Elizabeth Warren recalls mom’s perseverance in Mother’s Day message
So that’s where Sen. Elizabeth Warren got her persistence.
In a Facebook post Sunday morning, the Massachusetts Democrat recalled memories of her own mother’s fight to keep their middle-class family afloat following her father’s heart attack. Warren, who was 12 years old at the time, said the heart attack forced her dad out of work, cost the family their car, and nearly cost them their home.
But Warren said her mother, Pauline Herring, was defiant.
I walked into my mother’s room and found her crying. She said, “We are not going to lose this house.” She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and pulled on her best dress – the one she wore to funerals and graduations. At 50 years old, she walked down the street and got her first paying job: answering the phones at Sears.
Herring died in 1995. But Warren — who has defined herself as a populist fighter — still remembers that moment as illustrative of how hard working-class mothers across the country fight everyday.
“That minimum wage job saved our home, and my mother saved our family,” she wrote. “I learned in that moment how mothers do what needs to be done to fight back.”
When I was 12, my daddy had a heart attack. All three of my brothers were off in the military, and Daddy was out of work…
Posted by Elizabeth Warren on Sunday, May 14, 2017
“Whether you’re a mother or grandmother like me, or you plan to celebrate or remember the special women in your life, I hope you and your loved ones have a very happy Mother’s Day,” Warren wrote.
Read the full post below:
When I was 12, my daddy had a heart attack. All three of my brothers were off in the military, and Daddy was out of work for a long time. We lost our family station wagon, and we were about an inch away from losing our home. One day, I walked into my mother’s room and found her crying. She said, “We are not going to lose this house.” She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and pulled on her best dress – the one she wore to funerals and graduations. At 50 years old, she walked down the street and got her first paying job: answering the phones at Sears. That minimum wage job saved our home, and my mother saved our family. I learned in that moment how mothers do what needs to be done to fight back. Whether you’re a mother or grandmother like me, or you plan to celebrate or remember the special women in your life, I hope you and your loved ones have a very happy Mother’s Day.
