Babyboomers.com

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children.

One is roots.  The other is wings.

~Hodding Carter, Jr.

Has any single factor influenced Boomers more than our parents … the ‘Greatest Generation’ … the people who gave us the freedom to believe in ourselves (roots) with all the brashness and self-confidence that characterizes our generation (wings)?

And yet, the hardest thing to know is that ultimately we will lose these beautiful people who formed us. My mom died May 2nd. She was 91 and lived a truly amazing life. I’d like to tell you a little about her and how she touched the people in her life.

Helen Ann Fitzpatrick was the second of six (and the first girl) in a large Irish-American family living in Yonkers, NY. She always thought she’d be a teacher until she was 15 and her youngest brother was born. She changed her aspirations that day and decided to become a nurse.

When the time came to enter nursing school, she didn’t have enough money for the tuition (it was the Depression) so she worked as a hospital aide for several months to earn it. The day she left to begin her training, she had $100.05 in her pocket … $100 for her three-year program and five cents for the trolley to the teaching hospital.

Following her graduation in 1940, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps and was sent to Ft. Benning, GA. That’s where she met my dad with the phrase that became family lore, “You don’t look sick to me.” After Pearl Harbor, she joined a medical unit that made two round-trip crossings to North Africa and a third that left her group in England in advance of D-Day. A few weeks later, she and her colleagues went ashore at Omaha Beach and set up a hospital in France.

When she returned, she married my dad and moved to his home state of Florida where she happily became the quintessential homemaker and mom of six Boomer kids. She went back to nursing when my youngest brother was in third grade. After my dad died in 1979, she learned to drive at the age of 60, although she was never comfortable with it and we had our hearts in our throats whenever she was out in her little blue Gremlin.

I have never been an active feminist … when you have a mom who went to war, the knowledge that nothing is off limits is pretty empowering and I just assumed I could be whatever I wanted to be. Stir in encouragement, respect, the world’s most creative birthday parties, humor, practicality (do you know anyone who could get 12 patties out of a pound of ground beef?), real-world advice and a heart that just grew larger to encompass in-laws, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends new and old, and you have my mother, the ‘little engine that could’ … and did.

When I reflect on the role models who were my greatest influences, I think of my Aunt Vianna who was fashion personified and who used sterling silver, a linen cloth and Spode china for breakfast. I think of my Aunt Mary Alice who also dressed beautifully and was a sweet and charming hostess.

But the most important role model was my mom. She was no fashion icon,  she wouldn’t let me wear lipstick until I was 14 or date until I was 16; she taught us how to have fun, for instance, to set up an April Fool’s prank one year, she wound thread under my sweater with a small piece on the outside for an unsuspecting friend to pull; she encouraged my writing from my first journalism class in 9th grade and on; she traveled to be with her children for the birth of every grandchild and for every graduation and wedding.

My mom taught me by example how to think creatively to solve problems and that you are as likely to bring change from behind the scenes as from the spotlight. And her faith and optimism were touchpoints to everyone who knew her.

Helen Ann Fitzpatrick Berry touched a lot of people and left a lot of fingerprints … we might need a CSI team to find some of them them, but they’re there. And if we’re lucky … and smart … our children will find our fingerprints someday and feel pride that we, too, did hard things and made a difference … that we gave them roots and we gave them wings.

That’s the ultimate Boomer tribute to the Greatest Generation.