She wore many hats to give her children the guidance they needed to become responsible adults and raise beautiful families of their own. She was a psychiatrist when it came to helping us make good decisions by telling us about Heavenly Father who loved us and would help us over difficult situations through prayer. When life seemed dark she would say, “Behind every cloud there is a silver lining.” When we needed to be entertained she would quote a poem about “Little Orphan Annie,” the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” or “Casey Up to Bat.” Often she found a book and read us a story or told us a story from incidents in her life. She carefully wore the hat of a nurse, rocking us, helping the “medicine go down,” doing all she could to make us well again time after time, after time. To us children, Mother was a Queen watching over her subjects and caring for our needs. Work was enthroned in her vocabulary. We lived on a farm and there was always work to be done from feeding the animals, to harvesting hay, hoeing beets, gathering fruit from the orchard and vegetables from the garden to cleaning the chicken coop. She gave us strength and reminded us of the “Shade at the end of the row.” Mother loved Mothering.
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