It’s never easy to lose a parent – and your mom – but remembering what made her impactful in your life is a gift that you’ll carry with you for a very long time.
A lot of people knew her – had her for a teacher in school – and I write this for them as well as the many outside Piqua and Covington that will remember Leona Fulks for her disciplined, responsible walk through life…96 years of it.
She passed away Thursday, April 11 in the wee hours of the morning, as confident in dying as anyone I’ve ever known – anyone I’d even heard of. She outlived my dad by almost 13 years. They were married for 60 years, and I really believed that from the day he left us she was on the standby list to rejoin him. That’s how loyal she was, and they just don’t make marriages like that anymore. I can truthfully say…there was hardly anyone like her.
Mom as a teacher at Proctorville Fairland High School, in the 50’s.
She will, of course, be best remembered as a classroom teacher, first at Fairland High School in Proctorville, Ohio, later at Symmes Valley High School in Willow Wood, Ohio, and for the final twenty years of her almost-forty years in public education she finished at Covington High School. Kids who wanted to learn loved her. Kids who didn’t share her work ethic probably had their moments with her. For the woman worked harder than any person I’ve ever seen, regardless of season, and that’s what she expected from others.
Mom would spend a full day at school, then come home to cook for the family, and before going to bed freeze and can produce from the large garden that she and my dad planted annually.
Or, she knitted. I can’t imagine how many sweaters and pairs of socks she turned out over the years, and usually without a pattern. She baked the best cherry pies you ever tasted, and whatever struck her fancy she somehow had the instinct for it, and how to do it better.
She was as committed in her faith as anyone I’ve ever known, but always cautioned those who told her that God was taking care of them by saying. “It’s fine to have faith..but you’d better have some legs on that faith.”
She grew up as a Depression baby without money and means, and at the same time with a remarkable will to accomplish – working her way through Marshall University, and making her way through her early teaching positions before she was 21 years old.
She prepared, she invested, and lived as if motivated by Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper. She was a pragmatist and never knew it…just sensible, grounded, and practical. And yet, she and Dad always managed to find a way to go to places that were unique and educational for my sister and me. I can truthfully say that they invested in our future, moving from outside Ironton in 1965 to Miami County because there was simply more opportunity. And for her part, Mom did it without blinking an eye.
She took great pride in the accomplishments of her children, and always encouraged us to keep learning, accumulate skills, and do whatever you could to become more valuable. Learn to do what others pass by. That said, she taught me to type when I was 8 years old – asdf…jkl; I had the measles in the second grade and this was how I passed my time at home – asdf…jkl; for hours at a time.
She was a great neighbor, helping people in the community when it came to the point where they could not help themselves. She did it on the quiet, and never, ever wanted recognition for something that she believed people should know to do, anyway.
She suffered with dementia in the last years, and she didn’t always have the same energy and zest that I remembered growing up, of course. But I knew, that her faith, her character, and that commitment to live her way never changed. I kissed her before leaving her room Wednesday, hoping that she knew.
But she always knew, despite the differences between child and parent over a life together – all those twists and turns. Knowing it’s never going to be perfect.
Her local calling hours are being hosted by the Moore Funeral Home, in Covington, on Monday the 15th, from 4 to 7 pm.
I know Dad was there, waiting for her, and I smile at the thought of them being reunited.
Her final grades are recorded, and she has her reward.
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