Irene Swapp Johnson

My mother for Mother's Day

Eight Lessons My Mother Taught Me

(A talk I gave at my mother's funeral)

1- Change is good.  She moved the entrance into her kitchen several times.  Her furniture was rearranged on a regular basis and her bathrooms were redecorated at least yearly.  There for a while she was adding new rooms on to her cabin yearly.  Change keeps life interesting.

2- To be independent.  If someone tells you you can't do it that's all the more reason to do it.  I remember Aunt Adeline and mom getting this idea in their heads that they were going to try wintering up to Sink Valley.  Mom redid the kitchen in her cabin, raised the roof and added a central chimney so she could add another wood stove.  Well, they decided that the fireplace up to Grandma's house would not put out enough heat for Adeline.  They got a fireplace insert to put in to heat the cabin with.  I don't know how they did it but those two ladies managed to get that insert in by themselves.  Mom had to take me up to show me what they did and how Adeline's boys were just amazed.  She was just a chuckling.  I did hear her mention that they used a dolly and that's all she would admit to.

If you have have cells phone it is only to be turned on to make a call. Mom and Aunt Adeline tired walki talki's to communicate between the two houses up to Sink Valley.  It must not have worked too well because they soon graduated to cell phones.  They must have had set times to call because whenever I tried to check up on mom her phone was off and all you could do was hope that they were all right.

Mom wanted a light in her dinning room and dad didn't have the time to put it in.  One day he came home from work and she had installed one herself.  He about panicked and had to fix a few things but she got her light.  She had a smirk on her face for quite a few days after that.

If she needed something she went out and made it happen.  She learned how to do most things herself.  She always told me that if you wanted to learn how to do something you can get a book to show you how.  That's how she learned to do many things.

3- To made do with what you have.  She tore down part of the old barn in our back yard to build onto the little house that dad had taken up to Sink Valley for her a cabin.  My job was to straighten the nails so she could use them again.  Then my job was to hold the boards while she pounded the nails in to build her add ons.  She would tease me because I wouldn't hold the nails for her while she pounded then in.  She could take another's trash and make it into a treasure for her.

4- Always have a project going.  She always had a project going.  She would always have her graft paper out designing stuff to build.  She mentioned that after dad had died this was what kept her going.  One of the keys to happiness was keeping busy.

5- There is always something funny in almost every situation.  Your job is to find it.  She always had a remark to make.  You had to be pretty tough skinned because a lot of times she told you how she saw it.  She was fun to be around because of her humor.

6- How to be a good mother-in-law.  She went out of her way to welcome the in-laws into the family.  She treated them like they were her own children.  I even became suspicious that maybe she favored my husband more than she did me.  She would call all the time and ask for Jim and they would talk for at least an half hour just on who could get the best of who.  

7- She taught me charity.  Mom enjoyed people and cared about them.  The only exceptions I can think of are the environmentalists and perhaps a few bureaucrats.  In April conference of 1992, Elder Ashton gave a definition of charity that touched me and describes my mother. "Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself.  And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again.  Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we don't judge or categorize someone else.  When we simple give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet.  Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down.  Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive some who has hurt us.  Charity is expecting the best of each other."  

Material things were not important to mom.  She would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it.  She tried to help everyone she could.  I was telling mom about a book i had read about a small town and how everyone looked after each other inspite of their differences.  Mom said that was the way it used to be.  Now everyone's too busy unless they get an assignment from the Relief Society.  I made a mental note to be more aware of others and their needs.

8- The importance of genealogy.  I don't know how many hours I spent at the St. George genealogy center that used to be in the basement of the old visitors center there.  I got to know the cannon outside really well and if I was lucky there would be water running down the ditch for me to play in and get cooled off.  Mom had me typing all those long sheets of genealogy.  Mom always told me that she felt that we had covenanted with our ancestors  before we came to earth that we would do their work and if we weren't doing our genealogy we weren't keeping our covenants.