For Mother's Day

Mommy Susie

Mommy Susie
by Debby Frost

We called our grandmother Mommy Susie. We called my grandfather Daddy Bill. Dad was Daddy Jack and Mom was Mommy Renie. She was born Susan Margaret Ross in 1901 at Oak Point and married Bill Bowie. A formidable woman, she was married at 18 to a man who was 14 years older. She had one son, my father, when she was 20. She loved music and loved to dance. My grandfather played the fiddle and she would accompany him on the piano.

Mommy Susie always worked and was always busy at a time when not many women went to work. She was a midwife and delivered a lot of babies in Oak Point. She drove ambulance in the First World War. My grandfather used to work at the base and she worked right along with him. She cooked for several restaurants in town and always said the best tomato sandwich was made by someone else because it was a pleasure to sit down and have someone else make her meal.

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