As I write this column we are experiencing May showers. May the May showers bring blessings and May flowers! The weekend found many in the community planting their gardens and flowers. My joy and challenge was having a two-year-old granddaughter helping plant the seeds. Indeed a challenge with those little hands planting seeds of love!

It was over ‘a cup of tea’ at the Recognition Tea for our South Dakota Mother of the Year, Margaret Connors, that I shared the joys and challenges of motherhood with mothers and grandmothers. I was seated across the table from our 1993 American Mother of the Year, Mrs. Ruby Washington and her daughter, Michele Blakely, both from Grand Island, Nebraska. Our American Mother for this year is indeed a jewel of a mother and we feel confident that she will represent motherhood well this year. Her love for God and a wonderful sense of humor has helped her through thirty-five years of marriage and motherhood. She has seven children and has been a foster-mother to two-hundred twenty-five foster children. Most of the foster children their family has had in their home have been teenagers who have needed parental guidance and support during a difficult time in their lives. Our American Mother for 1993 will tell you how her parents left an indelible imprint on her life. They, too, loved many children and helped and guided them along life’s way.

Have you ever attended a bridal shower when the bride is not present and is in another state? Recently I attended a shower for my niece who lives in Texas and will be getting married in June. It was a real fun time for family to get together and not know when the video camera would come in your direction. It was like being on ‘candid camera’ and seeing the production before returning to your homes again. The gifts were not opened as they will be taken to the bride when family goes to the wedding. However, we played the game of acting out what was in the gift we brought! Really funny on ‘candid camera!’ In this age of high technology we need not even have to fly all over the country to be present at your bridal shower - just receive the video and of course the gifts! As families together celebrate at graduations, weddings, showers, birthdays, and special family celebrations, let us plan to make a memory. And how important it is to choose carefully the memories that we live with as we travel down memory lane together.

A Warm Thought for the Week: “If you love from the heart you can love one another with all your heart.” Ruby Washington, American Mother for 1993. Have a week filled with warm memories!

Warm Thoughts from the Little Home on the Prairie Over a Cup of Tea by Luetta G. Werner

Published in the Canestota Clipper May 20th, 1993

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Till next time,

Trina