Selma Alcott Braun faced challenges with resilience and toughness, but through it all she knew how to look on the bright side.
Her oldest daughter, Kathy Johns, 66, of Ohio, recalls asking her point-blank about that positive attitude.
“I said, ‘I never understood how you managed to do all you did.’ She sat there a long time, then smiled real big and said, ‘Well, it was really fun, wasn’t it?’
“She had a lot of good memories.”
Mrs. Braun died Feb. 17 at age 93. She grew up one of three children of a single mother.
“Her dad died in 1935, and her mom went to work at a shoe factory,” Kathy said. “Her older sister, Evelyn, kind of assumed responsibility around the house. The kids learned to be pretty independent.”
Mrs. Braun walked to school at Sacred Heart in Crystal City, and graduated as valedictorian from Festus High School in 1942.
“She met my dad, Don Alcott, through friends,” Kathy said. “He went to Festus but was three years older. She waited for him when he went off to war.”
The two were married in 1946, and five children came along in 10 years.
“One day around when I was born in 1951, he took her to this big dirt pile and said, ‘Right here is where we are going to build our home.’ The address was 1000 N. Fourth, and that’s where we all grew up.”
Kathy said it was a great neighborhood to grow up in.
“Mom stayed at home – she didn't drive until she was in her late 30s – and Dad worked at PPG,” Kathy said. “He also had his own business, installing aluminum siding, awnings and guttering. Mom knew accounting so she was the bookkeeper.”
The family didn’t have much money, but fun and togetherness were cheap.
“Many a night, when the dishes were cleared, we played cards,” Kathy said. “She taught us to play pinochle, poker, pitch. She joked about her kids learning to count by saying ‘Ace, deuce, trey.’
“Our favorite was Tripoley, played on this big board. Mom loved to play with us. I think that’s part of why the five of us kids are so close today.”
The Alcotts were among the few dozen families who helped start up Our Lady Catholic Church in the 1950s.
“We started going when it met in a basement on Edgewood,” Kathy said. “When it moved to its present location, my class was the first first grade.”
The family’s world changed in June 1971 when Don Alcott died from a heart attack while on the job.
“She was 46 and he was 49,” their daughter said. “She knew she had to have some money. She got Social Security and retirement, but it wasn’t enough.”
Luckily a cousin, Rita Overberg, was a bookkeeper for husband Jerry’s painting business.
“She said, ‘I’ll retire and you hire Selma,’ so my mom went to work there.”
After several years, Jerry began to press his bookkeeper to meet with the guy across the street.
“Harold Braun had lost his wife about the same time my Dad died,” Kathy said. “She hesitated, saying, ‘Jerry wants me to talk to this guy and I don't want to!’ But we made her.
“He was such a nice man, so easygoing.”
They were married in 1975, and Harold sold his house and moved in with his new bride.
It was around this time Mrs. Braun began preparing funeral meals at Our Lady.
“In Mom’s eyes, after a funeral, you had to have a meal,” Kathy said with a laugh. “The priest would call and tell her when a funeral was and she would call the family and get the count. She’d make roast, potatoes, carrots, gravy.”
It didn’t take long before she enlisted the aid of other parishioners to help.
“She set up a committee of ladies,” Kathy said. “This one would be in charge of veggies, this one desserts, this one potatoes or rice.
“Mom was still cooking for funerals in her late 70s.”
The Brauns enjoyed fishing and traveling until Harold’s death in 1989.
Mrs. Braun kept up an active schedule well into her 80s.
“She was on a bowling team, she played cards in several groups, she was active in the Ladies Sodality,” Kathy said. “She was active in the KC and was elected Lady of the Year in 1987.”
Mrs. Braun began to slow down after she hit 90.
“She had already stopped driving,” Kathy said. “She started to be a little shaky getting around.”
But she still was determined to keep up her routine.
“You’d call her and ask what she was doing and she’d say, ‘Oh, I got up on a chair to clean cobwebs off that ceiling fan.’ We were all concerned for her safety.”
Then, she began to easily tire and lost interest in food.
“We finally said, ‘We need to make some changes,’ and we moved her to Crystal Oaks. But it was so hard for her,” Kathy said. “The last few months, she really started to slip, had trouble knowing who people were. In the last few days, she kept saying, ‘I want to go home,’ and she just slipped away.”
Kathy said her mother will be remembered as a wonderful teacher.
“She could teach you something and you didn’t know you were being taught,” she said. “It wasn’t a chore; she made things fun.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.