By Neva Tippetts 

What made Mary Hansen, my mother, an inspiration to her five children, as well as her orphaned grandson whom she raised from infancy, and the children and people she associated with?  Her real test of character came when she got a divorce after twenty years of marriage. I was enrolled in my sophomore year of college at the time of her divorce. She had my sister and brother to support but made no mention of my quitting college to relieve her of the financial and emotional burden she had to face. 

To note an experience in which she displayed courage to us, I recall the following story. Mother was bundled up on a cold morning on her way to do housework for someone when she was hit by an automobile and thrown up in the air. She no doubt was stunned by this accident but refused to go to the hospital to be checked. She knew her $4 dollars a day she would make was needed to buy food for dinner that evening. 

Mother had a unique ability to radiate cheerfulness when her heart was heavy with sorrow. Most of her life was a series of business disappointments, in fact she was robbed in a business dealing by a personal friend, or personal grief over her children’s mistakes in life. She never turned down her children’s requests for financial aid or moral support. She took care of me when I had both of my children, which meant leaving her young grandson, teenage son and daughter, and a granddaughter who were all living with her. She made pillows for all of them even though she had a small pension to live on. Mom never dwelled on her mistakes and disappointments. She told me she lived in hopes, “There would be better days ahead.” Her trials did not make her bitter but only gave her great compassion for the down trodden and weary people she knew. 

Some of the ways Mom enjoyed living was to work in her flower garden. She picked a flower everyday and put it in a vase on the window sill over the kitchen sink. At her funeral, the speaker told of her secret desire of having a flower garden in heaven to work in. In fact, she said she thought this was all that she needed to be happy. Small things brought happiness to her. I purchased a used shelf for 10 cents for her flower pots, this overjoyed her. The great love she gave her flowers was demonstrated by her patiently pulling weeds around all her flowers and feeding them regularly. She pruned a huge Hibiscus tree which had branches two inches thick just a few weeks before she died at 78 years old. 

Mother received delight in baking cookies, making fruit cake, honey candy, coloring Easter eggs and decorating the house for holidays. She had great patience in tackling miserable household cleaning tasks, like cleaning the stove and the garage. 

Her religion taught her to pay tithing. During the depression we had a small income to live on and had not any money to pay tithing. She told her Bishop to give her package of beans to someone who was out of work. My father made a small salary and there was just enough money for the necessities. 

I feel eternally grateful to my mother for encouraging me in my teenage dream to become a Physical Education teacher. I am now enjoying going back to college due to the spark of achievement I gained in the teaching field. My desire is to teach Elementary children and some day the Indian children. This desire would never have grown if Mom had not supported herself and her family in order that I may go to college. She truly set a Christ like example for her family.