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Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, Betty Hamblin Wheaton. She would have been 98 this coming July. She was one of the strongest, most admirable women I’ve known, and I was lucky to share part of her life.

She loved small or baby animals. They simply melted her heart. Not so much when they grew up or grew large. My dad tried to indulge her weakness, and one of my favorite memories was when she would gush over a picture or video of a baby ‘whatever,’ and then would look at my dad and say firmly, “BUT I DON’T WANT ONE!”

She usually had several small dogs at once. She loved chihuahuas. At one point she had two, plus a toy poodle (shown here.) All three would sit with her in her chair in the living room. She would have a coffee cup by her side, the three dogs, plus a big lapboard on which she would spread the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle and the CryptoQuote. She would sit there industriously working on the board, drinking coffee, and talking TO (or FOR) all the doggies.

She was super smart. Her dad considered educating women a waste of money. She wanted to go to the University of Chicago, but he said no. She ended up going to Cottey College in Nevada, MO where they lived. It was a two-year college. She only got to attend one year, living at home, and finished everything they offered for the two-year course in one year, with the exception of one gym class, which wasn’t offered when she could work it into her schedule.

She was gutsy. My dad got the chance to get into advertising, something he really wanted to do, after they had been married about 9 years. They were living on Long Island in Levittown at the time. I was 5 and my brother was about 8. My mother loved going to shows in New York City. She loved the big city life, even though things were tough at that point due to the world war, rationing, etc. The ‘catch’ on the chance for the job was that it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My mom had to get a map to find out where that WAS, and she was appalled. But they bundled us up and we moved to a place where we had to drive quite far away to get groceries, and we took a bus to the closest school. A lady came on her horse to say hello and welcome us to the neighborhood. She and the horse stood in what would later be our living room. Each house was built on an acre and a quarter. There were two mile-long streets between Sheridan and Memorial streets – 24th Street and 25th Place. The lady on the horse would much later become my mother-in-law.

My mom never went back to school. She should have been a lawyer. She read voraciously and worked the crossword puzzle in the paper every day, including the Sunday one which was a post-graduate course in vocabulary. She would go to community meetings, fired up about one thing or another. She would stand up, saying what she had to say in a very impressive manner. She persuaded people to adopt her point of view. One funny thing – if she were really angry, her words would get longer and longer as she spoke. Her vocabulary was amazing. Sometimes she would tell someone off, and the person wasn’t sure exactly what she had said – unless they could remember the words and look them up in the dictionary when they got home. :0)

I’m proud of my mom. I miss her. I feel her most strongly when I’m sticking my neck out, trying something new, cheering me on. Happy Mother’s Day.