My mother will turn 90 this July. She is an extraordinary woman, and has been a wonderful wife and mother. She always took very good care of her family...cooking good, nutritious meals from scratch, weekly made home-baked bread, and sewing our clothes. She kept a clean, beautiful home. By beautiful, I mean she could take nothing, and through her creativity she would make it into something beautiful.

My mother grew up on a sheep farm in eastern Montana. Modest means, if not poor. She was very bright and graduated from high school at the age of 16. From there she attended business college for two years. In 1941, at the age of 18, she landed a job in Washington D.C. working for the Air force as a civilian secretary.

Time passed, the war ended, and Mom returned to Montana, where she worked as a secretary for the U.S. Forrest Service and met a handsome young range manager. After courtship, my mother and father married and had three children. Mom was a stay-at-home mom, but when the kids were old enough to be all in school, she worked, but arranged her work schedule to be home when we got home.

Even through Mom held very responsible, high-end secretarial positions, she was so much more capable for bigger things. When I was in high school, I remember her mentioning that she would love to go back to school and get her accounting degree. She never did. I think that she thought it was out of her sphere, and maybe comfort zone, to go back to college as a returning adult student. I wish she would have. I wish she would have followed her dream. She would have retired in an occupation that she truly enjoyed, and I know our family would have supported her in that dream. But what may be, my mom realized most of her dreams, and I am grateful for that. At the age of 90, she has her health, is still living independently and is mentally sharp as a tack. She is still the matriarch of a loving family.

 Joni