An interesting story about your Mom. My grandfather believed the same difference defined Democrats & Republicans.
As in all things, it is the honor and morality of a person that counts not the party since both hold corrupt and self serving individuals.
That being said, to embrace the Democrat party platform and methods, is to completely shed honor & morality.
They didn’t know any better. They were sold the lie that Roosevelt saved them from the Depression. For some, he did and they believed in it their whole lives. My late Dad did not though he lived the whole miserable mess of the Depression leaving home at 13, “because there was not enough to go around” as he said and drifted living a hard life until the Navy and then growing up even faster at war.
Most don’t know now or ever had any idea then that belt tightening, such as was done in the UK at that time, brought the UK out of the Depression much faster than us. By the time the war started they were up and running. Arguments, few objective, will rage as to what monetary and social policy actually worked. The proof to me is that the UK was on a successful manufacturing war footing by ‘38 lacking only in raw materials and volume and needing help. The war saved Roosevelt from failure of his policies of the New Deal. I believe that strongly.
we became the Arsenal of Democracy largely due to the 1941 efforts of a died in the wool repooblican industrialist named William Knudsen singled out and hired by Roosevelt in about May of that year. Knudsen almost single handedly put us on a war manufacturing footing. After he did that he was stabbed in the back by Roosevelt and the New Dealers who fired him in a radio announcement and replaced him with one of their own. It took decades for the victor written history to become truth.
Always remember that, the victors write the history and they write it to suit their purposes.