*Whenever I say those three words to Mr. Mess, he instinctively cringes and grabs his wallet or braces himself for a long lecture about some inane topic I’ve interested myself in.

This won’t cost us anything, and it may or may not start others to thinking. We’ll see I guess.

What got me thinking was a convergence of a something I’d been brewing in the back of my mind for months now and a thread on the Knitty Coffehouse that I read this week.

I had intended to start a new category this month here on my blog to honor the Women of Influence in my life. I even started a post back at the end of February but never quite got it “right”. I wanted to share stories and brief personal biographies of some of the women, both famous and not, that have influenced me over the 40 years of my life. But I never got it done.

The above mentioned thread was started by a mother looking for good role models for her daughter. I can understand this need. I put in my two cents as did many others at Knitty. The answers ranged from the historical to the fictional and everywhere in between.

I’m interested in learning who my readers looked to as role models growing up and do you still have role models now as an adult? Are your role models all female? (I don’t think I have any regular male readers but if I do I’d love to have your perspective too.) Do you purposely set out to find and provide role models for your children?

I’ll start.
I grew up surrounded by women and I learned something from each and everyone of them. My faternal grandma, Lilas, was a very strong personality. She had left our small town and went to Detroit as a young woman to attend Nursing School and worked at Henry Ford Hospital and lived in the city with her girlfriends and fellow nurses before marrying my Grandpa and returning to the farm and raising a family. I think I get a lot of my personality from her, she was opinionated, stubborn, funny, hard-working, smart and did I mention opinionated?

I didn’t know my other Grandma, Murial, as well. She had many health problems, both physical and mental. I inherited that from her I guess. In many ways it would be easy to say she was weak, especially in comparison to my Grandma Lilas. But looking back now I’m not sure that would be a true judgement. She raised a family of four girls on a farm during and after the Depression. She lost a couple children in infancy. She suffered from depression during a time when it was undiagnosed and untreated and she survived. Her husband, my Grandpa Albion, died relatively young. I never knew him. From all the stories from my mother I know he was the ballast that had kept their family on a steady keel. My grandmother must have suffered greatly at his death. But she again managed to survive. I know she put her daughters through a hard time but they all made it.

In the community I grew up in strong women were everywhere. If all the women of Marlette, Michigan were abducted by aliens and taken away, that town would cease to operate. Most of the women around me as a child did not have college degrees and many didn’t work outside the home for pay. But they were most definitely working women. They helped their families run their businesses and farms, they raised children, animals and food, they ran the churches, Sunday Schools, volunteered at the schools, ran the sports boosters, band boosters and any other school volunteer organization there was in addition to the county’s largest 4H club and hospital auxilary. I could type out right now a list of at least 50 women from my small hometown and give at least one example of how each of them influenced me in some way. It’s a real shame my daughers will never have that kind of community behind them.

My mother is one of those women. I don’t think she always realizes how strong and influential she is most of the time. She has always been able to walk the fine line that balances her commitments to her community and the needs of her family. I see now looking back with the eyes of an adult and a mother that there were many times that her own needs got lost in that balancing act. And yet she did still manage to share her many talents with her children and her community. She is a fabulous seamstress and quilter. I learned a lot of what I know either directly from her tutelage or just from osmosis of watching her do what she did. Her love and loyalty to my father is a true inspiration. Our family and community has had more than its share of tragedy and pain. I give my parents credit for being that rock that I could always rely on to be there to hold onto during even the worst of times. I have cousins and friends that went through the same tragedies and difficulties and not make it out the other side nearly as whole as I and my siblings have. I give my parents credit for that and thank them for that.

As far as “famous” role models I have a few.

I’ve always admired Katharine Hepburn, both as an actress and as a woman who stood her ground with the men and got her way without losing her femininity in the process. In high school if I had to list one woman that I wanted to grow up to be like it would have been her.

The quiet strength of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King has always been something I’ve greatly admired and wished I had more of in my personality.

I also admire Melissa Etheridge, Ellen DeGeneres, P!nk, Terry Irwin, Camryn Mannheim, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. I’m sure there are more but these came to mind first.

Also Elizabeth Zimmerman, JK Rowling, and Oprah deserve and honorable mention.

So please, share with me your stories and lists. I have some present day role models that I will share in a later post.

Posted in women of influence | Show Comments | Add a Comment