The Best Role Model I Ever Have Had...My Mom

Celebrating Mother's Day, and remembering my Mom, with a heart full of love, 

I felt her story needed to be told.

. 

This is where it all started.  My Mom and Dad.  Celebrities in their own right!!  
(Truth be told this picture was taken after my Mom had probably 
had at least 4 kids at my cousins lake cottage, Wawasee in Indiana)

They met in college.  My mother's 1st night at Indiana University, and my Dad just starting his 2nd year in Under-graduate Studies, both ended up at a dance at the Club Union.

The rest was history.

My mother took one look at my father, who asked her to dance, and her knees became weak.
She would tell the story that she could feel the breathing in her chest was suddenly out of control.

However, from that day on, their love affair ensued, until finally one day 5 years into their relationship, 
where my Mom posted the ultimatum to my Dad that either they get married or 

she was going to pursue her dreams and go to NYC!  

She had been studying Opera and Theatre AND English, so there were a 

multitude of directions that her life could take.

However, my father did what any sane man would do in his position.

He quickly married my mother and took her to Davenport, Iowa, where he could attend Palmer Chiropractic School,

as well as work nights as a singer in a band called : "The Loved Ones."

My father was a terrific dancer as well as singer....multi-talented.

That is where I was born, when my father was attending chiropractic school in Davenport, Iowa.

 Once my father graduated from Palmer, he and my Mom and I returned to Ft. Wayne.  My mother had grown up in South Whitley, and my father had graduated high school at South Side in Fort Wayne.

At first, they bought a small home on the Southern side of Ft. Wayne, but once they had two children, they moved to a much bigger home, that was previously owned by a doctor, who had gone bankrupt.

This is the home where I grew up in Leo, Indiana.

Leo was a very small town.

A wonderful place to grow up!

There my parents had 4 more children.

Totalling 6:Me, Rick, Tunde, Jaclyn, Joe and JR.

In 13 years, my parents had 6 children!!

During this time, My father had gone from lead singer in a band, to practicing chiropractor with 1 clinic, to successful chiropractor with 3 clinics and commercials on tv to a practice management company doing seminars cross country and then to starting what is now the leading chiropractic magazine in the industry:
THE AMERICAN CHIROPRACTOR, 40 years ago this year.
Kids at school would come up to me and act out "Sammy Spine your body's Life-line" that they would see in the commercials for my Dad's clinic on TV.

During this time, my mother was busy being the best possible mom, 

and leading and developing the lives of her 2 then 4 then 6 small children!
The 2nd group of two came less than two years apart, and then Joe, and then no one expected JR...
he was a final surprise for my mom!

My mom raised 6 children, like no one. 
(wore a dress and high heels every day, with maybe the once a month, 
jeans and high heels...AT HOME in LEO, INDIANA)

Trust me, we didn't get many visitors as we were well off the road, so she clearly was "dressing for herself," 

as she taught me to do.

She was Girl Scout leader to 4 Girl Scout Troops, but only had 3 daughters.
My mother, Jean Marie Irelan Busch, supported my father, Richard Edward Busch,
 in every endeavor he had, but finally her greatest accomplishment, outside of her family,
and creating the best dinner menu every night was
THE AMERICAN CHIROPRACTOR MAGAZINE.

My mom’s famous quote as she was preparing her delicious family dinners was: “you can help by watching”...so all of us kids got used to watching my mom prepare perfection in everything she did. Mom was a cook, carpenter, fix it man, scientist, teacher, mother, editor, troop leader, beauty queen...you name it...
my mother could do it, and never once received credit for it...nor did she ask for it.

Mom was humble, spiritual, beautiful, super smart (salutatorian of her high school class), kind, funny, (with an infectious laugh that I believe I inherited), great smile, a petite piece of art, sharp and straight forward.

She was never big in the gym, as I recall, but she did start the National Cheerleading Association with Lawrence Herkimer, (founder of the Herki jump), as one of their first cheerleaders and instructors.
Then too, she loved tennis and bridge, in her younger years.

Mom taught me to be a leader.  

So as a leader would, she was able to assist my Dad in his ventures, 

and leave me to care for my younger brothers and sisters, as we were growing up.  

I would cook for them, and then blindfold them and let them taste my surprise.  

This was because altho I knew it didn't look very good, I was quite certain, it tasted delectable!!

My mom assisted my Dad in every venture he had, behind the scenes.

From day 1 of the chiropractic office as his CA (chiropractor's assistant) to

editing THE AMERICAN CHIROPRACTOR MAGAZINE, as "Tracey Leigh,"

her "pen name," so as not to look like as small of an operation, as they were just starting out 40 years ago.

My name is Tracy Lee Busch, so mom didn't use too much imagination with creating her pen-name, 

but as she kept everything she did, showed how much her family meant to her.

My parents also ran a magazine, called BABY TIMES, which my mother spent a lot of time on,
which someday may be brought back to life, by their children, 
but THE AMERICAN CHIROPRACTOR MAGAZINE 
just became so big, that it became their full focus.

We all had a great childhood with treehouses, water skiing behind a boat on the lake in our backyard, I sold girl scout cookies up and down the road, with my mom driving me when I first started, and friends who always were welcome over to our house for parties. My Dad always wanted his family around him.  
On the weekends the rule was that we couldn't leave, but we could've had any of our friends visit 
with whom we wanted to spend time.
 I remember making a video for one of my high school projects called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,'' and the video was made with me and my girlfriends running around my yard/house, riding up the long driveway 
in my friends's convertible, water-skiing and then swimming in the big pool in the backyard, 
where for YEARS I taught swimming lessons, 
and grew to have a series of classes of more or less15 kids throughout the day with the 
help of my sisters, Tunde and Jaclyn, 
and brother, Rick, whom I would cut into a small portion of my profit!

All of this was brought to a sudden halt, for a brief moment when I had my car accident, which you can read about in one of my first blogs, but as soon as I recovered and returned to school, it was my MOM who bought the same books as I had in my literature (I remember a big Shakespeare book the most), 
class among others, so she could read the stories with me, and make sure that I understood.  
For a couple of semesters right after my accident, my mother bought EVERY book that I needed for college, and basically tutored me over the phone while I was at Indiana University, 2nd year.

After they successfully got me thru college, "brain injury," and all, my parent's decided to move to Naples, FL, as a kind of a life change, as half of their kids were graduating college, and half were still in high school.  

I had moved there a few months prior, as I wanted to stay near family, 

and my Aunt and Uncle, (my Dad's sister Shari and Paul Bradtmiller) were living there with their 4 kids.

I wanted to move out of Indiana, but wanted to stay near family...this is how I ended up in Naples, 
and I guess my parents felt the same.

But then, my parents decided if they stayed in Naples, "they were going to die in Naples."

So, they moved to the hot spot of Costa Rica.

I got married, and visited them there a couple times with my young children.

Then, a couple years after they moved to Costa Rica, my Dad visited Panama, and from there he called my mother on the phone and said : "Jeanie, I found the Manhattan of the America's!"

That was it!

1 week later they were staying at a hotel in Paitilla, Panama, the Plaza Paitilla Inn,
waiting for their exclusive high rise of the water to be finished, with a direct view of the Panama Canal.

They loved having lunch on their balcony over the water served by their maid, and would often invite my daughters and me to join them, especially after we all moved to Panama.

This was a picture with both of my sisters and me...the last one of all 3 of us with my mom.

This is where they lived until my mother passed at age 67.

She had fallen, and fractured her hip, and lived one more year in pain.

Getting around as best she could, with a walker, but never to relinquish the high heels.

My mother may have lived that last year in pain, but she was never going to be seen as less than she was.

"It is more important to look good, than to feel good."

And my mother always looked her best...even tho that last year she was in pain, she would still get up every morning and do cross-word puzzles "to keep her mind sharp," she told me.

Now my brothers (2 of my 3 brothers are chiropractors), Rick in Indiana and Joe in the Republic of Panama, and although we have ALL worked on the magazine growing up, now  my sister, Jaclyn, brothers, Dr. Joe, JR and I continue with their dream of getting best message out to what is now the greatest circulation in the industry. 

This was the last picture that I had taken with my mother and my father.

My mother left us far too soon, March 29, 2012, and I have tears in my eyes and pain in my heart because I miss her, but joy as I Remember what she taught me about life, and how much she enjoyed her family, and everything that went with being the amazing mother, wife and woman she was.

For the best most inexpensive Robot Vacuum EVER click this link, which will take you directly to Amazon, who is sponsoring this blog page! https://amzn.to/2KnpK5b