I REMEMBER MAMA

I remember Mama . . .

My mother, Ruth Pearson Scott

• ·        Chasing Jo and Robyn around the kitchen table with a switch, while I watched the legs go round and round from my vantage point under the table.
• ·        Reading the ‘funnies’ to five-year-old me, as we lay together on the wide couch after dinner; and enjoying them not only because they were funny, but because she loved to share.
• ·        Gathering up her tools after nap time and going down to the pasture to work on the playhouse – again sharing the fun with a five-year-old daughter.
• ·        Making a picnic lunch of egg sandwiches and lemonade, putting it in a brown paper sack and walking through Hollensteiner’s woods to Skidoo Creek for a picnic with her three daughters.
• ·        Gathering her three girls together each Sunday for Sunday School, complete with singing, prayers, reading and discussion.
• ·        Starting a compost pile, planting potatoes under straw mulch, getting excited about Ruth Stout and organic gardening, and sending us into the horse pasture with a bushel basket and a shovel to gather up fertilizer for her garden.
• ·        Collecting some pretty lengths of fabric and taking me with her for a walk after dark to put the package of material in a struggling neighbor’s mailbox.
• ·        As a Relief Society president, having me haul her around in the car almost daily with armfuls of vegetables for families in need.
• ·        Seeing everything as one more adventure or a cause to celebrate: from painting her room to eating the good winter squash she grew; from planting the garden in the spring to teaching school; from going to a movie to fixing up the garage for a bedroom. Life was never dull for Mama.

Mama loved the gospel. She loved to talk about it and read about it, discuss it and write about it; and she would share her enthusiasm with anyone who would listen.

Mama oozed artistic talent:  she drew and painted, built rocking horses and a playhouse, bookends and hope chests; she didn’t like to knit or crochet, but she made beautiful quilts and afghans out of old woolen clothing.

Winter was never Mama’s favorite time of year. She would complain of “cabin fever” during those long dark months, and at the first sign of spring head out to see what she wanted to do with the garden this year. Mama had a garden every year up till she died at age 87.

When Mama was young, she and her sisters sang together. Their voices were beautiful and they were often asked to sing in different wards and for various occasions. Music was always a big part of her life. Daddy loved to hear her sing, and when we went on trips, Mama always brought a hymn book so that we could sing as we traveled.

Ruth, Ramona and Imogene Pearson

Books were another major part of Mama’s life – good books. And they were always better shared. So, we grew up listening to her read her favorites: David Copperfield, The Little Minister, Laddie, The Virginian, and countless others.

I was blessed to have two mothers: Mama and her sister, my aunt Ramona. They were very much alike and they were very different, but they enjoyed each other. They would laugh together, they would argue about whose memory was correct, they loved good food and were wonderful cooks. Mama left us first; two years later, as Nonie’s time to go got close, she said to me, “It’s like your Ma said: This will just be another adventure.”

Mama (Ruth) and Aunt Nonie (Ramona)

Mama

Molded – of brown valley clay, baked warm in the sun.

Molded – of irrigation ditches, seagulls, spring calves and dying crops;

Of a silent, humorous farmer father,

A laughing, ingenious Swedish mother.

She came out of depression days:

Newspaper-wrapped lunches, bare feet, and one dress a year.

She was brought up on Sunday School, green apples, Dickens, and willow switches.

Her dream was to write, draw, teach, do great things.

She became, after long, lonely years,

A Mother – all ambitions blended into one.

Now she is: strong as the mountains, rich as the earth, unchangeable forever.

                                                                          

(Poem by Robyn S. Warner; life sketch by Martha S. Jessop)