May8, 2010

Relate your family Mother's day traditions, or tell me more about what kind of person your mother was.

Mother's Day traditions were always go to church and watch mother graciously receive the flower from the Bishopric, Sunday School and Relief Society. I think they were all a part of it. Then the rest of the day was spent at home doing the sabbath type things.

I would love to tell you more about my Mother however. Mom was a very loving and kind person, she got this trait from her mother and father. She was always very forgiving and loving toward anyone she knew or met or had any association with in her life. I remember her getting upset but can't remember her ever really getting mad. A story was told about her when we were gathered as a family after her funeral that was a good depiction of how she was as a person. It was told that mom felt really bad after hanging up on a caller trying to sell something over the phone. She felt very bad about having hung up on them. (Now I don't feel bad about hanging up on them and even often try to think of things that I can do to waste their time a little by just setting the phone on the counter until it starts to beep letting me know they gave up.) I know though that mother would let me know how unkind that was and that it was just their job and I should just be grateful I don't have to make a living doing that. Mother was kind to animals as well even though she still wouldn't allow them into the house even on the coldest of days, they had plenty of other areas where they could go to get warm such as all of the other buildings on the farm like the barn.

She was also very much into giving and not letting people pay for what she gave. An example of his was when we were visiting her sister in Mapleton and Aunt Zelma had given her some fruit from their orchard or something, I can't really remember what it was for. Well Aunt Zelma, a younger sister to mother, wouldn't have anything to do with it either and she promptly lovingly handed it back. They were just raised in the same home however so mother promptly returned it to her again. I don't recall how times this sequence was replayed but Aunt Zelma finally gave up and took me off into another room, gave me the money (I think it was 5 dollars) and told me to give it to mom after we were a long ways away from their home. Well I waited for a long distance, to a child, and gave it to her after we were about a half mile from their home. Dad was instructed to turn around and we returned to give it to Aunt Zelma one more time. I think that mother would have mailed it back to her even if I had waited until we got home to give it to her.

She also loved flowers and trees and would plant them all over the yard. The only instance where she was unable to get to grow one of her trees was when she planted a mighty Oak as a seedling that kept getting ran over by the lawn mower. Dad didn't mean to do it but it was just to small to see. It never made it but a lot of other trees of various kinds did and a whole lot of flowers as well. There were even a number of rock gardens that were planted around the farm because mother loved beautiful rocks of all sizes.

So that is just a little more about my mother whom we all loved very much. She and dad were a very perfect union and thus she would never remarry after dad passed away even though she had someone who wanted to marry her. She was in love with dad and no one else. She spent her 21 years without him going on a mission, taking care of Great Aunt Zelma until her passing at a ripe young age of 104, doing temple work and family history work. She loved her family and grand and great grand children and spent as much time with them as possible as well.