MaryAnne Ruth Beck Piekarski

MaryAnne Ruth Beck Piekarski

December 13, 1932 – April 20, 2007

Last year my sister asked why I haven't written about our Mom. I guess there's a few reasons. The two main ones are: Which picture do I use for her and the second she's my Mom, where do you start talking about her?

I guess I'll address the picture reason first. I really couldn't decide on just one picture so – that's the reason for the slide show, I think they tell her story better then I can. These are just a few photographs of her, I hope everyone enjoys them. It was hard to pick even these few; which ones to use which ones to leave out. I picked these because, I think that these photographs really show what she was like. She was out going and very popular, the friends in the slide show were people she talked about often. One of them – Nina, the y were life long friends.

This is the second part. What do you say about your Mom? I mean everybody's mom is special to them, but what makes them stand out? Even though I didn't tell her enough, she was the most influential person in my life. She “kissed my boo-boos”, she yelled at me when I needed it, she was my friend, my Mom. Here's her story. Mom was born during the great depression. Her dad always worked and they had a home, but things were tight. She attended Messmer High School in Milwaukee, where she was extremely popular and met her future husband. When Mom and Dad first married Dad was a salesman, a lot of his salary was commissions, so things were either very very good or just OK. As a family we never went without anything we needed, but Mom had a hard time keeping to a set budget. Early in their marriage Dad had a job opportunity and moved his young family to Ohio, that's the farthest Mom had ever been from her family. One of my brothers was born there. Things weren't what they thought they would be, so the family moved back to Milwaukee. My sister and I were born in Milwaukee and were the final additions to the family. Finally Dad got tired of the selling game and wanted to do his dream job – being a motel/resort owner in northern Wisconsin. So we packed up as a family and move “up north”. The resort business didn't work out for my parents and they ended up in the hotel management business for awhile moved around Wisconsin and Minnesota a few times. The last jobs they had before retirement was managing apartments. It was at their last apartment complex, that Mom discovered she was ill. The illness was pulmonary hypertension (abnormally high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs. It makes the right side of the heart need to work harder than normal. Symptoms include shortness of breath or light-headedness during activity). During the time Mom was sick, she never complained to us kids or let on just how bad this illness made her feel. Like the pictures I chose, she was always smiling.