Ted Poe: “Sunday is Mother's Day where we honor our Nation's mothers. My mom is still alive. I got to know my grandmothers, both…”

“Sunday is Mother's Day where we honor our Nation's mothers. My mom is still alive. I got to know my grandmothers, both of them, until they died in their nineties, and my three daughters all have children. But I want to talk about a mother that most Americans probably have never ever heard of. Her name was Mattie Ripkowski. Let me tell you a little bit about her and her family. She was a first-generation American-born Polish immigrant. Back in the 1800s, the Polish community came into Texas through the Port of Galveston. They settled there while Texas was an independent country. In fact, some Poles fought at the Battle of San Jacinto where Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836. {time} 1040 Mattie Olbrich was born in 1896 in Texas. At the age of 17, she married Stash Ripkowski--both newlyweds--another small-town guy from New Waverly, Texas. They started raising a family, Mattie and Stash. And after several years, this was their family. Yes, Mattie Ripkowski had 16 children--4 daughters and 12 sons. They were all born by natural childbirth with a midwife, except one. This whole family lived in southeast Texas on a small, 200-acre farm near Dayton, Texas. Mattie--the mother, the wife--made sure that during the Depression all the kids never went hungry. She taught them the basics of life: true grit, a work ethic, a belief in the Almighty. They worked hard, everything from picking cotton to tending to animals to hauling corn.…”