In honor of Mother’s day, I thought I would share with you a little story about my own life. I grew up in small town Wisconsin, on a dairy farm. My Grandfather was a farmer, and thus my father followed suit. I had an older sister and a younger brother, and we worked on the farm doing chores from the time we were small children until we left for college. Not an easy lifestyle, but we learned work ethics. As far back as I can remember, my father always used to tell me I would marry a farmer and take over the family farm.
In elementary school we were given an assignment to write a few lines about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Apparently, I wrote that I would be a farmer’s wife, and would milk the cows, do the laundry, and work in the barn feeding the animals. My mother read this and was FURIOUS. ”Is this what you really want to do?”. Of course not, but daddy said… Before I could even finish my my sentence, she ripped up my paper and told me to march upstairs and not return until I thought about what it was I really wanted to do in life, not what Dad wanted me to do. I returned a few minutes later saying that I wanted to be a music teacher when I grew up.
I was blessed with some of the most amazing, inspiring, spirited music teachers a girl could ever dream of, so my passion only grew from there. Thank you to all of them. I am so grateful!
I found out years later that when my parents were first dating, they went to a movie, and there, on the Big Screen, was The Sound of Music! My mother left the theater convinced that if she ever had a family, we would all sing together, like in the movie. She returned home and taught herself to play the guitar. I am happy to announce we became the Heideman / von Trapp family. Being farm children, we weren’t allowed to play after school sports, as that would pull us away from our daily chores, but we were always encouraged to be involved in music, as my mother thought that was very important to our education. All three children sang and played instruments.
Our parents often don’t know how much they have shaped our lives. My brother is working on the family farm, my sister is a published poet and artist who has even been to Antarctica on a National Science Foundation Grant, and I ended up a classical singer.
Happy Mother’s Day and Congratulations on a job well done.
