Marvelous Mom Takes Best of Show

Noma Sazama holds her canned green beans, which took a purple ribbon and best in show, and is next to her quilt which received a blue ribbon. One can see the backing she chose for the quilt below.

This editor is really proud of her mom, Noma Sazama, 95, (she’ll be 96 next month). Not only did she raise six children, including this stubborn and inquisitive “pain in the ass” daughter, she went back to school to get her teaching degree, when her kids were in elementary school.

The family of seven spent summers in four-room apartments in Aberdeen, South Dakota, (no air conditioning) so that she and my father could complete college requirements. It’s also when she took up golf, because she needed a PE credit. I remember taking our clothes to a laundromat once a week and mom reading her textbook while the machines were going.

Mom taught on the Rosebud Reservation for her career – mostly seventh grade math – and her students still remember her. She doesn’t always remember all of them—after all how many hundreds of kids went through her classroom?

After my dad died, she lived alone in the country, which worried my siblings and me. But when she turned 80 she moved to Martin next door to my sister.

She attained her Master Gardener status and still is willing to give gardening advice. Mom maintains a vegetable and flower garden outside of her rental, and it is a testament to her watering and weeding that there is a little oasis for birds and bees.

Noma Sazama’s flower garden is above. Below she is pictured with more flowers and a tomato plant.

As a family, we have participated in County Fairs forever. My Pacific Palisades children even got to enter baked goods and other items in the Todd County Fair  in Mission, S. D. and loved it when they won a ribbon.  It was also a great experience for them to see 4H kids and their livestock projects. They even participated in a tractor pull one year and went to the state contest in Mitchell, S.D. – home of the Corn Palace.

As she does every year, mom entered this year’s fair and won five purple ribbons, four for her flowers from her garden and one for her canned beans, which also took best in show.

She received a blue ribbon for her quilt and for her salsa. I asked my mom if the quilt had a special pattern and she said, “No, I just made it up.”

Several CTN readers wanted to see a picture of the quilt. Another reader wanted mom’s salsa recipe, which she sent to me with advice to remind the reader to wear rubber gloves when chopping peppers, “so you don’t burn your hands.” I’m happy to share my marvelous mom with readers.