MY MOM

     My mom was born in La Junta, Colorado on February 27, 1944 to Betty and Bob Dowler.  At some point her parents moved to California.  That is where she is living when her diary starts.  Her parents are divorced, she's living with her father and stepmother and it's January 1960 so she's 15 years old, about to turn 16.  There are several moves in mom's life after this point and I'm assuming several moves before as her mother had been married several times and my mother had various step fathers or boyfriends she did not always like.    She was not happy living with her dad and stepmother and step siblings and felt like that they just wanted her there to do all the cooking and cleaning and and in March of 1960 she moves to La Junta, Colorado to live with her mother leaving her father, brother and a sister behind.  She enrolls in the La Junta High School and is well liked and makes friends easily.  She and her friends go to the local drive in movie show, shop at the local stores for clothes, and 'hang out' together, sometimes spending the night at each other's house.  She has several boys who are interested in her and she in them and it seems that most of what the girls talked about together was who was going with who and who would marry who and having a family and kids.  She and her mother have frequent arguments over various things; clothes, her mother's boyfriends, cleaning, etc. and this does not seem to be a new thing.  They have three more moves in the next 8 months and eventually end up living with, or next to, her grandmother.  This is a picture of her at about 18 years old.  It's the earliest one I have.  She is sitting in front of a piano which she could play pretty well.  It's a piano I still have in my living room now.

Sue Holms Dec. 26, 1963, 18 years old

According to her diary and letters from friends, mom was the same then as she was when I knew her later one.  She was happy, kind, and honest.  People were drawn to her and loved her.  She was an excellent mother and wife.  She did not work, staying home to take care of us.  She loved animals and took in every stray in the neighborhood which didn't make my dad very happy.  When she met people they remembered her and she was the one who brought people together as friends and mended disputes between friends.  Our house was the gathering place in the neighborhood, another thing my dad wasn't too happy about.  Not that I could blame him really I guess when you come home from working hard you'd like to see your family and some dinner.  My friends in school came to her for advice and support before they went to their own parents saying that she listened and cared.  And it's true she did.  She would have taken in all the stray kids in too if dad would have let her.  I can say that at 17 years old she was my best friends and I thought she was the most wonderful person in the world.  She hated gossip and stayed on the positive side of things and always had a smile.  I miss her.