My Mom
Today, November 5, my Mom would be 100 years old. She's been gone for 6 years but it seems I think about her more and more every day. The older I get the more I understand her. It's a good time to write a little about Mom's life, to honor her and to memorialize her accomplishments. Mom, Anne Louise Quist McDearmid Nehls, was born in Saylorville, Iowa, the third in a family of twelve. Her Dad was a miner from Sweden and her Mom had been a housemaid before marrying Carl. At about age 5, in 1925, the family moved to Gages Lake, Illinois where some of her Dad's family lived. Carl was going to go in business with some of the family. That worked for awhile but then the Great Depression happened. The business of gravel hauling (I think) fell apart and Anne found herself helping her father sell vegetables from the garden door to door. At the age of twelve Anne was farmed out to be a nanny/maid for a wealthy family. She would have been in 7th grade. So she worked and gave her