When I was a toddler just learning to talk, this was the first sentence I put together: “I not listening!” I demonstrated a similar attitude in my teenage years, rebelling against Mom’s old-fashioned rules. But Mom was persistent, and some of her instructions slowly began shaping my life.

    When I was trying hard not to listen, I couldn’t help but hear her prayers. I decided there had to be a God because Mom spent so much time talking to Him. Perhaps her most effective prayers took place each morning at Burnley Shirt Factory as she sat at her buttonhole machine in the noisy den of machines revving up for the day’s work. While bosses took last draws from their hand-rolled cigarettes and shouted orders, Mom sent up a silent plea: “Dear God, take care of my children today, please keep them safe.”

    As those invisible prayers cut through the smoky noise and headed straight up to heaven, God’s response was to build a wall of protection around two little kids while they walked to school alongside a busy highway.

    Later when we moved into town, those prayers painted a protective covering over our doorpost. Some of our neighbors were out-of-work folks who drank too much and staggered close to our front door, but we were never harmed because our mother had us covered in prayer.

     The rules and habits we lived by in those years, even though I grumbled and often rebelled, taught me valuable things. I’m sure mom acquired much of her wisdom as a result of having experienced the Great Depression. She valued her job at the factory, lived by the “Work Ethic,” and treated her hard-earned money with respect. Mom knew the welfare of her children was her sole responsibility. Therefore, she set strict rules.

    My mom knew the Dave Ramsey rules for handling money before Mr. Ramsey was ever born: Number one: Ten percent of the paycheck will be taken to church on Sunday morning. Rule two: All bills will be paid on time, and we will never charge anything that we cannot very soon pay for.

    When I complained about having nothing to wear, we went downtown to Marks Rothenberg and looked at the pretty clothes, but we did not purchase. Mom bought fabric and patterns and went home to sew copies of those clothes.

    She often explained to my brother and me that it was not necessary to have meat at every meal and that vegetables and cornbread were just as good.

    Mom also explained that Sundays were for attending church, and that going to Picture Shows, playing cards, or fishing trips were not acceptable activities for the Sabbath.

    My old-fashioned mom often made these statements: “Nice girls do not wear short shorts, read trashy novels, or call boys on the phone! Nice girls do not smoke or drink, and they never go to Skyview, Club Chalfon, or any other honky tonk — no matter what everybody else is doing!” She also said, “Mary Virginia, you would argue with a signpost!”

    I was instructed, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  When a difficult task confronted me, Mom always told me to remember the story of The Little Train That Could, and say, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”