Forever Young : A life well lived, laughing all the way
Christy Doherty
50plus Magazine
“Mom De, are you wearing your teeth?” Marty asks lovingly.
“Yes I am!” she smiles, triumphant.
Under 5’ tall, she seems half his height but is a huge personality.
“Really??? Do they hurt?” he asks, concerned.
“They feel great, Marty — you did a great job, thank you! I can eat again!”
Mom De, a die-hard Tom Brady fan, is ready for football snacking.
Laughing with her, Marty says, “be sure and tell your dentist you didn’t
need a high-powered specialist; just a good, retired millwright to MacGyver things a little.”
The joys and sorrows these two have shared span nearly six decades. Mom De (Georgie DeLashumtt) and her husband Jack took Marty in as a displaced youth. Already with four kids close to his age, they made room.
Life came full circle after Jack passed. Marty helps with shopping, mowing, repairs and — most recently — “MacGyvering” her dentures with a Dremel.
Their relationship evolved from second Mom to friendship. He affectionately calls her “Mom De.” Breakfasts out are a tradition, as is sharing a cold Budweiser, Mom De’s favorite.
At 98, the gritty Nebraskan reluctantly left her beloved home of 60 years — with cascading Wisteria and a breathtaking view of Portland — in exchange for supportive around-the-clock care. Goodbyes to her resident cat and visiting ferals were perhaps the hardest part.
Born Feb. 4, 1924, on a ranch near Cody, Nebraska, she was delivered by an aunt during a blizzard. They named her Georgie Jim, nickname Jimmie, after her father’s best friend.
As children she and her sister rode horses to school, sometimes through snow drifts.
Georgie remembers her father as a ranch foreman, cowboy and man’s man. “He hunted coyotes with whippets and managed fur trap lines. He usually took me with him on horseback.”
Managing 100,000 acres and 10,000 cattle meant days started early. The legs of her antique dining table still bear scuffs from his boots.
As a pre-teen, Georgie cut hair for her family. Later in beauty school, her early experience landed every squirming kid in her chair. She graduated #1 in her class.
Then her country came calling. Without reservation she stepped up to serve as a Code Girl during World War II.
“I have my dad’s disposition,” she affirms. “He wasn’t afraid of anything.”
“A really good friend and I worked at the same beauty shop in Omaha. We went to Washington DC together; we were just 20 years old,” she recalls. “We lived in a place called Arlington Farms and wore photo ID all the time. We were there about 18 months, until the end of the war.”
Their job revolved around Japanese coding.
“Everybody knew a little bit — we were told not to talk about it — and we all worked on machines. We were just kids, and we were having fun. I had cousins in the Army and the Navy. I just went — I wanted to help.”
While there, Georgie met Jack DeLashmutt, the man she would marry.
“We met at a military dance. Of course, there was strictly segregated military housing. We walked across the Potomac to meet — it was a long walk,” she laughs.
After the war, Georgie returned to Omaha, later joining fiancé Jack in the west.
“Thinking back, he never actually proposed,” she laughs. “He just said, ‘Come to Oregon.’” They married in Portland in 1946, moving to St. Helens in 1952.
“Our house was being built during the Columbus Day storm,” she recalls. The storm hit on October 12, 1962, with winds topping 100 mph.
Jack was hired as principal of the local junior high school and later honored as Oregon Teacher of the Year 1956-57. “I got to sit with a senator for that ceremony,” Georgie recalls. “He said ‘You look just like a princess.’”
The DeLashmutts hosted card games to welcome new teachers and spouses. “We
became lifelong friends, and only quit due to COVID19, sadly.”
The couple also enjoyed dinners out in Portland’s Chinatown. “He taught me to put
‘bug-juice’ (what Jack called soy sauce) in my tea. It’s a DeLashumtt thing,” she laughs.
Jack retired in 1986, still active in Kiwanis, umpiring and refereeing. “Anything you could play, he’d play, good at it or not,” Georgie laughs.
She fondly recalls many vacations spent fishing, camping and whitewater rafting on the Deschutes River. Once after marrying they visited Nebraska. “The snow was so deep, you could step over the fences,” she recalls.
Reflecting on her childhood there she says, “I think the flowers smelled better and the fruit tasted better. I went to a one-room schoolhouse, started when I was four. It was beautiful there.”
Sadly, Jack passed in December 1987. Georgie filled her life with family, friends, her cats, gardening, reading, football and hummingbirds.
Undaunted by age, Georgie visited Russia and China in recent years. She was moved by the Great Wall of China and scenery, but her height made train access difficult, and she was unimpressed with the poor railway food and bathrooms.
Today, outside her snug apartment at Avamere retirement community in St. Helens, a hummingbird feeder hangs above potted flowers. One hopeful kitty comes for food, faithfully provided outside her door.
“She’s a shy kitty and some of the staff are already talking about adopting her kittens.”
Georgie shares this with the joyful smile only seen on the forever young.