| Honored by: | Barb and Les Licklider |
| Brick location: | B:17 map |
My Mom, my role model, my first teacher, and most of all my friend. What an honor it is to me to have my mother be remembered in a place for special women--the Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial.
Mom you will never know how much you mean to me. You have always been there for me; cheering for me, laughing with me, scolding me or drying my tears. I remember how excited you were for me the time I brought a toad in to your afternoon card club to show you. That was one of the many times you said (not without pride in your voice as I recall now) "I don't now what I would have done if you had been twins."
Even now that I am an adult you are the first one I call when I'm hurting like the time my dog died. And I call you first with a triumph also like every time I got the job I thought I always wanted (even if I might have been wrong a time or two).
Mom you were a champion for women's rights before feminism ever became popular. Growing up with six brothers you knew there was nothing they could do that you couldn't do just as well if not better. As a farmer's wife you were there every step of the operation right along with Dad and helped bring in some extra income with your substitute teaching while still finding the time to be a model wife. In fact because of your modeling and expectations (you always expected us all to do our best didn't you?)
I didn't know until college that there were things females weren't supposed to do; things like driving the tractor, handling the finances, serving on councils and boards, or mending fences and broken hearts. You were and are a teacher and friend to everyone around you. You did not have the opportunity to earn educate beyond normal school training but you never stopped learning or teaching. You raised three daughters all educators who among them have five graduate degrees.
You made a difference in hundreds of lives by the way you lived yours. Because of you and women like you the lives of women of my generation are a little better. Even more important you modeled for us and inspired in us the will to make the world even better for the next generation of women. Mom I love you and all you stand for.
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