EIGHTY--EIGHT-O

This year my mother turns 80

I can hardly believe it, she seems like she's 50 to me

full of life and zest and still the most interesting person I have ever met

Here are 10 interesting facts about her:

1.  She is a Registered Choctaw Indian..her grandfather was a boy on the Trail of Tears

2.  She skipped 2nd grade...her genius was recognized early on and continues today

3.  She is an inventor  Patent #4724468

4.  She was a flight attendant for Central Airlines

5.  She was the first woman Spearman Little League president...blazing the trail for many today

6.  She was appointed by Texas Governor Bill Clements to serve on the Bureau of Indian Affairs

7.  She owned a company that created items sold in Spiegel, Neiman's and Frost Brothers

8.  She was represented in a permanent showroom at every market...NY, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and LA

9.  She is a rated power seller on eBay

10.  She has a lucky rescue dog named Jet

She was  born in Bokchita, Oklahoma in my grandmother's house

I have the ashes of this bonnet in a Calumet Baking Soda container...her house burned shortly after this photo and her mother scooped up the ashes...stitches still intact.  Her rattle was a few pebbles, also in a Calumet can...that I cherish from my grandmother's belongings

she grew up in Amarillo, Texas

she was and still is a beauty!

inside and out!

I'm pretty sure here--she's wishing for 5 kids

This is my favorite photo of my parents...they were so Camelot!

Together they purchased and renovated 2 historical buildings in Spearman

this old hotel was moved by mules from Old Hansford in 1917

she was always full of ideas...this is her 

Mop Wig Idea

that's me in the center...as her model

I made her this card when we went to a convention and there was a woman there promoting and selling 

Kitty Wigs

....not sure what else to say about that....

She and her husband Clay did re-inactments

this is her full regalia which will belong to me someday...it is a treasure made by her own hands

At any given holiday she might serve her famous beans and weenies in her backyard in that life-size teepee

She calls this her Baku Dress

She was contacted by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright to exhibit this dress that went to the Embassy at Baku, Azerbaijan for 3 years. It then sold to an Indian woman who wore it to the grand opening of the American Indian Museum in Washington, D.C.

If you stop at the rest stop on either side in Quanah, Texas, the displays she created were commissioned by the State of Texas

She is considered an expert in many fields

today she still uses her patent in her eBay store

and as an 80 year old knows more about computers than any one person I know, although I can never get how she types so fast with her long orange fingernails!

she loves a great joke...usually very elaborate ones and usually ones that team her and my older brother against the rest of us.  Just recently he sold his company and they sent us all a photo of his check for $3 million plus with a long list of things that would have to happen in order for her to sell her business and buy a house in Taos to live with them when they moved...they really had us going and today I have no idea what's the truth.  

he's the cowboy to her Indian!

It reminds me of the time she used her patent in a trick where she took a dollar bill, scrubbed off the front and photo copied a hundred dollar bill...taking special care to leave the other side so she wouldn't be doing anything too illegal...she loved to leave it laying on her shop floor for people to pick up with excitement!  Funny!

So you ask?...why am I telling you all of this today when her birthday is not until December?

well...for the longest time she did not even believe she was turning 80...she thought she was turning 79 and she wanted to have her party at the Choctaw Nation...

....and it might snow in December....

so...

this weekend we will celebrate all the wonderful things she is 

many will receive their Indian names and be smudged/blessed by her

and we will have cake

and

another party in December...and I have reason to believe