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The family of Freddye Thelma Dizer, center, surrounds the 101-year-old matriarch in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022. Family members include from Kim Odom, from left, Camryn Odom, Jackson Odom, Ayden Campbell, Brandon North, Brenda North, Kenneth North, Harold Odom, Pat Odom, Ellis Owens, Andrea Odom, Hawkins Owens IV, Asa Christian Owens and Robin Owens.
Shirley Mandel, 91, with her family.
Salt and pepper shakers collected by Freddye Thelma Dizer during her travels in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022.
Robin Owens talks about going to visit her grandmother, Freddye Thelma Dizer (sitting) as Dizer’s daughter, Pat Odom listens in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022.
Salt and pepper shakers collected by Freddye Thelma Dizer during her travels in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022.
Freddye Thelma Dizer holds the hands of her daughters, a granddaughter and a great granddaughter in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022.
Andrea Odom puts her arm around her grandmother, Freddye Thelma Dizer, as she listens to her parents Harold and Pat, talk the 101-year-old matriarch in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022.
The family of Freddye Thelma Dizer, center, surrounds the 101-year-old matriarch in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022. Family members include from Kim Odom, from left, Camryn Odom, Jackson Odom, Ayden Campbell, Brandon North, Brenda North, Kenneth North, Harold Odom, Pat Odom, Ellis Owens, Andrea Odom, Hawkins Owens IV, Asa Christian Owens and Robin Owens.
Salt and pepper shakers collected by Freddye Thelma Dizer during her travels in Missouri City on Monday, May 2, 2022.
Rita Holland, 93, worked as an illustrator, raised her children and became a business owner. Holland is a native of England.
Rita Holland, 93, worked as an illustrator, raised her children and became a business owner. Holland is a native of England.
Rita Holland, 93, at her home in Houston. For a time, Holland worked as an illustrator, later raised her children and then became a business owner. Holland is a native of England. Friday, April 29, 2022, in Houston.
Rita Holland, 93, serves milk at her home in Houston. For a time, Holland worked as an illustrator, later raised her children and then became a business owner. Holland is a native of England. Friday, April 29, 2022, in Houston.
Rita Holland, 93, worked as an illustrator, raised her children and became a business owner. Holland is a native of England.
Shirley Mandel, 91, with her family. She is the mother of Barry Mandel, president of Discovery Green park.
Freddye Thelma Dizer’s family piled into the sunken living room of their Missouri City home as she nestled in a lounge chair. Her favorite TV show, “Wheel of Fortune,” was on in the background.
A week ago, the 101-year-old petite great-grandmother was bouncing about, moving up and down the stairs and doing laundry. A foot injury has slowed her down, so this Mother’s Day will be more subdued. Still, the day is an opportunity for the family — three children, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren — to celebrate Dizer’s legacy.
Few women have had the chance to live a century — to see the world change and their family grow, as children become adults, then parents themselves. We asked Houston octogenarian Dorothy Caram, nonagerarians Rita Holland and Shirley Mandel, and centarian Dizer to reflect on lessons learned about life and motherhood.
Dizer had rules, yet, she nurtured her family with loyalty and love.
“She set up a code of conduct that we have tried to follow,” said her daughter, Brenda North. “She taught us with her rules about what was right.”
The family of Freddye Thelma Dizer, center, surrounds the 101-year-old matriarch in Missouri City. Family members include Kim Odom, from left, Camryn Odom, Jackson Odom, Ayden Campbell, Brandon North, Brenda North, Kenneth North, Harold Odom, Pat Odom, Ellis Owens, Andrea Odom, Hawkins Owens IV, Asa Christian Owens and Robin Owens.
Dizer raised her children in Texarkana with her late husband, Wade Douglas Dizer, working at an ammunition plant making bullets and hand grenades. Her house was the center of the family life, with a garden in the backyard where grandchildren played. She collected salt and pepper shakers from her travels and had a jewelry box that played Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”
She was mom to everyone in the neighborhood.
“Grandmama will always tell you the truth and give you the freedom to be exactly who you are, and that is a blessing,” said granddaughter Robin Owens.
Before the pandemic, their Mother’s Day celebration was a 15-year family tradition in which the men showered the women with food, flowers and affection, and the women did nothing that day but bask in the adoration.
“I’m proud of them,” Dizer said in a soft voice. “There are lot of good things they are doing. It’s wonderful.”
Freddye Thelma Dizer holds the hands of her daughters, a granddaughter and a great granddaughter in Missouri City.
Dizer offered no secret to her longevity, but her path as a parent, she said, was rooted in a single Bible verse: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.”
Wisdom comes with age. While these mothers may not recall every detail of their children’s youth, they say that patience and love are the ultimate superpowers of motherhood.
For Caram, 89, a retired educator and former president of the Institute of Hispanic Culture of Houston, motherhood was everything she had hoped it would be.
She took a job as a substitute teacher at her children’s school so that she could “make sure they did what they were supposed to do.”
“I loved being a mother,” said Caram, who has four sons, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild. “I valued education and the ability to develop their skills. I forced my sons to take guitar lessons and learn how to sing and perform in Spanish. I taught them to be at ease in front of people.”
The hardest part, she said, was the discipline, which meant “having your heart break when they did something they shouldn’t have.”
Caram, a native Houstonian who married Dr. Pedro Caram, a Mexican Lebanese neurosurgeon, said her husband was the better disciplinarian. They agreed on spoiling their children with love, not material things, and teaching them the value of work.
“You want to make sure your children are well rounded and love God so that they know what’s right and wrong. Don’t give them everything. Let them earn it. It makes them grow and mature more evenly,” she said.
Shirley Mandel, 91, fell in love with the “boy next door” after a visit to Houston to see her late grandmother. She was married to Joel Mandel for 58 years until his death in 2012. She has three children, five grandsons, two great-grandsons and one great-great-grandson.
“I’m so grateful and proud of their accomplishments,” said Mandel, whose son, Barry Mandel, is president of Discovery Green Park.
Like Caram, Mandel said the role of being a disciplinarian is the hardest part.
“I never liked having to say ‘no’ when I knew it wouldn’t please my children. But it’s something you have to do,” she said.
Dorothy Caram, 89, is a retired educator and well-recognized community leader who co-founded the Houston Hispanic Forum, serves on several boards of education, and helps promote Mexican heritage through cultural events and such festivals as Día de la Hispanidad.
Her advice: “I have to think twice before I presume I have knowledge about motherhood that no one else has. Being a mother and rearing children comes from the heart.”
In Montrose, Rita Holland’s illustrations and artwork, along with cherished family photos, accent her condo. She confessed it has been a while since she had painted.
“I pulled out the easel today, and I was just playing with color,” said Holland, a former commercial artist and illustrator at the Houston Post. “I kept putting excuses in the way, really. I kept saying, ‘Oh, I haven’t got room. And I can’t do it because it’s not a studio.’ So I made my kitchen into a studio. I don’t use the kitchen for anything anyway. And I painted this morning just to get the feel of painting again. It made me feel wonderful.”
Confidence, Holland said, is one of the greatest self lessons on motherhood. Confidence to try new things or even rediscover a passion she once had.
“It took me a long time to get there, but motherhood made me more confident. I think it also taught me about patience. I had to be patient with my children. And now, at my age, they have to be patient with me,” she said.
Rita Holland, 93, worked as an illustrator, raised her children and became a business owner. Holland is a native of England.
Holland, 93, marvels at the family she’s created: three children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A native of London, she moved to Houston in the 1940s with her family. Her father took a job as a furrier at Foley’s department store.
“I’ve lived a long life, and of course, each phase of it has been exciting and filled with rich memories,” she said. “But nothing can compare to the absolute rewarding pleasure of being a mother. I look at these three wonderful adults, and I realized that they were given to me as little human beings, and somehow I have managed to help mold these lives into these wonderful adults who are caring, thoughtful, kind and respectful. I think, ‘My God, I did this.’”
Holland’s life was disrupted when her first husband died of kidney failure, leaving her as a single parent with three teenagers. She immersed herself in motherhood and her work, and also became a bridal dress designer and wedding consultant. Many years later, her second husband died in a car accident. She found grief support at Bo’s Place, a nonprofit that provides families support after death of a loved one, and ultimately became a grief facilitator.
“I’ve always been thankful for the day as it was. I lived through an awful war in England, came over here after World War II, and I realized every day was precious. But not until I got to this age did I realize how precious it is. I have good health. I have wonderful children. I have a nice place to live. I love the friends here, and everything is great. It really is.”
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Joy Sewing is the Chronicle's culture columnist, focusing on Houston culture, families, social justice and race. The Houston native is the author of "Ava and the Prince: The Adventures of Two Rescue Pups," a children's book about her own rescue boxer dogs. Joy also is the founder of Year Of Joy, a nonprofit organization, to spread joy to children from underserved communities. In 2020, she was one of five "unsung Houston heroes" featured in the "Monuments by Craig Walsh" exhibit at Discovery Green Park in downtown Houston. A former competitive ice skater, Joy became Houston's first African American figure skating coach while in college. She currently serves as vice president of the Houston Association of Black Journalists and is an adjunct journalism professor at University of Houston. She also is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.