tacoma, Washington, where dad went to work in the Todd Shipyard, building baby flattops. In 1943, dad saw an ad posted on the shipyard bulletin board advertising a 10-acre parcel of land with a house, located in rural Pierce County. This suited mom just fine, as she needed land if she was going to grow things. They moved to that land in Orting, Washington. It wasn’t long and they built a greenhouse, and then another greenhouse. I was born April 13, 1950. I was an accident (we won’t go into the details here), but as the youngest child, with Steve being 8 years my elder, I got lots of personal attention. Mom always said that she raised me on a potting bench, as that’s where she set up my playpen as a little one.. I was spoiled rotten. My favorite line was “Mom – Stephens in the bathroom,” at the top of my lungs, of course. Mom made sure that her kids all had decent clothes (although often mended with needle and thread), plenty to eat and lots of love. Mother and dad made sure we were in church every Sabbath and even kept us in rather expensive private church-operated schools. Looking back, I don’t know how they did it…

My mother’s love of flowers had an overarching place in her life – and that of Steve and I. I don’t remember a time between my earliest memories in 1953 and about 1977 when my parents weren’t building or remodeling greenhouses. And then they’d fill them with plants. The height of mom’s greenhouse career was 1973 – when they were raising and shipping foliage (house) plants all over the Pacific Northwest. It seemed that everyone had a terrarium, and the hippie movement was going strong. Yes… That was Flower Power, and mom loved it.

Mom kept up doing plants until 1982, when I convinced her and dad that it was time to relax a little. I’ll admit that was selfish on my part, as I’d gone back to school, got heavily involved in genealogy, and wanted to stop fussing with my parent’s plants. Not long after her retirement, mother tripped on the front porch, fell and broke her hip. She recovered, but began to have memory issues. Her and dad moved to LaCenter, Washington to live near my sister, Bev, and her husband. My favorite memory of mom during those years was when one evening Patty and I showed up with the Back to The Future trilogy on video cassette. We watched all 3 videos that night – not finishing until the wee hours of the morning. Dad passed at the age of 95 on January 27, 1999, and mother followed March 30, 2003 – at 92. I miss them both. Mom… I love you…