Readers Remember My Mom

Image: rawpixel.com

My post two weeks ago honoring my mom, Anna Margaret Kozlina Gilbride (1937-2010), encouraged others who knew Mom to comment with their memories of her. Readers responded on my Facebook page (where I share my posts weekly), with comments that were heartfelt, fun, and even surprising. Relatives and even an old neighbor from our Willowick, Ohio, neighborhood chimed in with a recollection that had me saying, "Oh yes! I remember that now, too.^"1

By cousin Becky was the first to write, "I loved Aunt Marge so much! I really loved hearing my mom on the phone with your mom. Sometimes they’d talk and laugh for hours. I always loved going to visit her. I loved her Christmas cookies. So many good memories."

Yes, our moms did talk on the phone, sometimes for hours on end. Laughter would bubble up into my second-floor bedroom from the first floor kitchen where Mom was on the phone. My Aunt Margaret, Becky's mom, and my mom had been fast friends for years. They could keep each other entertained for hours on end. I wrote back to Becky, "I'm grateful that your mom was in my mom's life!"

 

My brother Joe wrote the longest entry, which I thought really captured Mom's spirit:

 

"As kid and also as I got older, I always remember Mom tackling any problem she was given. The yard needed raking, she had all of us out there with her raking those damn leaves, bagging them and stacking by the garage. The driveway needed shoveling once and then sometimes twice? She got us all dressed to go outside shoveling snow in double layers cause it was 7 degrees outside and snowing, and she had to get to work the next morning, what obstacle? There's a hole in the wall? a squeaky hinge? the house needed painted? Whatever the obstacle was, Mom took action, got it done while setting an example for all of us in the process. She never knew it, but her determination taught me tons to not shy away from any obstacle. I watched her mind work, thinking it through and staying focused on what's wrong, and figuring out how to fix it, and getting it done. It's her confidence in herself that showed me how to tackle my own obstacles in life, whatever they were. Sure it may be hard, frustrating, or painful, and [there may be some swearing] but her attitude was akin too, "shut up and figure it out," That's what I learned from her and applied to my own obstacles in life. She was a stellar example of quiet determination and resourcefulness. She was truly remarkable. I hope she knew that." 

 

One gets the sense of Mom's dogged determination from an early age!²

Joe's post not only touched my heart, but also jogged some of my own leaf-raking memories!

I wrote, "The leaves....hundreds of bags on the tree lawn! (In the days before "leaving the leaves!") And usually more than once a fall!"

Our friend Debbie from the old neighborhood then chimed in, "I remember helping with all those leaves!!! Using aluminum tv tray stands to hold the garbage bags!"

 

That was such a great memory that Debbie had and something I had totally forgotten. Mom used to bring out the aluminum tv tray stands (minus the trays) to act as leaf bag holders. Just like Mom to be so resourceful in making our job a little easier! And pressing neighborhood kids to help in the "fun" of leaf raking!! 

 

My Aunt Marian (Mom's sister) picked up the leaf-raking theme and expanded: 

 

"Yah, Bob and I raked our share of leaves too. What I remember most is when all the family would come over on Christmas and sit around the dining room table and talk and drink and eat great cookies and have fun. And I'm tearing up right now remembering Marjie, with a J. I miss talking on the phone and not being able to get a word in edgewise and loving it. I just miss my big sister who had to drag me around with her all the time when I was a kid. She was the best and I just love and miss her. ."

 

"I just miss my big sister who had to drag me around with her all the time when I was a kid." Mom and Aunt Marian.³

 

The family gatherings squashed into the tiny dining room area in our house are so memorable to me as well. We moved into that house when I was about 9 years old and after the six of us lived in a tiny 3-bedroom, 1-bath home in Eastlake, Ohio, the new house in Willowick seemed amazingly large. 

 

But as my siblings and I grew up—there were four of us—and all the cousins also grew up—there were 18 first cousins—add in all the adults, and gathering "around the table" ended up being around the table, into the kitchen, up the nearby stairs, with chairs pulled into the living room nearby and even sometimes a bit into the hallway! But miraculously, the space seemed to grow right along with us with room enough for all. A fitting metaphor for family, isn't it?

 

I'm so grateful to everyone who chimed in with their memories of Mom. Everyone had a slightly different vision of the woman who was their mom, sister, aunt, and neighbor. Thanks for letting me see Mom through your eyes.

 

Until next time...

© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2025. All rights reserved. 

 

NOTES

 

¹ Nancy Gilbride Casey, personal page, Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/nancy.gilbridecasey/ : posted 29 October 2025), "This week I'm paying tribute to my mother..."

 

² Anna Margaret Kozlina, photograph, c. 1945; privately held by Nancy Gilbride Casey [address for private use], Tioga, Texas. Photo was inherited by Anna Kozlina Gilbride from her mother Margaret Simonik Kozlina, then by Nancy Gilbride Casey from her mother Anna Kozlina Gilbride. Photograph was scanned in 2017.

³ Anna Margaret Kozlina and Marian Kozlina, photograph, c. 1948; privately held by Marian Kozlina Graff [address for private use], Willoughby Hills, Ohio. Photo provenance and current location unknown. Photograph supplied to Nancy Gilbride Casey about 2017.