This is a little different start for this page, but it’s my mom’s (Dolores Stefanik Thompson) birthday. She’d be 91 today. This photograph, professionally done, surprises me, given our limited budget when it was taken in 1956. In 1956, my mom took a dime to work as a telephone operator. I had to choose between buying a Coke for lunch or using the bus to get close to home and walking the rest of the way.
Both her birthday and mine, two days later, are in September. My mom would be 22 here and looks to be in style for the time. I would be four, and I’m not demonstrating any style at all. I have pictures of her holding me as a baby, but I always liked this one. Although I could have posed as the Gerber baby and started a career as a model. For those wondering, it’s a black & white photo and then painted. Common back then, I’m told.
But it was both my parents, my dad more so, who urged me to go to law school after I got out of college and was wandering from job to job. My mom quit school at 17 to get a job, but she went back and finished high school the same year I did, 1971. So, though she finished with a program called ICS, really, we’re both part of the Class of ’71. Later, she went to college and graduated.
I didn’t find this out until after she died, when I found her diploma. She believed education was important, as did my dad. They both thought that I going to law school would be good, more so my dad. The reasoning is a separate story,
She started her career in a beauty salon, then became an operator for Ohio Bell before moving from Cleveland to the small town of Mantua to work in a bar owned by her parents (Andy and Mary Stefanik), Andy’s Bar. She would also sell real estate and, strangely enough, sold a home to a family named Livezey, moving to Mantua from New York.
That was in 1967. I remember mom telling me about the family having one daughter, and she was cute and my age. She was right about that, although the girl didn’t seem to like me all that well. But, 38 years later, I would marry the girl from New York. My mom would never know, having died six years prior, but would have been happy about it for us, and embraced the girl from New York. My dad did, although he didn’t quite make it to the wedding date either.
Even though I change this up every year, I always mention that her birthdate was also the official end of World War II. The ironic part was that my dad was being kept in Europe with the Army Air Force because of a possible invasion of Japan. The war finished for my dad on September 14 when he left Europe for the States, which is my birthday.
So, while she can’t be here for any more birthdays, each September 2, I celebrate her birthday in my heart with love.