Good Luck and Be Safe!

Anne Lamott quipped in her April 2017 Ted Talk, “Every story you own is yours. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” We all laughed at that: her audience in Vancouver, and me as I listened to the recording almost a year later.  

My own story began with an angelic mother.  In kindergarten, I distinctly remember feeling empathy for my classmates, looking at each of them in genuine compassion as I realized that none of them got to go home to my mother at the end of the day. How could they face life, I wondered, without my mother behind them?

The most hurtful thing my mother ever said to me was, “Tashi, I’m just me!” after I went on and on about all the wonderful qualities I saw in her. So her worst fault was that she wasn’t big on compliments.  I share this only to illustrate how remarkably well my mother behaved to merit the accolades that follow. Ah, my dear, sweet mother. Though she wouldn’t want me “tooting her horn,” I’m going to indulge myself and sing her praises to my heart’s content.

Did I mention my mother is an angel? She passed away last April. So many beautiful moments gave us peace in her “graduation” from this life. The sacred details are recorded in my journal, which I feel is the appropriate place to leave them, rather than posting them here.

I miss her. All my sisters do. We often share with each other the sweet remembrances we have of her. As I write this, I’m taken back five decades to the time I sat with my mom on the foot of her bed. I was trying to find meaning in the sorrow overwhelming my six-year-old heart. Our beloved pet had just died and our whole family was grieving over his death.  I moaned, “I don’t want to have pets anymore if it has to hurt so much when they die.” My mother wisely comforted me saying, “Losing pets helps prepare us to deal with the pain when we lose people we love.” Somehow giving a purpose to the pain made all the difference. And I do think it helped prepare me for the pain of her passing.

What I really want to write about, though, is not about her death, but her life:

Arlene Nelson Williams

(1925 – 2017)

An Idaho-girl, Arlene was born in a farmhouse, the oldest of eleven children. She was a natural nurturer. She decided she wanted to be a nurse at the tender age of 6, and fulfilled that ambition, working in the nursing field for 45 years.

Arlene was a year and a day older than Lois, her next sibling. Lois was the more adventurous of the two. At age 3, Lois would play rambunctiously and then caution her big sister not to attempt her daring feats, warning, “Too dangelous for you, Arly!” But Lois made it look so fun that Arlene broke free of her timid nature and joined Lois in her escapades. Once they took it upon themselves to provide their family with a rare chicken dinner.  Though they grew up on a chicken farm, the chickens were reserved for customers. She and Lois (ages 5 & 6) reasoned that with all those chickens, they should be able to have one for dinner. So they each caught a chicken and took them to the chopping block. When Arlene's first blow failed to behead her chicken, Lois let hers go and held onto Arlene's chicken so the next blow finished the deed.  At this point, Arlene’s conscience got the better of her. She knew she’d done wrong by killing a chicken without her dad’s permission, so she hid the chicken in a bush.  Lois let their dad know about the chicken, all ready for dinner. Arlene's punishment was to be sent to her room while the family dined on poultry that night. Her mother later snuck her a little piece because she had worked so hard for the family’s chicken dinner; Arlene fondly remembered that one bite of chicken was delicious!

Lois and Arlene in costume (Arlene is on the right)

As a child, Arlene: 

•  Delighted in brightening up her home with flowers.
•  Hauled 100 wagon-loads of gravel to earn a dollar so she could buy herself a doll, and helped Lois haul another 100 loads of gravel for the same purpose.
• Sponge-bathed her many little brothers, strategically waiting for them to fall asleep first as she discovered they were far more cooperative with being washed while slumbering.
• Sat in her father’s chicken-coop for endless hours, tagging the best layers. She noted the chickens made a satisfied cackle when they laid their eggs, so she called eggs “cackle-berries.”
• Felt tremendous sympathy for Lois after she was scolded by their mother for looking for the potato jackets. (When their mother told Lois to boil the potatoes in their jackets, Lois envisioned little blue jackets like Peter Rabbit’s rather than the hum-drum potato-skins.) Arlene decided then that she would never scold her own children. She did remarkably well at keeping that goal.

She met our Dad, Leslie Warren Williams, while she was in nursing school at BYU. She wrote, “I was watching this tall, handsome man and thinking, I think he’s going to be talking to me. Then the lights went out and the room became darker… I looked up and this [handsome man] was standing beside me asking me if he could stand [by] the light of my fluorescent watch.” They danced, they dated, and before long she was whisked away to California to meet his family.  Then they married and had six daughters, raising them together. Warren died three years before Arlene and she missed him very much.

Arlene with Leslie Warren Williams

As a woman, Arlene:

·         Always kept her child-like zeal for life. She especially loved nature: flowers, birds, picnics in the mountains, and picking HUCKLEBERRIES!

·         Designed and created amazing building projects. (I admit I was sometimes disappointed as a child to discover the motor I heard running wasn’t a kitchen appliance whipping up delightful treats, but the power drill.) She also designed and crafted many colorful afghans.

·         Cared for the young, the old, people & pets, showing the utmost respect to all.

·         Had a magical way of calming babies.

·         Had a goal to never get angry. She wrote how a friend told her, “when people get angry it never helps the situation … So I stay calm and things usually turn out much better.”  

·         Was a model of determination.  She never let difficulties get in the way of her completing her projects.  Whenever any of her daughters despaired of completing an assignment we were supposed to do for school, Mama would magically make it happen for us. Often we’d wake up the next morning to find she’d worked through the night to set things right for us so we could finish our task. She showed us that we can accomplish anything we set out to do. She also taught us to always fulfill our responsibilities.

·         Loved to learn her whole life long. She always took notes at meetings because she felt it helped her learn more and made it possible for her to share what she learned. She often read biographies of both great and humble people.

·         Took delight in her heritage. She raised her children on the stories of our ancestors. She recorded her own story in many memoirs. I’m so grateful!

·         She always wished us goodbye by saying, “Good luck and be safe!”

Left--Arlene in her HS graduation dress, 

Top Right--Arlene's look of hope at the thought of being with her husband in the next life 

Bottom right--Arlene with Lois playing in the sandbox (Arlene is on the right)

Arlene and Lois, a lifetime later (Arlene is on the right)

Thanks to Rachel, Lois's daughter, who took this picture and gave me permission to post it.

My sister, Velinda wrote, "This picture brings tears to my eyes. Those two sisters dearly loved each other. 

When Lois left this world, [it wasn't long before] our mother left it, too."

Since our last goodbye, I've been about the business of having "good luck" and being safe.  It definitely helps knowing I've got such a loving angel looking out for me and mine. (Thanks Mama! I love you so much and always will.)

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

                      "Who sabotaged my towel?!" my dad cried out in frustrated anger. "Someone hid some pins in my towel and they scratched me all up."

                I froze in my 8-year-old tracks, hiding in silence.

                I had a rocky relationship with my dad between the ages of 8 and 18. I was a perfectionist and often felt that I did not measure up in his eyes.  I was jealous of my sisters who seemed to effortlessly win his approval.  He could be gruff at times and my super-sensitive-self would wither under a disapproving gaze.  I won't deny I could be a brat towards him. I refused to sit next to him in church, to name one example.

                And I planted the pins in his hand towel.

                I didn't do it maliciously.  They were decorative pins and I thought they looked nice there, not thinking of the possibility they could do any harm.  It took me over 40 years but I finally owned up to it, though everyone else in my family had long since forgotten the incident.   

                When I left home, I made a choice to let go of any negative feelings I had towards my dad and hang on to all of the positive ones.  It was a good choice. I grew to appreciate my dad more and more over the years.  Few people have done as much as he has to make me recognize my own worth. 

                During my dad's last months of mortality, he grew very weak.  The once-simple effort of talking grew comparable to struggling against a tidal force.  He needed help but had a hard time expressing his needs.  As I took my turn serving as his caretaker, sometimes I'd get things wrong and he'd seem a bit impatient in letting me know.  In a flash, my childhood insecurities resurfaced and I saw myself as the disfavored child.  I told myself not to take it personally, that my dad's frustration wasn't about me, but rather the exertions that were wearing him down.

                Then came his final week.  One by one, his daughters visited to tell him goodbye.   The date of March Fourth came, which my Dad always liked to say was the only day of the year that could be issued as a command.  He thought it a fitting day to March Forth to the next life, but he held on a little longer in order to say goodbye to the rest of his children. I was one of the holdouts. I couldn't believe he was really going.  On March 6, 2014, Just a few hours before he died, I was at his bedside.  I did all the talking, telling him how much I love him, how his many letters will be such a comfort, how I learned valuable lessons from him.  I promised to take care of my mom and their cats.  He seemed grateful.  His eyes took on the look of the ancients--windows into an eternal soul.  I told him when I'd seen that look before in my daughter's eyes as she was sealed to us in the temple.  He seemed amazed by that.  I told him about the walk with the Savior two of my close friends had shared with me, recalling their Near Death Experiences.  "You're about to take that walk, Dad," I cried.  Though it was beyond his strength and ability, he reached up his arm to hug me and his head to kiss me.  Finally with all the strength he could muster, he grunted his last words, "I love you." To me.  His last words were to tell the daughter who unreasonably considered herself the cast-off, "I love you."  No balm of Gilead could ever be more healing. Suddenly, there was nothing left of the feeling that my dad didn't appreciate me. Absolutely nothing.  All those decades I'd lived thinking it was healed until he was on his deathbed when it resurfaced. And then nothing but complete, heartfelt love.

                His memorial service was a year ago today.  The day after that I felt like I was trying to hold onto life over the edge of a cliff.  I prayed for comfort and received the inspiration just to let go.  So I let go of the strain and the angst and found myself floating in love.  Many times over the last year, I've had a thought to share or a question to ask him.  Then it hits me in the gut that I can't talk to him anymore, so I move my thoughts heavenward.  I miss him and I hope I never finish my conversation with him.

Leslie Warren Williams

(1922 - 2014)

He was born to a farmer and teacher, John and Elsie Williams, the youngest of four sons. He nearly drowned in a watering trough as a toddler, but his life was saved by his twin brother, who caught their father's attention by circling the trough in alarm. 

In high school he ran the mile in 4:36 which was only 10 seconds more than the California state record and 30 seconds more than the world record at the time.

                He served in the US Navy during World War II as a radar technician because of his knowledge of Ohm's Law. (This despite the fact his technical abilities were such that, years later, operating a tape recorder took considerable coaching from his teenage daughter.)

He became intrigued by how differently sandy versus clay soils behaved, so he studied soil science at Brigham Young University.  This is where he met his lifelong love, Arlene Nelson.  The power happened to go out at a dance, but not before a lovely nurse caught his eye.  When her fluorescent watch glowed in the dark, he suavely approached her and asked if they could dance by the light of her watch.  A couple of months later, he asked her out.  She wondered what took him so long and then realized he had to buy a pink car for their courtship (she still laughs about this nearly 65 years later). They were married in 1951 and became the parents of six daughters.

                He mapped three million acres of land in California and Colorado for the US Soil Conservation Service (when mapping a mere million earned a life-time recognition award).

                He delighted in teaching Sunday School, loved writing and sharing poetry, took pleasure in gardening, and enjoyed reading about numerous topics, particularly Bible studies.  He loved folk songs of all heritages. He was a lifelong learner. He had some skill as an orator which he practiced in Toastmasters and on the stage of Springville's Villa Playhouse Theatre. He had a keen intellect, crunching numbers like a calculator, rattling off World Series stats and batting line-ups. He had the reputation that whatever he said, "you could take to the bank." One of his daughters quipped, "He was PC before it was PC to be PC," due to his genuine regard for human rights.

                My dad lived by the motto, "Do the duty that lies nearest to thee, and already the rest will be clear." He followed Langston Hughes' poem "Hold fast to dreams . . ." as a life theme.  He was extremely thoughtful of others. For example, when he drove past clotheslines with wash hanging out to dry, he would always slow down so as not to kick up dust.  He had impeccable integrity and inspired others with his poet's soul.  In his final months, it was a joy to serve him as he tenderly expressed gratitude for the smallest acts of caring.

My dad loved the sentiment from a verse in the apocrypha stating, "Let us now praise famous men," because it defines "famous" as those who have done good works and have posterity, for their glory will never fade. (Ecclesiasticus 44:1 - 14)

Here's to one of  the "famousest" of men.

For more, see lessons from Dad (and Mom) in Celebrating Sixty Years

Celebrating Sixty Years

“Mama, you paid that kid way too much for mowing our lawn!” my oldest sister complained. 

This topic was revisited forty-something years after the event.  On the occasion of our parents’ 60^th Wedding Anniversary, my sisters reminisced about Mom & Dad's parenting techniques.

My sister continued, “Mom answered, ‘How much do you think I should have paid him?’”

“One dollar.”

“‘Alright, you’re hired.  I’ll pay you one dollar for mowing our lawn.’”

“So for the rest of . . . forever, I had to mow our lawn for just a dollar.  Take into consideration that the neighbor kid got to use a power mower and ours was just a push mower.”

“Don’t forget the hill!” my next-oldest-sister chimed in. “It was fine going down but then you had to DRAG it back up.”

“And the grass had no respect for the push mower,” my oldest sister was on a roll.  “For the power mower, the grass stood stiff at attention to get its buzz-cut.  But for ME, the lawn was like an unruly mob doing the wave, bowing down before the blades and thumbing its nose as it sprung back up behind me.”

We all laughed at my sister’s imitation of the rebellious laugh the grass seemingly bellowed as it taunted her efforts to tame it.

The value of the shaggy-trimmed-lawn-job was way more than a dollar. 

There were a lot of lessons we learned from our parents over the years—some of which we even valued at the time we learned them.

Warren & Arlene

May 1951

A few of the lessons we learned from our parents:

“Do the duty that lies nearest to you and already the rest will seem clear. ”

“Let’s fight the war from here.”

“Don’t shame the family.”

Responsibility—if you sign up to take cookies to an event, you take the cookies even if something comes up that prevents you from attending the event.

Respect others—no matter how young or how different, whether people or pets

Keep in touch through letters

Cultural heritage: listening to folk songs; attending cultural events and then talking about it over ice cream.

The value of well-prepared and presented talks

Watching and listening to, and then discussing movies, plays and books

Appreciation of the arts, music and theater

Creativity—turning a squiggly line into a picture, drawing, writing, painting

Loving life-long learning—the kind of education that feeds your soul

Colorful meals with table topics

Hard work

Principle of the pentagonal man who firmly maintains the five strengths: emotional, social, intellectual, physical, & spiritual

Autumn colors and fallen leaves

Enjoying the outdoors and instilling a love of nature

Teaching how to wash dishes— if the dishes weren’t washed properly, the child who had done a sloppy job found the soiled dishes at her place setting—and next time she did a better job 

Projects—even after things fall apart, they can be pieced back together again

Examples of selflessness,  love, courage, resourcefulness, and perspective

Being there

The value of family heritage through telling our own and our ancestors’ stories

Creating beautiful and useful things with material:  wood, cloth, yarn

No matter how overwhelming life feels, we can pull through to the end

Thanks Dad & Mom.  I love you.

Mothers

When my daughter was 6-years-old, she shoved four stuffed animals inside her shirt and proudly announced, “I’m having four triplets!”  I explained to her that four babies would be quadruplets—triplets are “only” three babies.  When I began to expound upon quintuplets and sextuplets, she interrupted my impromptu lesson, wailing, “I’m uncomfortable!”  Like any mother expecting quads, she was very anxious for them to be delivered.

Motherhood brings with it a wide range of emotions:  joy, sorrow, excitement and  exasperation to name a few.  I was alarmed to learn that mothering can bring out the worst (as well as the best) in you.  It grieved me to discover that I had so much yet to learn in life.  My sister then welcomed me to the “motherhood club” by stating, “When I became a mom I realized, ‘Ahhh, I get it!  Mom and Dad only started the work of raising me—it will be my kids who finish the job.’”

My own mother had this magical ability while I was growing up:  no matter how broken life felt, she was able to help me fix it.  I knew I could always count on her.  What is more, she passed on her belief in me that I could accomplish whatever I set out to do.

The sacrifices involved with mothering help us grow through both the delightful and the tearful times.  One of the lessons I treasure most that I learned from my kids is to step outside my stress and laugh with them.

"A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary."
-- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Mother Bickerdyke
(1817 - 1901)

She was a liability to the establishment—nosing around where she had no business, taking supplies she was not entitled to.  She was outspoken and defiantly skirted the mandated procedures.  The general in charge exclaimed in exasperation, “I can’t do a thing in the world” about her.

But her “boys in blue” called her Mother.

When her infant daughter died, Mary Ann Bickerdyke took the first steps down the road that would become her life mission.  She studied medicine to learn how to help others from dying needlessly.  She later put her medical knowledge to work as a volunteer nurse in the Civil War.

When she learned of the deplorable condition of the medical unit at the Union camp, she led a fund drive to buy much-needed supplies.  Once she delivered them to the Union base, she was appalled at the lack of sanitation so she refused to leave.  She ignored the army regulations forbidding her presence in camp and she cooked, cleaned and washed with a confidence, care and comfort that charmed her way into the soldiers’ hearts.  And their recovery rates increased.

But she pushed it too far when she insisted on roaming around the battlefields looking for the wounded.  When a surgeon asked her, “Under whose authority are you working?” she affirmed, “I have received my authority from the Lord God Almighty.  Have you anything that ranks higher than that?”

Apparently General Sherman agreed because he conceded, “She outranks me.”

She spent four years traveling from one battlefield to the next with the Union Army.  She was appointed to serve on the sanitation commission.  At first she was offended when they offered to pay her for something she was determined to do anyway.  But when she realized her wages could provide her with the means of buying extras for her boys in blue, she finally accepted her wages.

At the end of the war, Sherman asked her to participate in the Grand Review of the nation’s capital.  She led a corps of soldiers in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.  When Sherman offered her a seat on the review stand she refused, preferring to pass out water to the soldiers.

After the war, she continued serving her veterans and fellow nurses.  She helped hundreds work through the legal issues so they could secure their pensions.  She, however, did not receive a pension for over 20 years. 

Her greatest honor was engraved upon her tombstone:  “Mother to the boys in Blue.”

Resources:

Baker, Nina Brown, Cyclone in Calico: The Story of Mary Ann Bickerdyke. Boston: Little, Brown, 1952.

DeLeeuw, Adele, Civil War Nurse, Mary Ann Bickerdyke. New York: J. Messner, 1973

Greenbie, Marjorie Barstow, Lincoln’s Daughters of Mercy. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1944.

McKown, Robin, Heroic Nurses. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1966.

See also: Livermore, Mary (1888). "XXIV". My Story of the War. http://www.ourstory.info/library/1-roots/Livermore/story09.html