I’d love to take a break from killing flies INSIDE my house to introduce those who don’t already know her to my mom.
In my former career, she was known as Peggy Jane the Mom, so well in fact that folks still just randomly ask, “How’s Peggy Jane the Mom?”
She turns 93 on Saturday. There will be flowers delivered and phone calls — lots of phone calls.
She’s a Detroit girl, born and raised by a hard-working union pipe fitter and a homemaker who had a Ph.D. in shopping.
In high school, she had girlfriends who were so tight that even now, the few remaining keep in touch.
It was at Roosevelt High in Wyandotte that she met Fritz Shurmur with the curly red hair, big smile and a need for help in math class — or so he said.
After graduation from high school, she started nurse’s training at Henry Ford Hospital while Fritz started college at Albion, where he played football and ran an elevator in a downtown hotel for spending money.
Annoyingly, she contracted tuberculosis while working on the TB ward, had part of a lung removed and spent nine months in the hospital.
I often wonder if patience she already possessed got her through, or if that experience taught her to be patient, because she is the most patient person I have ever known.
Her husband and I are completely opposite of that, high-strung and Type A to our core.
After the hospital stay and recuperation, they married and moved to Albion, where dad finished his playing career and immediately started coaching.
She was the perfect coach’s wife.
Hostessing is what she has always done best, not just planning every detail that would put Martha Stewart to shame, but putting every guest, no matter who they are or how long she has known them, immediately at ease.
It could be for a cup of tea and a piece of pie or a full-blown dinner party, and you would remember forever your time at Peggy Jane’s.
Before the NCAA said you couldn’t, her homes in Albion and Laramie were full of starving football players, as hungry for her mothering as they were for her delicious meals.
She ironed their dress shirts, offered beds to visiting parents who couldn’t afford hotel rooms, and tragically, handled logistics when our starting quarterback drowned in a fishing accident.
After Albion, of course, came Laramie, where they lived for 13 years and completed our family with the only one of us lucky enough to be a native.
It was in Laramie that she added hall of fame status to raising kids and being the coolest mom to the friends of her kids.
Our house was crawling with friends, always. There was always food, always big conversation, and always an extra mom to haul us around, in town or out.
When they got to the NFL, obviously in five locations more densely populated than Wyoming, she reveled in telling folks about loading up the Mercury Colony Park station wagon with wood paneling and driving Laramie High Pep Club members by herself from Laramie to Sheridan and back — at night — for a regular season game.
In the NFL, she earned the reputation as the real one, still cleaning her own house, still cooking every night for her beloved Fritz.
In later years, she also designed her first custom-built dream home, attending to every single detail herself. And it’s a thing of beauty.
I hope we all think our mothers are candidates for the hall of fame.
That mine is eligible in so many categories is not lost on me.
She’s simply the best. And we are grateful beyond measure that once more, we get to celebrate her birthday.
Sally Ann Shurmur can be reached at: SallyAnnShurmur@gmail.com
