Dotsie

No offense taken about the question of God and religion. Many of the ninewomen have strong religious beliefs and we did spend quite a bit of time talking about how religion had shaped our lives when we talked about our early years. Somehow none of those discussions made our book. Our chapters were quite short so this is understandable.

We also spent a lot of time talking about our mothers.Since there are nine of us -- we had nine very different experiences. I know my Mom was very smart and always wanted to go to college. But she grew up in the depression and her family was poor and she married a military man and led a traditional life. She was happy with her life as a stay at home Mom (a housewife back then), but she encouraged me to go to college so that I could have choices in my life and she was very proud of me. I was the first child to graduate college on both sides of my family.

Like many of my generation, I wanted a life and a career and didn't want to be dependent on a man.

Since my mother died in my twenties, she wasn't able to see how her influence shaped my life, but my father, who was a very conventional man, was very proud of me as I got older, even though when I was younger he disapproved of me.

Kathy