Nancie Lee Lovett Linn

March 27, 1933 - October 26, 2014

One of the stories about my mom that has the most meaning for me is one that I can barely remember personally. I was very young, living in Topeka Kansas, when a tornado warning sounded. Daddy wasn't home, our house had no basement shelter, and Mother was faced with a dilemma: how to protect her children.

The southwest corner of a building is the safest place to be in a tornado, but our house had a television in that corner--at a time when televisions were the size (and probably the weight) of small refrigerators. Her solution: she picked up that TV and moved it to the center of the room, depositing her kids safely in the corner. We all came through unscathed--but when it was over she couldn't move the television back. She couldn't even budge it.

Of course this is a story about a mother's love, and how powerful is the capacity to nurture and protect. But more important, it's a story about overcoming obstacles--about not questioning whether or not something can be done, but simply doing what has to be done. All four of us children have stretched ourselves into places we would not have been able to reach if we had not been taught that our inner strength was sufficient to do anything.

So I thank you, Mother, for many things, and perhaps most for ushering us to those places.