Cora Margaret Beckman Houston

Our Mother

By her children: Fern Houston Welch, Thelma Houston Hamilton, Lucille Houston Reule, Wade Houston Jr., and Margaret Houston Burnette

From early childhood our mother grew up in a miserable log cabin blackened by smoke from the only source of heat: a pot bellied stove. In two small rooms and a sleeping loft, her family of ten weathered the fierce snows and winds of Minnesota winters.

Cora was only half grown when her mother died of tuberculosis; and she and her sister Mary (one year older) were left with an absentee father—working as a cook in lumber camps—and six younger siblings. They eked out a bare subsistence, eating food grown in a kitchen garden in the summer, eggs from a few bedraggled chickens, and bags of staples such as flour and sugar. Aware of their plight, neighbors (poor themselves) helped out with food and used clothing contributed to a missionary barrel. Always proud, our mother felt humiliated by her family’s need for charity.

After her older sister left home to be married, Cora at seventeen became the stalwart caretaker of six children, totally in charge of their welfare. The younger ones remember that if Cora had to pick dandelions for a mess of greens or bake a cake with one egg in it, she still managed to put something on the table for every meal.

This was not the case after Cora married. With the third sister in charge, starvation threatened. Their father solved this dilemma by taking all the siblings to his second daughter Cora, now living with her husband Wade Hampton Houston. The struggling young couple were preparing to move to Montana to homestead and were unable to care for them. Cora never forgot the sorrow of seeing her sisters and brothers parceled out among neighbors and friends. The whole family was never reunited.

Another tragedy struck when the young couple lost their first son a few days after his birth. Living in a sod hut and tilling the earth filled Wade and Cora’s first years together. Though Cora enjoyed growing things, a farmer’s life had little appeal for Wade. He much preferred a more sociable environment and liked to attend barn dances, school programs, and horse sales.

Returning from town in a wagon one day, Cora, with her first living child Fern, was caught in a sudden storm. A bolt of lightning spooked the horses. As they careened along on two wheels, Cora, fearing for her own and her infant’s life, hastily tossed the baby into the wayside bushes with one hand while fighting to control the horses with the other. The wagon bumped and jolted over the road until the exhausted team slowed and Cora was able to turn them and go back to retrieve her frightened but uninjured child.

Four unprofitable years passed before the couple abandoned the farm and left for North Dakota. There in Valley City, their second child Thelma was born. Wade worked hard at a series of manual jobs before finding employment selling Singer sewing machines. He kept this job with Singer for close to sixteen years, became successful, and gained advancement. During this time Lucille, a third girl, and Iris (now deceased) were born. Wade proved to be an outstanding manager and Singer moved him to ever larger, more prestigious jobs.

The use of contraceptives was being universally adopted about this time and Cora made a decision. Four children were enough—never mind that they were all girls.

To everyone’s astonishment, seven years later in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Wade Jr. put in an appearance. He was welcomed by four big girls, delighted with this enchanting new plaything, a little brother. I still marvel that he survived being tossed a considerable distance from one pair of arms to another. Do his risk-taking propensities stem from these early experiences? I wonder.

Eighteen months after this, Cora’s second son (who turned out to be a girl) was added to the Houston clan. She was given her mother’s second name, Margaret.

Though infant mortality was rather common in Wade Sr. and Cora's day, our mother, after her initial bereavement never lost another child. She nursed us through bouts of scarlet fever, measles, mumps, rheumatic fever, and influenza. And when time for a break with Singer came, she encouraged her husband to leave his safe job and go into business for himself.

Though the older children were out on their own by this time, Margaret and Wade were still in grade school when our father died, leaving Cora with precariously limited resources. Always thrifty and determined, Cora managed with very little help to support the two youngest single handed, until Wade at age fourteen took over his father’s piano business, and Margaret began to work at Belk.

All of us children of Cora Beckman Houston remember how she sewed costumes for our school or church performances, how she came with mentholatum to cure us when we were coughing all night, how she sat with us in the half light after supper and told us stories of her life, recited poems and ballads and sang songs. Without lecturing, and though she herself had only an eighth grade education, our mother instilled in us a desire for education. So much so that most of us have advanced degrees and all of us have continued to read, investigate, and stay alert mentally—probably more important than formal schooling.

Though never a person to flaunt her piety, our mother’s sacrifices and devotion to right living were an example to her children and to all the world. Wade recalls a time when a picture of Christ on the cross arrested his attention while he was still half grown. He asked our mother what it meant, and her explanation of Christ’s redemptive death left a never-forgotten impression.

Mr. and Mrs. Wade Houston, his four sisters, children, and grandchildren were on hand to celebrate this wonderful occasion, honoring his mother.

View photos of the Cora Houston Terrace Dorm dedication August 28, 2008.