Martha Helen (Cronkhite) Pygman

Martha

This fine lady will always hold a dear spot in my heart ♡ She was the mother of my dear friend, my piano accompaniment for more more than one solo, a band mom, a friend to me as an adult & also there for my daughter when she ran for Old Settlers Queen.
She always freely gave of herself with with love & a cheerful attitude & smile. She was a class act & I will always hold the highest respect for her! ♡
Love, hug’s & prayers to each of her family members as they adjust to a life without her physical presence, but may your heart rejoice with confidence knowing she’s in the presence of God, whole again without any physical or mental restrictions ♡♡♡

I will always,remember Martha playing piano for our Sunday school class; when Martha tickled the ivories, they would laugh and sing, and the whole piano would dance with joy!
Martha mothered us all, just like part of her brood.
She and her Andy raised a fine family; they have all done them proud!
Sending hugs to all of them and lifting up prayers for their comfort. Celebrating with them that Martha is free and whole again and reunited with Andy.

Aunt Martha, you always sent me the first Christmas card of the season and as I moved all over you never ceased to follow my every step with a note of love and kindness. Your homemade jelly was truly the best thing I had ever tasted in my whole life. Although you swore up and down you did nothing special, just follow the recipe, your little laugh made me assume that that wasn’t the case at all. Thanks for the love and the fond memories. I hope you are getting in trouble with Grandmama (Elenor)

We were so sorry to learn of your Mom’s passing. I knew Martha for many years. She was a great lady. Losing your mom is one of the worst things. Mine passed away 3 years ago at 96 with dementia. I miss her every day but know she is in a better place as your mother is. Prayers and Blessings to all of you during this difficult time.

Martha Pygman Eulogy
My name is Maggie Pygman Neidigh and I am the eldest child of Andy and Martha Pygman. Mom was born in Rockville, IN on Oct 25, 1932. She was the 2nd of three girls born to Ted & Mary Cronkhite. Rockville was a small town then that suffered hard times during the Great Depression. When the depression was over, it was very slow to recover. Money was scarce so the family learned to make a dollar stretch. In addition, Grandmother’s health was not the best so the girls learned to grow up quickly to assist in keeping the household going. It was a different time. There were lots of people who still were down on their luck, looking for work. The family grew a lot of their own food and learned to preserve it by canning. People would often stop by who had no work or money. Like many rural Americans, the Cronkhites always shared what food and drink they had with anyone who knocked on their door. Mom learned generosity, grace and kindness at an early age.
The family moved often due to Granddaddy’s job as a civil engineer. While Mom was with her family, they moved from Rockville to Ottowa, IL, back to Rockville, to Wayne, MI, back to Rockville, to Flint, MI, to Mooresville and to Van Wert, OH where she graduated from High School in 1950. She then attended Indiana Business College, now known as Harrison College. She did so well there, she was asked to teach there after graduation. Soon after she went to work for Allisons in their accounting department.
When the family moved to Mooresville, Mom was able to spend her freshman, sophomore and junior year in high school here. She was a member of the band and played French horn and held the position of secretary of the band. The family lived on Lockerbie Street which was around the corner from Dad’s house.
Dad originally met Mom when he was asked by a friend who was dating Mom’s sister, Eleanor, to watch over her while he was away at the war. Dad dated Eleanor several times but there was no romance there. However, Dad got to know Mom and called her house one day. Mom answered and told him she would get Eleanor but Dad said no, I called to talk to you! Their first date was to a Spencer basketball game which is really funny as Dad didn’t care for sports! Apparently, he wanted to make an impression with Mom because she loved basketball.
Mom’s sister, Esther shared with me that on one of the dates Mom and Dad came home to a deluge of water from a bucket that Eleanor had rigged above the door when they opened it. The prank made Dad mad which was further compounded with Mom upset enough to bring on tears of frustration.
When Mom and family moved to Van Wert, OH, Dad drove up to see Mom. In fact, imagine my surprise to find on Newspapers.com an article about Dad being in a fender bender in northern Indiana on his way back from visiting Mom! Eventually Dad asked Mom to marry him while on a hayride – Mom laughed and said no! But Dad was persistent and asked her again to which she replied yes. Within a month following her answer, she and Dad were married on Aug 30, 1952 at the Christian Church here in Mooresville.
While in Rockville, Martha learned to play piano as a young child while still in Rockville the first time. Mom played piano all her life including up until this last January! She played the piano and organ for the Methodist Church off and on for approximately 30 years. She also played accompaniment for solo and ensemble contest for each of us kids when we were in band. But there were some hiccups along the way. One year when she was accompanying piano with David while he was on the clarinet, she went to change one of the music pages and mistakenly pulled all the music off on the floor! The judge stopped David from continuing so Mom could regather her music in the correct order, then they resumed and still received a rating of 1 which is the highest for the performance!
Music was such a big part of Mom’s life, she taught four of the five of us kids how to play piano. While we all went through the motions, most of us didn’t keep up our practices and only would plunk tunes out now and then. However, it did inspire each of us to play other instruments proficiently, including flute, bass guitar, clarinet, oboe, mellophone and French horn between the five of us.
Mom was an amateur seamstress. But she was dedicated enough at the craft to make her garments as perfect as possible. She made many beautiful dresses for each of us girls, including our wedding dresses and veils and some prom dresses. In the early years that was much out of necessity due to cost but later, it was a labor of love which has been cherished by each of us for years. The preciousness of it is even more embedded in our hearts now. She taught us girls how to sew but none of us have perfected that ability to the level with which Mom attained. However, I was happy to find scraps of many of our dresses in a box one day while home on a visit and made a queen size crazy quilt for Mom and Dad from those scraps.
My daughter Jamie thinks she must have been a professional seamstress or better. Mom came to visit in Nevada during the time of her junior prom. The day of the dance Mom was admiring her dress and discovered the seam along the bodice was puckered in the front. She took Jamie’s dress completely apart and put it back together so that it looked perfect for her special night.
Mom taught me to knit at an early age and I managed to make a vest for Dad which he wore for years before he passed away in 2010. Between learning that craft as well as crochet from Aunt Eleanor, there have been grandchildren, nieces and nephews as well as friends’ babies who have benefitted with baby blankets from those lessons.
Mom was always a part of the PTA and would help plan fall foliage festivals, be a chaperone on class trips, be a room mother assisting in the classroom, help in Band Parents by keeping us hydrated and fixing band uniforms. All our friends and classmates benefitted from her time and talents.
Grandmother had wonderful recipes that Mom kept and then other recipes that she found along the way which she used extensively to keep our family well fed. Because she learned as a young child to share with others who were less fortunate, Mom would bake things for bake sales and funeral dinners at the church. In addition, she would make pies with her friend Eileen Farmer for the alumni dinners each year here in Mooresville. Many hours were spent preparing these delicious delights with the smells permeating and wafting through the house. Once Mom and Dad built and moved into their house on High Street in 1978, she had an ample supply of persimmons from their trees on the property with which to make persimmon pudding which we dearly loved. Her children and grandchildren learned how to bake through watching and participating in making cookies, cakes and brownies. However, it took many more hours of practicing on pie dough before we could make pies like Mom. Her lemon meringue, fruit and cream pies were visions of heaven and melted in our mouths.
Mom and Dad were both the products of Christian families. Both were raised in the Methodist Church. While the five of us kids were brought up and baptized in the Methodist Church, we all haven’t remained in that denomination but I am blessed and thrilled to say that we all profess our faith willingly and boldly with our words and actions. Mom was aptly named Martha because in many ways she resembled Martha, the sister of Mary and friend of Jesus in serving others. Mom and Dad taught and demonstrated how to love others. Both believed and lived that honesty was essential to life, to look people in the eye when we listen and speak to them, to say what we mean and mean what we say, to take responsibility for our actions, both good and bad by owning our mistakes, humbly asking forgiveness when we offend others, forgiving those who hurt us, looking for the good in everyone and being a friend to the lonely and lost even when they act unlovable. This is one of the greatest legacies that both Mom and Dad have passed along to their generations of family. It is our responsibility to continue to pass these moral character traits on to our children and grandchildren.
To that end, Mom was inducted into a service sorority, Kappa Kappa Sigma in March 1953 and was a member until she passed from this earth. She loved serving her community and thrilled to assist in that effort. She worked every year on the Old Settlers’ Queen contests sponsoring young girls and assisting in raising money for the sorority to benefit the community. In that effort, each of her daughters had a rite of passage in running for queen. It was always a hectic time filled with lots of bake sales, rummage sales, car washes, parades and volunteering for others as well as peals of laughter and fun.
Mom and Dad owned and operated a Skamper camper dealership. They supplemented their income to be able to send us to college in conjunction with any scholarships for which we might qualify. It meant they went to the factory in Elkhart, IN at least once a year to see the new models and bring campers back to sell. They also serviced them. Dad wanted to sell something he believed in it so we would try out the new models when they came out to ensure Dad knew what he was selling was excellent quality. We loved camping. We have many fond memories of traveling to Higgins Lake, MI, Colorado, Alaska, McCormick’s Creek State Park, Turkey Run State Park and Brown County State Park.
We each have many memories of Mom. Her sister Esther told me that she depended on her a lot during her whole life and loves her so much.
I remember her sister Eleanor once told me that she thought Mom led a charmed life. That was before Dad died and Mom came down with Alzheimers. After that, I remember Eleanor mourning the terrible toll the disease was taking in gradually robbing Mom of the memories and spirit of the sister she dearly loved who used to laugh so easily with her and enjoy so many things in common since they were kids.
Several of us have memories of things that Mom said or did, many of which will be shared further later. One distinct memory I have is when Gayle, Eileen and I were approximately 6, 4 and 8 respectively. We were playing on the swing-set in the back yard when we saw a large black snake slithering along the base of the foundation on the back of the house. I ran inside to tell Mom what we found. She marched into the garage, grabbed the hoe and came out the back door in such a flurry she was like a whirling dervish! She yelled at us girls to get back in the breezeway until she came back in. We stood at the back door watching our mother attack and chop up this snake with a vengeance. She really didn’t like snakes much!
I remember birthdays with homemade cake and ice cream. We would drive to a local dairy to get fresh whole cream and manually crank the ice cream maker with the rock salt to make the cream cold enough. We girls would each take turns cranking until we got tired and then Dad and Mom would take over. The ice cream was more delicious for the effort put into it. This was one of the many lessons learned by their example – anything worth doing is not only worth doing right, it was worth the wait and effort taken to put into it and made all the sweeter because of it.
I remember Mom teaching me how to drive a car. Although I was put into driver’s training in school, it was with an automatic shift car. The cars we had at home were stick shift and I needed to not only understand the concept but learn to “feel” when it was time to shift and accomplish it without giving anyone in the car whiplash, including myself. Driving in open parking lots was the key to getting this down and that lesson served me well the rest of my life.
I remember Mom always being our cheerleader. She was at every band performance whether at a football game, parade or contest to watch us march or at a concert. She came to spelling bees and went on class trips. She was at every baseball game with David.
One of the memories shared by Martin, her grandson is that when he would visit, he would get up early and help Mom fix coffee for Dad.
When her granddaughter Jessyca was young, Mom would lightly massage her legs in circles with her fingers and her legs would go numb from the sensation!
Her granddaughter Maddy remembers helping Mom make cookies and when Mom’s back was turned, she and her sister Jess would eat the raw cookie dough.
My son, Bryan’s favorite memory is of Mom making cheese toasties. She made the best cheese toasties ever!
Her granddaughter Laura remembers her Swedish Ball cookies and many other desserts Mom would make.
My daughter, Jamie remembers playing cards with Mom – Go Fish, Solitaire, War and many others.
Contemporary Christian artist Mandisa recorded a song several years ago titled “You Wouldn’t Cry For Me Now” and part of the lyrics are:
What you think you see
Isn’t really me
I’m already home
You’ve got to lay it down
‘Cause Jesus holds me now
And I am not alone
Your faith is wearing thin
But I am watching Him
And He’s holding you too, and
Blue has never been bluer
True has never been truer
Honey never tasted so sweet
There’s a song in the breeze
A million voices in praise
A rose has never smelled redder
The sun has never been brighter
If I could find the right words to say
If you could look at my face
If you could just see this place
You wouldn’t cry for me today
A couple of weeks ago, our sister, Gayle sent us siblings a text about a dream she had where she walked into a room and saw Mom standing upright and straight, well-dressed, and smiling. Gayle asked her what she was doing and Mom shrugged and grinned at her. We think God gave her this gift to tell us that Mom is great now. God is taking care of her and we will see her again looking like we remember her before Alzheimers.
It is our hope that our lives will continue to reflect the joy, love, grace and kindness that Mom managed to display every day. We are so grateful for the ability to call her our Mom, Grandma and Great Grandma. Thank You Jesus for her life; Thank you Mom for everything. We love you!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing