DIANE MAKAR MURPHY In a tribute to a loved one, meet my mom, Betty

My mom was born in Cleveland, three years before the Great Depression began. She was the fifth child born to her Slovenian parents -- their fourth little girl.
My mother was so beautiful as a baby, she won a beauty contest. In our attic, where we stored Christmas ornaments and school papers, she kept a shoe-sized porcelain baby doll -- the contest's prize.
When she was a child, in fact, a wealthy couple offered my grandparents money if they could just adopt my dark-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced mother. Of course, they refused.
As a girl, my mom was sassy and happy with lots of friends. Her big brother Joe was her pride and joy. Her sisters Louise, Dorothy and Emily were her pals. She had a pet duck named Duchess and liked to eat onion sandwiches beneath a streetlight (or so she told us).
To Catholic school
My mom attended a public school until she wisecracked to a teacher and the woman berated her clothing in front of the class. My grandmother gave the woman a tongue-lashing, then enrolled her little Betty Zidanic in a Catholic school.
By the time my mother met my father, Mike, after World War II, she was a knockout. I've seen pictures of her thick, wavy brunette hair floating above slim shoulders -- these draped by a fashionable fur-collared coat. Her hips were curvaceous in a fitted, 1940s-style skirt that stretched to the middle of silk-stockinged legs.
My parents had just two children: my sister, Chris, and me. And Betty Zidanic, now Betty Makar, became an active, enthusiastic and eventually, peroxide blond (like Sandra Dee) mom.
On rainy days, the kids in our neighborhood never sat around. Betty brought every toy vehicle she could find into the basement. There were tricycles, a pedal car and the metal roller skates (the kind you clamped onto your shoes) that she got with S & amp;H Green Stamps.
Cardboard store
She also put a cardboard store in our basement. It was a local grocer's advertising display, and no sooner than my mom saw it, our names were on the back of it. When the ad campaign was over, it became ours. She filled it with empty cans and cake mix boxes. She bought a toy cash register, too.
My mom was a fountain of ideas for eliminating boredom. She suggested staging plays and creating museums of stuffed animals. She stuck a record player and tape recorder in the garage on rainy days for games of Radio D.J. Sometimes she'd bake a cake for me; then I'd sell quarter raffle tickets to the neighbors. We took tap, swim and music lessons.
She didn't ignore my father either. The two of them took a dance class and went out to cha-cha or box step together -- my mother graceful, my father's lips moving as he counted the beat.
My mother's temper was legend -- she had a fight with nearly every butcher, baker, cashier and slightly rude store employee in town, plus family members -- but she also demonstrated small kindnesses at every turn. If ever we saw a nun walking while my mom was driving, that nun had a ride.
While my contemporaries shuddered at the castlelike exterior of the state mental asylum in Cleveland, I knew what the inside looked like. My mother took us there occasionally to deliver toiletries and cigarettes for the residents. Later in life, she volunteered with a literacy program and with the Metro Parks in Cleveland.
Worked for extras
My mom also worked. When we were old enough to be left alone, she earned money for "extras" doing secretarial work a few days a week. She continued even after she had three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, Alyssa.
About five years ago, my mom developed progressive supranuclear palsy. The diagnosis came after months of dizzy spells and dangerous falls. The disease, which took its toll physically, never took her enthusiasm. The last photo of my mom and me is of us dancing. I am holding her up, it's true, but her feet are moving to the music.
In loving memory of Betty Makar,Oct. 20, 1926, to Jan. 2, 2003.
murphy@vindy.com