The author--About me

Born in a small southern town in the Florida panhandle, population 1203…then it was 1204. I was the third daughter born to my parents. When I was but three weeks old, however, my family relocated in Central Florida in hopes of more work, higher wages, and a better way of life.

My father was a farmer, a well-accomplished carpenter, a song writer (but that is a totally different story), and a clown--I must have learned my humor from him. My mother was a housewife, gardener, doctor, teacher, friend, litigator, arbitrator, and incubator—a mother...she gave birth to eleven children...seven of whom are boys...four were girls, now women. From these offspring, my mother became a grandmother 31 times, a great grandmother and great-great grandmother more times than I can recall.

I have a lot of respect for my mother and my mind is filled with wonder and awe when I think of all she accomplished... She did not get a lot of formal education, she was not a career woman as the world defines it...she rarely worked outside her home. What she did, however, was raise to adulthood eleven offspring. She lived with my father until she died in 1988 at the age of 71+ years, just a few days shy of her 54th wedding anniversary. But while she lived—she mothered, she sewed, she cooked, she cleaned, she doctored, she chauffeured, she grew beautiful flower gardens, she raised chickens and vegetable gardens, she was active in church with a strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, taught Sunday School, took active part in Relief Society—the woman’s auxiliary at church, made hand-stitched quilts, and she worried about her children.

She did not get a driver's license until after her youngest child was born. While my father was working out of town...she taught herself to drive on the back roads of Orlando... which then, was a relatively small town...the orange groves next to our home and the dirt roads where my mother taught herself to drive, long before the advent of Walt Disney World, are now integrated into the business area of downtown Orlando. You can no longer find the little two-lane road called 43rd St by which I walked to school . It is all metropolized...is there such a word?...and overgrown with traffic and large buildings. The lake where we played and fished as kids must surely still be there...but where, and what is it called now? It was just the lake in Mr. Crawford's pasture when we were kids playing ball and running free.

My mother was a woman among women--a standard bearer. One of her most earnest desires beyond the well-being of her children and grandchildren was to travel to the "Holy Land" to walk where the Savior walked... I am sure she walks with the Savior now, not just where he has been.

But, about me?: I should be as good at everything I do as my mother is at what she does.