Mary Krepps of Brighton Township aches to embrace her mother, but out of caution during this unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, she keeps her distance. And it hurts. Hurts both of them. If ever there’s a time to hug, it’s now. Her mother, Glenna Tomasula, turns 100 Thursday, but her family will only be able to celebrate from afar until COVID-19 resolves.
BEAVER — The sun’s rays cascade on her shoulders this early spring afternoon. Warmth feels good; makes her happy.
Glenna Tomasula relaxes in a recliner in a cozy family room of the house in which she’s lived since 1959 and raised her family – two sons and a daughter.
“I got a crock pot full of pork chops for dinner today,” she says. “I’m able to get around. I still cook. I bake cookies.”
Chocolate-chip cookies. That’s her specialty.
“Everybody loves them,” she said.
She “tweaks” the recipe, said daughter Mary Krepps of Brighton Township, who sits on a sofa across the room.
“I usually put a little extra stuff in mine, and they like the way they taste,” Tomasula said. “I put a little extra brown sugar and I put twice as much vanilla as the recipe calls for.”
Krepps aches to embrace her mother, but out of caution during this unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, she keeps her distance. And it hurts. Hurts both of them.
“I just love her so much,” Krepps said. “She’s simply the best.”
If ever there’s a time to hug, it’s now. Tomasula turns 100 Thursday, but her family will only be able to celebrate from afar until COVID-19 resolves.
“We’re going to just wait until things clear up, and then we’re going to get together and celebrate,” she said.
Tomasula was born in 1920, just after the 1918 influenza pandemic often dubbed “Spanish flu,” that like coronavirus spread worldwide and infected approximately 500 million people, or about a third of the world’s population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths were estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide; about 675,000 in the United States.
Monday, the World Health Organization reported 1.17 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and 64,471 deaths in 209 countries, areas and territories. In the US, there have been close to 350,000 confirmed cases and close to 10,000 deaths.
Born after the crisis had passed, Tomasula doesn’t recall anyone in her family talking about how that pandemic impacted them.
Does the current pandemic frighten her?
“Naturally, everybody has a little fear of it,” she said, “but you just trust God. You trust in him.”
Engaged and active
Tomasula’s nattily attired in a black ensemble — top adorned with floral and butterfly motifs; neckline trimmed in pink; black sneakers; earrings.
Her manicured fingernails are polished in pink, too. And every Friday she gets her hair done, though not in recent weeks, of course.
One almost wants proof, wants to see her birth certificate to confirm she really will be 100 in two days. Her engagement, acuity and activity belie her chronological age.
She plays Scrabble every night with family.
“It always makes you feel so good when you can get a seven-letter word on a triple,” she said, something she does a lot, her daughter said.
“Sometimes she gets three seven-letter words in a game. She’s pretty competitive,” Krepps said.
Tomasula knows all the two-letter words and Q-words without the letter U.
“I always look for a place to put the big letters on the doubles and triples,” she said, referencing letters that have highest point values.
She said her best score is 425.
And every other Saturday — until we all were forced to stay at home — Tomasula hosts a luncheon and card party for three friends.
It’s a simple game, she said, called No Peek that a “little kid could play” allowing “the girls” to “laugh and talk while we play.”
If the Saturday is close to a holiday, she decorates a small tree and sets her table accordingly with festive paper plates.
“She looks forward to that,” Krepps said.
Tomasula starts her day reading The Times.
“I like to keep up with what’s going on,” she said.
At lunchtime, she tunes to a soap opera — “The Young and the Restless” — and before that enjoyed watching “Search for Tomorrow” until it went off the air in 1986.
She bowled in a women’s league until 15 years ago when she had a knee replacement.
A friend, she said, coaxed her into joining when she was 64. Tomasula never bowled before, but wound up loving the sport.
Once she rolled a 180 game, but said her average was about 125.
She learned to quilt, too, and made hand-sewn quilts for her children and grandchildren.
Now that churches suspended worship within brick-and-mortar buildings and she can’t attend services at First Baptist Church of Rochester, Tomasula watches Cornerstone Network, a Pittsburgh faith and family television station.
“It has ministers and a prayer line 24 hours a day,” she said. “I watch every night before I go to bed.”
She sips chamomile tea and snacks on dry Honey Nut Cheerios “and sometimes a little piece of chocolate” like a KitKat candy wafer.
“A little bite of that along with the Cheerios tastes pretty good,” she said.
Resourceful and industrious
Tomasula grew up in a small, coal mining town in Cary, Kentucky, that had a grocery store and post office.
Her father, John West, cut forest timber he hauled down the mountain by horses and delivered to a sawmill that cut logs for mine supports.
Her mother, Nella Ulrich West, was a stay-at-home mom, but also a seamstress who made clothing to support the family.
The couple had seven children, but a boy and girl died in infancy.
Tomasula and her brother, Bob West of Wexford, are the only two surviving.
As kids, the siblings played jump rope and hopscotch.
Many weekends, Tomasula visited Pineville, a town about 3 miles from Cary, where relatives lived. She and her cousins often went to the movies.
Tomasula attended a two-room elementary school and later rode a bus five miles when it came time for eighth grade.
She’d get up early to help a neighbor prepare breakfasts and lunches for borders, many of them miners who rented rooms.
“The lady did the cooking,” Tomasula said. “I’d set the table and help pack lunches.”
She acknowledged the Depression years were “hard times,” but said “everybody stuck together.”
When World War II erupted, the family moved to Beaver County.
A friend of her father’s told him work was good here.
They lived in an apartment in Aliquippa. Her dad got a job at Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. Tomasula worked at the five-and-dime on Franklin Avenue.
But she aspired to something better and landed a job at the former Curtiss-Wright factory in Vanport Township, an aircraft manufacturer during the war.
“I just wanted something different than what I was doing. I knew they needed help,” she said.
Tomasula welded plane propellers until late one evening when news came that the war was over.
“We threw down our torches and everybody left the plant and went out to celebrate,” she said.
Her next job was in a dress shop in Ambridge where she worked as a window designer and dressed mannequins.
She finished work around 9 one Saturday night. Walking home she encountered a neighbor couple who invited her to a dance at the Moose Club.
Too tired, Tomasula declined.
The couple insisted she tag along, promising they wouldn’t stay long.
Good thing Tomasula changed her mind. That dance changed her life.
“That’s where I met my husband. Where I met the love of my life,” she said.
John Tomasula, everyone called him “Hank,” had movie-star good looks — tall, dark hair.
Some said he looked like former President Ronald Reagan.
“People used to tell him that all the time,” Krepps said.
He asked Tomasula for a dance and then sat with her and her friends at their table. And then walked her home.
They dated almost a year before marrying.
Hank died in 1984 at age 64.
“He’s been gone 36 years,” Tomasula said. “He retired early. He thought we’d have some time to take a nice, long trip and enjoy our lives. We bought a new car, packed everything in the car and took off. We went all the way to California. We stopped in Texas and visited with some of his family. We were gone for a whole month. We came back. The week after we came back he had a heart attack.
“That plan for early retirement and a lot of traveling stopped there. We didn’t have enough years. We had a very good marriage. We never argued. We got along real well. We had three beautiful kids we just adored, then the grandkids (five grandchildren; four great-grandchildren) came along. He was so happy with them.”
Resourceful and industrious, Tomasula worked other jobs, too, including at The Times. She operated a conveyor and bundling machine that packed newspapers for carriers and also made phone solicitations.
A good saleswoman, she placed a call to a potential subscriber who declined. The man said he and his wife subscribed to another newspaper, which she liked.
Tomasula countered: “Well, you could take The Times and you’d each have your own paper.”
She dabbled in real estate, too, Krepps said, even though her father wasn’t keen on the idea.
Tomasula purchased a few properties, managing and maintaining them herself.
Later, she was a caregiver for elderly folks — sat with them, cooked meals for them.
Happy life
Krepps said her childhood was like growing up in the Cleaver family in the television series “Leave It To Beaver.”
Tomasula was a stay-at-home mom when her kids — Krepps, and sons Mike Tomasula of Beaver and Ron Tomasula of Darlington — were young and in school.
She cooked and baked, and Krepps especially remembers her mom’s Southern-fried chicken made in a cast-iron skillet. Oh, cornbread, too.
“All of our friends were always welcome here,” Krepps said. “They all came for food and chocolate-chip cookies. They kind of just took all of the kids in,” she said of her parents.
“The door was always open to her friends,” Tomasula confirmed. “Two of them called me Mom.”
“You could tell her anything, anything at all,” Krepps said. “You never had to worry. She was never judgmental.”
Krepps doesn’t remember her mother ever being mad and really never grounded or disciplined her children.
“If I ever thought about doing anything that wasn’t what they approved of you could just see disappointment, and that was enough,” Krepps said.
Tomasula never thought she’d live to 100 — “I don’t think anybody does,” she said.
“Maybe it has a lot to do with the way you live. I’ve always been busy and try be nice to my neighbors, my kids. I love my kids and do a lot of things I can with them. I kinda have a happy life. Try not to worry about everything. A lot of people do a lot of worrying.”
Her advice is to keep busy, love family and friends, maintain a relationship with God “and it certainly helps when the sun shines,” she said.
“The Lord’s blessed me in so many ways. I’ve been so blessed. My kids have been good kids. They’ve never given me any problems of any kind.”
"love" - Google News
April 08, 2020 at 05:48PM
https://ift.tt/34kbo0s
100 & Counting: Beaver woman's advice is keep busy, love family, friends and God - The Times
"love" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39HfQIT
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "100 & Counting: Beaver woman's advice is keep busy, love family, friends and God - The Times"
Post a Comment