Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes
Copyright, 1943
This is not a book I would have selected on my own. These days I have little time to read a real book so when I do it is one I have carefully selected. Lately I have avoided any books that would bring sadness. It has not always been this way, just since the loss of my son last fall. So, why did I choose to read this book you ask? Well, it was on the reading list for my younger son’s school work. This year he has been studying American history, so I suspect this book was selected to give the student a glimpse into the lives of an immigrant family in the early 1900’s. While not a sad book, it does have sad moments and it is not one I would have looked at and said, this is a book I want to read.
I could relate to this story more than I imagined. Mostly because it focuses on the mother of a Norwegian immigrant family. My own great grandparents immigrated to America from Norway. Maybe around the same time as the family in this book. I could also relate because I am a mother and I could identify with the struggles the Mama faced. Reading this book made me think of my own mother and the sacrifices she made for her children. While my mom did not take in boarders to make ends meet, as did Mama in this story, she did take in children. She choose to watch other people’s children so that she could be home with her own children. It wasn’t until after my siblings and I were all in school full time that she took a job out of the home. Another aspect I could identify with was the focus on family. Family was import. Family came first. Not just the immediate family, but extended family including aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles. When I was young girl we would visit family. Almost anytime we visited my grandparents inevitably there would be more family members at their home. A visit from family was a time of celebration. My grandpa always said that family was important. If they did not come to his house, we would all jump in the car and go visit them. There were many times we visited my mom’s aunts and their families. I remember being so bored, but still enjoying the visits because they were family.
I realize this has become more about my memories of my family than a review of this book, yet that is where this book took me. Back to a time when family came first. I wish I could say it was still this way today, yet I see so much sadness in this world where people focus on what is easy, even if it means leaving family behind. If it doesn’t make a person happy, then they will leave it behind. Not in this book. There were things that did not make the family happy, yet they worked on keeping the family together even when it was not easy. I like that the focus of family was a big part of this book. I have tried to instill that family comes first in the lives of my own children. Only time will tell if I have succeeded or not. I enjoyed the story and am glad I took the time to read it. Will my 16 year old son enjoy it? I am not so sure about that.
