HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MOM

In 1905, five-year-old Beth Ripley left home alone. She walked down a busy street that rattled with rickety, wobbly cars. She had a destination in mind.

When she was discovered missing, her mother, Rose Ripley, flew into a panic. They had no telephone or other means of communication, so she threw on a coat, gathering her long skirts close around her, and  raced three city blocks to her husband’s dry goods store. Rushing in the front door, she scream, “Albert. “Beth is gone. Someone has stolen her.”

But Beth wasn’t gone at all. There she sat, comfy on a pickle barrel, swinging her legs, all fine and dandy. “I came to visit daddy,” she announced.

Right then, Beth’s parents knew that their daughter would find her way. Indeed she did, graduating from Smith College in 1921, marrying Harvard graduate Leslie Lyon in  1922, giving birth to a son, Lee, in 1924 and a daughter, Beth Louise, in 1928.

Among her many volunteer activities, Beth Ripley Lyon worked for the Red Cross, taught blind women to weave beautiful table linens, and volunteered as a food truck driver in the Motor Corps during World War II. She was a crackerjack bridge player and late in her life, became an artist par excellence.

She passed away twelve years ago at the age of ninety-seven, but I don’t guess it’s ever too late to say Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.