My beloved beautiful mother, Jo Ann, left this earth on Mother's Day, 2006 which was fitting since she was such a wonderful mother and our family has close ties to that day. My grandmother, Will Fred, attended the first Mother's Day ceremony in Grafton, West Virginia in 1908.
My mother was a beautiful, caring person, mother, grandmother and teacher. She lived her life by the Golden Rule. Mother was all about her family and friends. She loved her country and stayed interested in politics. She always saw the wonder in nature. She taught school and gave her all to everything she did. She had a keen sense of justice and participated in the Civil Rights Movement even in the face of a death threat. She was my hero and my role model. Mother came from a southern tradition and she truly was a steel magnolia.
Mother grew up in a B & O Railroad family and moved many times in her early life but always had a great love for her hometown of Grafton, WV. She was extremely proud to have won the Golden Horseshoe Award presented to her by the Governor of West Virginia (Homer A. Holt), in 1938. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a degree in English and married my father, Christian Stuart Knudsen, in 1949. They settled in Howard County, MD in 1958 (where she lived the rest of her life) and had 3 children: Jana Lynne, Christian Stuart, Jr., and Robert Matthew. She had 10 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren at the time of her death. Besides her teaching she stayed active in civic organizations and supported many charitable causes. She spent her later years extensively researching our family history.
Mother was always cheerful and optimistic. She was full of life and I never heard her complain. She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh especially when she was with her sister. Even now I can hear the two of them giggling like school girls. Our home was always full of the sound of music because she played the piano and sang. Mother was a born caretaker. She gave her family lots of love and cared for her father-in-law and her mother in their later years. She took in and cared for children from the local orphanage, along with her 3 nieces and nephews when their parents died.
My heart aches with missing her and not a day goes by that she is not in my thoughts. A thousand times a day I want to pick up the phone and tell her some little thing. I just can't believe she is gone. My friend, Paola, left a message and it fits exactly the way I feel: Missed with a grief beyond all tears.
When mother tried to teach my daughter (her 1st grandchild) to say the word grandmother, all my daughter could manage was "budder." That got shortened to Bud and the name stuck.
To all family members: If you would like me to add something to Mother's bio or share a memory please get in touch by clicking on my name on this page (which will give you the opportunity to email me or leave a public message) and I will be happy to add it.
My mother was a beautiful, caring person, mother, grandmother and teacher. She lived her life by the Golden Rule. Mother was all about her family and friends. She loved her country and stayed interested in politics. She always saw the wonder in nature. She taught school and gave her all to everything she did. She had a keen sense of justice and participated in the Civil Rights Movement even in the face of a death threat. She was my hero and my role model. Mother came from a southern tradition and she truly was a steel magnolia.
Mother grew up in a B & O Railroad family and moved many times in her early life but always had a great love for her hometown of Grafton, WV. She was extremely proud to have won the Golden Horseshoe Award presented to her by the Governor of West Virginia (Homer A. Holt), in 1938. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a degree in English and married my father, Christian Stuart Knudsen, in 1949. They settled in Howard County, MD in 1958 (where she lived the rest of her life) and had 3 children: Jana Lynne, Christian Stuart, Jr., and Robert Matthew. She had 10 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren at the time of her death. Besides her teaching she stayed active in civic organizations and supported many charitable causes. She spent her later years extensively researching our family history.
Mother was always cheerful and optimistic. She was full of life and I never heard her complain. She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh especially when she was with her sister. Even now I can hear the two of them giggling like school girls. Our home was always full of the sound of music because she played the piano and sang. Mother was a born caretaker. She gave her family lots of love and cared for her father-in-law and her mother in their later years. She took in and cared for children from the local orphanage, along with her 3 nieces and nephews when their parents died.
My heart aches with missing her and not a day goes by that she is not in my thoughts. A thousand times a day I want to pick up the phone and tell her some little thing. I just can't believe she is gone. My friend, Paola, left a message and it fits exactly the way I feel: Missed with a grief beyond all tears.
When mother tried to teach my daughter (her 1st grandchild) to say the word grandmother, all my daughter could manage was "budder." That got shortened to Bud and the name stuck.
To all family members: If you would like me to add something to Mother's bio or share a memory please get in touch by clicking on my name on this page (which will give you the opportunity to email me or leave a public message) and I will be happy to add it.
My beloved beautiful mother, Jo Ann, left this earth on Mother's Day, 2006 which was fitting since she was such a wonderful mother and our family has close ties to that day. My grandmother, Will Fred, attended the first Mother's Day ceremony in Grafton, West Virginia in 1908.
My mother was a beautiful, caring person, mother, grandmother and teacher. She lived her life by the Golden Rule. Mother was all about her family and friends. She loved her country and stayed interested in politics. She always saw the wonder in nature. She taught school and gave her all to everything she did. She had a keen sense of justice and participated in the Civil Rights Movement even in the face of a death threat. She was my hero and my role model. Mother came from a southern tradition and she truly was a steel magnolia.
Mother grew up in a B & O Railroad family and moved many times in her early life but always had a great love for her hometown of Grafton, WV. She was extremely proud to have won the Golden Horseshoe Award presented to her by the Governor of West Virginia (Homer A. Holt), in 1938. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a degree in English and married my father, Christian Stuart Knudsen, in 1949. They settled in Howard County, MD in 1958 (where she lived the rest of her life) and had 3 children: Jana Lynne, Christian Stuart, Jr., and Robert Matthew. She had 10 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren at the time of her death. Besides her teaching she stayed active in civic organizations and supported many charitable causes. She spent her later years extensively researching our family history.
Mother was always cheerful and optimistic. She was full of life and I never heard her complain. She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh especially when she was with her sister. Even now I can hear the two of them giggling like school girls. Our home was always full of the sound of music because she played the piano and sang. Mother was a born caretaker. She gave her family lots of love and cared for her father-in-law and her mother in their later years. She took in and cared for children from the local orphanage, along with her 3 nieces and nephews when their parents died.
My heart aches with missing her and not a day goes by that she is not in my thoughts. A thousand times a day I want to pick up the phone and tell her some little thing. I just can't believe she is gone. My friend, Paola, left a message and it fits exactly the way I feel: Missed with a grief beyond all tears.
When mother tried to teach my daughter (her 1st grandchild) to say the word grandmother, all my daughter could manage was "budder." That got shortened to Bud and the name stuck.
To all family members: If you would like me to add something to Mother's bio or share a memory please get in touch by clicking on my name on this page (which will give you the opportunity to email me or leave a public message) and I will be happy to add it.
My mother was a beautiful, caring person, mother, grandmother and teacher. She lived her life by the Golden Rule. Mother was all about her family and friends. She loved her country and stayed interested in politics. She always saw the wonder in nature. She taught school and gave her all to everything she did. She had a keen sense of justice and participated in the Civil Rights Movement even in the face of a death threat. She was my hero and my role model. Mother came from a southern tradition and she truly was a steel magnolia.
Mother grew up in a B & O Railroad family and moved many times in her early life but always had a great love for her hometown of Grafton, WV. She was extremely proud to have won the Golden Horseshoe Award presented to her by the Governor of West Virginia (Homer A. Holt), in 1938. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a degree in English and married my father, Christian Stuart Knudsen, in 1949. They settled in Howard County, MD in 1958 (where she lived the rest of her life) and had 3 children: Jana Lynne, Christian Stuart, Jr., and Robert Matthew. She had 10 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren at the time of her death. Besides her teaching she stayed active in civic organizations and supported many charitable causes. She spent her later years extensively researching our family history.
Mother was always cheerful and optimistic. She was full of life and I never heard her complain. She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh especially when she was with her sister. Even now I can hear the two of them giggling like school girls. Our home was always full of the sound of music because she played the piano and sang. Mother was a born caretaker. She gave her family lots of love and cared for her father-in-law and her mother in their later years. She took in and cared for children from the local orphanage, along with her 3 nieces and nephews when their parents died.
My heart aches with missing her and not a day goes by that she is not in my thoughts. A thousand times a day I want to pick up the phone and tell her some little thing. I just can't believe she is gone. My friend, Paola, left a message and it fits exactly the way I feel: Missed with a grief beyond all tears.
When mother tried to teach my daughter (her 1st grandchild) to say the word grandmother, all my daughter could manage was "budder." That got shortened to Bud and the name stuck.
To all family members: If you would like me to add something to Mother's bio or share a memory please get in touch by clicking on my name on this page (which will give you the opportunity to email me or leave a public message) and I will be happy to add it.
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