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"Every exit is an entry somewhere" ---playwright Tom Stoppard

My mother, Alice Hine Williamson, passed away on September 14, 2004 in her sleep at just over 90 years of age.   Here's a picture of her and my Dad on their 40th wedding anniversary in 1977 when they celebrated by renewing their vows.

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Mom was born Sept. 10, 1914.   Her mother passed away when she was quite small, during a 2nd pregnancy.   She attended a one-room schoolhouse where her mother had taught before her untimely death, 3/4 of a mile straight down the foothill of a mountain.   In snowy winters when the road was impassable, she skied downhill with snowshoes on her back, and walked back home on snowshoes with skis over her shoulder.

She lived in turbulent and drastically changing times; her mother's death and a stepmother who had problems of her own, to say the least;  the stock market crash and the Great Depression, the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II and the succeeding conflicts, several recessions, difficult moves at my father's request and during all this, bore six children, one of whom died shortly after birth.   She saw the popularity of moving pictures arise,  radio programs,  the marvels of television, the sexual revolution with its drastic changes to our social structure, the birth and devastation of AIDS, the larger marvels of technology and the internet, and nothing threw her for a loop.  Nearly blind and no computer?  No problem!  She'd get me to research what she wanted to know on the internet, print it in HUGE letters, one paragraph to a page, and send it overnight, so she could read it with a magnifying glass.  

She and my dad always adored each other; they were truly soul mates.   When Mom lost almost all her vision and had other painful health problems, Dad took care of her meticulously.  Then about 8 years ago or so, when Dad began to have Alzheimer's disease, despite her handicaps, she cared for him until about a year ago when it was no longer possible for them to care for each other.  They were truly fortunate to have been able to travel through an often troubled life at each other's side.