Mother's Day

May 14, 2017

I would like to have written a moving tribute to my mom in honor of Mother’s Day, but that didn’t pan out. But I will tell you some things about her.

She raised us to believe that every person, regardless of race, gender, or religion, is as worthy of our respect as any other. That is one of the most priceless gifts a parent can give a child.

She didn’t believe that being female meant you wouldn’t be good at any particular career. Women didn’t have to be nurses, they could be doctors. If any of us had wanted to be an engineer, she’d have cheered us on.

She worked her way through college.

She said that college was about getting an education, not choosing a career path.

She wanted to be an FBI agent. When she wrote to the agency asking about opportunities, she received a letter from J. Edgar Hoover thanking her for her interest, but saying that women could not be FBI agents. She could have applied for a secretarial position but, even though she was proficient at typing and shorthand, that didn’t appeal to her as a career choice, so she passed.

She was elected Director of Civil Defense in a small town because nobody was running for the office, so she wrote her own name in on the ballot. She got the only vote, and won the position.

After she retired she moved to a different state so she could go back to school and get her Master’s Degree in creative writing.

Those are just some of the things about Mom that I think are cool.