The 90th Birthday Celebration from Afar

Yessss queen!

"Visiting" with Sherrie during Coronavirus lockdown.

 My mother-in-law, Millie Horsman, turned 90 years old today. She is such a gem, I always enjoy my time visiting with her!

Unfortunately our family get-together to celebrate her birthday was canceled, due to the Covid-19 pandemic currently keeping all of us apart. But the lead up to today was made special by the dozens and dozens of cards sent to her by family and friends and friends of friends! She said that nearly every surface of her apartment is covered in cards and getting the mail has been an absolute treat every day for the past several weeks.

At her congregational home they aren't being allowed to gather for cards and games, but she spent the day chatting with the many people who called.

Millie has led a remarkable and fascinating life. She grew up on a farm with her seven siblings and her parents. When she was in high school she informed her parents that she was going to go to college. No one in her family had been to college, and none of her siblings had plans to go. Her brothers complained to their parents, "Don't let her go, all she's going to do is get married and have babies." But she insisted and in 1948 went off to Mankato College. She didn't own a car, and when she needed to get back to the farm during the school year she and a friend would hitchhike rides back to home. I thought that was very courageous of her, she thought it was just practical because her parents weren't going to drive all the way to Mankato to pick her up, and as long as she and a girlfriend were together, they felt that it would all work out.

Millie loved spending time with all her grandkids.
Here she is with toddler Lindsey.

While in school she worked at the front desk of one of the dorms, checking in and out the girls as they came and went in the evenings. She was paid 45 cents an hour — boys who held the same job at other dorms were paid 65 cents an hour. Millie inquired as to why girls were paid so much less than boys and was informed that since boys foot the bill to take girls out on dates, that they got paid more. That seemed to make sense to her, so she didn't ask any more questions about it.

She married her sweetheart, Neil, in 1954 and began her career teaching. As her brothers predicted, she did indeed have a family, and a rather large one at that. She had four children in 5 years, all in a home that did not yet have indoor plumbing. (She did go on to have one more, another 10 years down the road). When her youngest of the first 4 children turned 5, she decided it was time to go back to work, and so she did. She taught elementary school in Tracy, Minnesota the remainder of her career, retiring at the age of 67. Unlike her brothers' predictions, she did indeed have a job, one that influenced thousands of children over the years, leading to many good memories of Mrs. Horsman by her former students.

Millie and Neil walking in Central Park, NYC, 2005

She tells the most incredible stories of her life, of learning how to bake bread at age 9 because she was upset her sister Clara got to do it and she didn't know how yet, of picking raspberries one summer with her sister and saving up the money so they could buy a piano together. There's a photo of her kitchen sink with a big cardboard sign on it that says "1961" — that was the year they got running water in the house and she didn't have to use the hand pump anymore. She is incredibly unconventional in having an education when women of her generation — especially women in rural farm towns — never went to college.

Millie's 81st birthday in 2011 with many of their grandkids and great-grandkids (but not all).

Laurie, Mark, Millie and Kathy, 2017

Hopefully we will be able to re-schedule this gathering after we can be together without the fear of making each other sick. In the meantime, happy happy 90th birthday, Millie!