Flipside: Step--Mom Stepping Out of Her Comfort Zone

Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join. I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside. AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024. Sometimes I get lazy. 😁 Let's see how well I keep up.

Week # 16 (April 15-April 21) is Step.

Several decades ago, before she passed, I had my Mom stay overnight for a genealogy sleepover. I wanted to interview her about her memories of family. Two items she brought up, that thoroughly shocked me, was that she had always been an introvert and when she was in elementary school she had a speech impairment--she stuttered.

My mother was a very outgoing woman and one area in which she excelled was theater. I knew about her life "on the boards". She was active in community theater when I was in elementary school. Following her death I was able to go through many photographs and school yearbooks that were part of her estate. If her statement regarding her shyness and lack of confidence speaking in front of a group due to her stutter is true, in many areas of her life, my Mom stepped out of her comfort zone.

Early in her elementary school years, it was decided that my Mom should take elocution lessons to improve her speech. She had an aunt, Emily Stark Miller, who was a well regarded elocution teacher and performer. Aunt Emily lived nearby in the Borough of Avalon, outside Pittsburgh. She became my Mom's teacher.

The Pittsburgh Press,
December 20, 1931,
page 33

At age 10, my mother, Martha Jean Stark, began presenting oral readings at the local Parent Teacher Association meetings.

Mom was active in junior high school and high school. Her 1939 Yearbook featured some of her interests and accomplishments among them the Editor-in-chief of the school yearbook, acting in two plays, producing a Christmas play, feature writer on the school newspaper and class vice president. She and Dad, George VanGilder Hughes, were both Commencement speakers. Frankly, she does not appear to be either an introvert or have any residual speech problems by her senior year in high school.

Mom modeling college fashions
Kaufmann's Department Store
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Mom with her pearls
College of Wooster
Senior Year 1943

Off to the College of Wooster. By her junior year, she had pledged, was performing in the school's theater and member of the honorary, was on the debate seminar and a department head of the school newspaper. In her senior year she was elected to the Big Four Cabinet, Debate and member of the honorary and member of the Student Senate.

Following graduation, Mom and Dad married and in 1947 I was born. After my brother Ken's birth in 1952, Dad spent a year and a half in Korea. Mom was now in charge. Two young children, maintenance of the house and finances plus she had to learn how to drive!

Sight Unseen Program
1957

The Allegheny Journal
Thursday, May, 25, 1957

Royal Family Program
1958

Pittsburgh Post Gazette
May 13, 1959
page 12

In the mid 1950's into 1962, Mom joined church and local organizations, entertained and became very active in the church's theater group, The Hiland Players.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Thursday, March 24, 1966
page 35

The move to a new home in a new neighborhood ended Mom's theater days for a decade. Instead she now turned to leadership in the Boy Scouts, church circles and hospital organizations.

Back to the boards in the 1970's for some community theater. Mom and her son, Jeff, were cast in Kismet and she did makeup for Carousel.

In the 1980's and until her death in 1999, Mom was active in the Cleveland, Ohio area where she moved. Church circles and activities, volunteer at the local hospital, College Club West, The Women's Board of a local hospital and Women's Committee of Great Lakes Theater Festival.

Introvert? If she was, she stepped out of her comfort zone for decades. I am an introvert and strive to push myself out of my comfort zone daily.....just like Mom.

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