Jennifer Erickson
Mother wrote her own obituary shortly after we buried our Dad. As you can see it is just the facts, bare minimum. She was so much more.
She was raised by a single mother, widowed with three small girls under the age of four. She was raised by a mother with tremendous faith. As taught by her mother she was also of tremendous faith. She, as her mother, tithed every bit of HER income. She was giving of her service and talents to her church. She was very proud that her great grandparents were some of the original founders of the church in Chanute, originally the Evangelical United Brethren Church and later merged with the United Methodist Church known today as the Otterbein United Methodist Church. She spent many hours in service as the church financial recording secretary. She spent every Sunday evening recording the offerings and was distraught if for some odd reason she would be delayed in having the funds deposited in the bank on Monday morning. She was always active in the church board meetings and sat on and chaired many of the committees over the years. The memorial committee was one of her favorites. She spent many years working and then director of the food pantry. It was like running a small grocery store, she did everything including buying the groceries and stocking the shelves, picking up pizza two days a week from the pizza hut and bagging it for individuals, to defrosting the refrigerators.
As a young girl, she enjoyed school and was an excellent student later earning a scholarship to go to JUCCO here in Chanute. Her favorite teacher was Mr. Hemphill, math teacher. Hence her favorite subject was math. Mother ALWAYS read the entire paper. She told the story of having a teacher who had a daily quiz of what as in the newspaper. The quiz included national and local news as well as the comics and what Mr. Jones had for sale in the classified. What a wonder teaching tool and instilling a lifelong habit.
Her first job was working at the snack bar and later the ticket window at the Main Street Theater. She worked at the City Clerk’s office too. If you asked her in the last few years where she worked her reply was always Calvert’s. Calvert’s was a lovely dry goods department store owned by Calvert and Marjorie Pierpont. She loved the Pierponts and they treated her as family. Once she had children she would work at Calvert’s during the holidays and inventory time for funds to buy Christmas presents for us. She always enjoyed being there. When we were older she was the store manager for Reed’s department story (previously Calvert’s). Then as accountant for HBD here in Chanute from which she retired after 21 years.
One thing many people wouldn’t know about my mother is how much she loved to ride on the back of a motorcycle. When Mom and Dad were “courting” and first married my Dad had a motorcycle and a group of friends that rode together. My Dad always carried a camera under his seat on his cycle and has many pictures of the group on their motorcycles together. Even later in life they loved to jump on the cycle and ride in the hills of the Ozarks.
Mom and Dad were married in 1950 and were blessed with five children. Faith and family were their first priority. We grew up in the time of simple fun and family games. We always celebrated holidays, birthdays and everyday good times with our cousins Jim and Sherry Stemple on mom’s side and Jim and Paul Morris and families’ on Dad side. Memories of homemade ice cream, fireworks, fireflies in jars, tag, hide and seek and good times had by all. Grammy Reno was always with us and we treasured our time with her.
When we were young our vacations were camping trips. We would go to the lake and set up camp (big tent for the girls and Mom and a pup tent for Dad and Jeff). We always had a great time. I went camping once when I was grownup without my parents and I said never again, it was a lot of work.