Wednesday, February 18, 2026 – Day 544

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Good morning, everyone.

Let’s head north to Marshfield, WI, my mom’s hometown. (My version of what I remember)

My mom was the youngest of five children—an Irish girl born into a busy household where the next sibling was six years older and the oldest nearly twelve years ahead. She may have been the surprise at the end of the line, but she never felt like an afterthought.

As adults, those five siblings stayed fiercely close. They didn’t just attend weddings and baptisms—they turned them into events. Between them, they brought 35 children into the world. That’s not a family—that’s a parade. And yet somehow, amid diapers and dinner tables, they made time to celebrate each other. When that crew gathered, the laughter was loud and long. They didn’t just talk—they roared. They epitomized fun.

But my mom’s life split in two at age fourteen.

Her father—one of the six founding physicians of the Marshfield Clinic in 1916—died suddenly at 56 in 1942. Until then, life had been stable. He was respected in the community. The family lived modestly but comfortably, with help in the home and a sense of security.

Then came World War II.
Then came loss.

The clinic’s structure offered no financial cushion. The comfort vanished almost overnight. Siblings were marrying, heading to war, or moving away. What remained in that farmhouse was a grieving widow and a teenage daughter just starting high school. It became a story of survival. When the time came, my mom took full advantage of leaving her hometown, only returning for occasional visits, primarily to see her only surviving brother, Jim.

By the time I was born, my grandmother had already passed, but the stories about her were not warm ones. Grief, I suspect, hardened her. My older brother, Bill, once visited Marshfield as a toddler. When it was time to leave, my grandmother reportedly told my mom he was not welcome back. Apparently, toddlers were not allowed to behave like toddlers in her home.

I sometimes joke that us triplets would have liked one shot at Grandma Ethel. I’m pretty sure how that would have gone.

What strikes me now is this: my mom grew up in a home defined first by status and security, and then by scarcity and sorrow. She knew what it was to lose stability, to live with grief in the room, to feel the weight of responsibility at fourteen.

And yet—she chose differently.

She carried forward the laughter of her siblings.
She prioritized family gatherings.
She made sure her home was welcoming, noisy, alive.

When my mom passed away in 2014, she was cremated—placed in a simple tin container—and laid to rest atop her father’s grave. Seventy two years after losing him, she was reunited with the man who shaped her early world.

A daughter coming home.

I would say that my mother had a very successful life and when she looked back near the end, I like to believe she wouldn’t change much about it.

Have a great Wednesday. Love you guys!❤️

Photo of the Sexton family. My mom is the young girl next to her dad sitting on the bench.

Photo of mom, dad, my mom’s brother, Jim.

Photo of the four surviving Sexton siblings. L-R on the couch are: Toni, Jim, Ellen, and Sally (mom). Respective spouse behind them are: John, Lois, Don, and Gene (my dad).