Memories of Mom (6/15/10)

As I lay thinking about Mom last night and this morning, I thought of her long life, her many trials and her increasing capacity to love and understand. I thought of her beautiful and youthful spirit that is trapped inside her aging body and will be released soon. I like to think of her after her passing when she will be in her prime again, surrounded by loved ones, able to think, move and speak unfettered.
Born February 19, 1915, Mom has seen exciting changes. Growing up in Arizona with no heat or air conditioning was considered normal in 1925. But I’m sure Mom is much happier now that those conveniences make the inside temperature ideal year around. Mom’s first experience with powered travel was going to Church in the back of a farm wagon pulled by a horse. Since then she has flown across the country in jet planes, and stood by Dad’s side as he helped develop rocket ships to send people into outer space. When she was young, messages and letters were sent to friends by telegraph. She saw technology develop from telegraph to telephone to internet. Just last Tuesday, Mom was able to see and talk with John and me free-of-cost on Skype from her apartment to our flat in Salt Lake City, Utah to Kenya, Africa.
Mom has also seen the Church grow and progress in exciting ways. Fortunately she grew up in Arizona where the Church was strong and there was a Temple. But our national and international presence was very small, and there were only about 4 or 5 temples. Now we are almost 14 million strong and there are 130 Temples worldwide. Getting past polygamy was the most difficult public relations problem in her day. Now Satan is attacking on all fronts in much more far-reaching and devastating ways. But the difficulties are also producing clear contrasts and perhaps helping people see the truth more clearly.
Mom was born of goodly parents. When polygamy was outlawed in the US, three of our four ancestors migrated to Mexico (Mortensons, Romneys, and Lillywhites). Ada Marietta Mortensen grew up in the Mormon colonies in Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Grandpa Eli Swain came from a polygamous family that chose to stay in Utah. Grandpa had very little schooling because his mother was the last wife in a polygamous relationship. Great-grandpa Swain was a stonemason on the Salt Lake Temple. By the time he married his last wife, Sophia, he was not a young man, and probably worn out by much hard labor. He passed away when Eli was around 9, and since Eli was the oldest boy, he stopped school and worked to help support his Mother and the large family. Grandma Ada Swain took a job teaching in Daniel,Utah after graduating from the Brigham Young Academy. There Ada and Eli met. Eli was not an educated man, but a hard and determined worker, a righteous and considerate young man with an entertaining sense of humor. They fell in love and married within a couple of years. Eli built Ada a small home that she loved. She was not used to luxury, and felt that Eli had provided her with a palace of her own.
I think of Eli and Ada Marietta Mortensen Swain and of their sweet and committed love for each other and for the Lord. Mom was the second child born to Ada and Eli. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to El Paso Texas where they helped manage a candy store that was owned by Ada’s father and brother. Their love grew as they raised righteous children according to the covenants which bound them together.
As the children were growing up in Arizona, where the family later moved, the only public entertainment was provided by individuals. Grandpa played a fiddle; Grandma did recitations. There was always music and singing in their home. They had a piano, and often the youth would gather there to sing and pull taffy. There was much competition among the Swain children for practice time. Mom
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remembers sitting at the piano for hours, with a blanket around her shoulders in the cold winter months when there was little competition from her other siblings.
Ada and Eli had seven children, the four oldest were daughters all of whom not only went on missions but supported each other emotionally and financially so that the younger ones could also serve missions. I’m not sure if the boys went on missions [check with Marion, Stan or Felice about these facts], but all three of them fought in WWII. Iris went on a mission to the state of New York. When she returned Dad had returned from his mission to the Southern Central States. He was playing trumpet in a band at the old Mezona, in Mesa, Arizona. Mom and Dad met on a Church hayride. Dad was smitten by the beautiful young returned missionary and stayed by Mom’s side, chasing off other suitors until she agreed to marry him in the Mesa Temple in 1939.
Mom and Dad found a home in the Phoenix area and started a family immediately. Cheryl Dawn was born in 1940, during the first year of their marriage. Two and a half years later, in March 1942, Mitchell James was born. When Iris Roslyn was born, in January 1945, Mitchell and Iris had moved to California, where Mitchell continued his studies, eventually qualifying himself to be a draftsman, then a hydraulic engineer. During those early years of airplane manufacturing, there was not much job security. Contracts were made with the government to manufacture specific planes and parts. When the contracts ended, so did the jobs. Consequently, the family moved with some frequency.
By the time Vicky Catherine was born, in 1951, the family was living in __________. After six months in Seattle, Washington, a return to California, and a year in Witchita, Kansas. The family then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Craig Gregory was born in 1955. Two of my most vivid memories of Tulsa were of Mom and Dad playing in a band that practiced in our front room. Dad played the trumpet and Mom the piano. I loved sitting under the piano singing along with the band. The popular songs they played and sang would echo over and over in my mind. They played at Church dances. Piano has continued to be a driving interest of Mom’s. However, one of my other favorite memories was of sitting on the front porch with Mom reading from the classics to us.
After 6 years in Oklahoma, the family moved back to Southern California, where Dad was called as Bishop of the newly divided Redondo Beach II ward. By this time the older children started leaving home. Cheryl went to BYU first. Jim followed Cheryl to BYU and they both left for missions within a short time of each other, Cheryl to Australia and Jim to Denmark. After Roz had been at BYU for a year and a half, Cheryl was returning from her mission, and Roz flew to pick her up. Vicky was a high school student and Craig was in elementary school when Traci Aleen was born in 1961. By 1963, the family had moved to Costa Mesa, where Dad worked for McDonald Douglas. At about age 50, Mom developed a new passion for painting and attended college and an art school where she developed a love of color, shape, and textures and developed a unique style of expressing her talents.
Mom and Dad moved away from California one more time before returning there to live out the rest of Dad’s days. Traci was in 7th grade when the three of them moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. In Tulsa, Mom continued painting; Traci continued through high school; Dad continued his engineering and was once again called as a Bishop. Traci left for BYU, then a mission to Japan and back to BYU to graduate.
Cheryl married Bob Sessions from the Redondo Beach II ward after they both returned from their missions. Jim married Kathy Smith from Draper Utah. Roslyn married John Nicholas Udall, Jr. from Phoenix Arizona. Vicky went to BYU where she met and married Craig Burnham. Craig went on a mission
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to Argentina, graduated from BYU, and later married Candace Marshall. Traci served a mission in Japan, graduated from BYU, and married John Lawrence.
The longer I live, the more importance I place on endurance. I used to think endurance was a given. I now know that this is not so. Mom has endured to the end…95 years and still able to laugh through pains and physical struggles. Mom has struggled by herself for many years: through the difficulties of child rearing since Dad was either at work or at Church; through keeping her sense of identity and worth with six self-centered children and an absentee husband; through trying to keep up appearances (smart dressing for herself and the young children, clean and orderly house) through balancing the financial books. Dad’s difficult decline of health and death brought new mental and physical challenges, and then there was the job of adapting to a solitary life.
The last few years for Mom have been spent in Utah where Cheryl has dedicated many hours to keeping Mom active and happy. Iris has been visited frequently by children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She has maintained her curiousity about people and things. She has read and reread books on art, science, and people. Her books are underlined and dog eared. Her apartment is filled with paintings, music books, mementoes, notes she has made on little pieces of paper about things that have been important to her. She never fails to ask riveting questions or give generous compliments. She has reveled in the marvels of the nature and the uniqueness of individuals. She has stayed cheerful, despite her deteriorating physical condition.
Music has been such a large part of Mother’s life, and she has passed a love of it on to us. I think one of the best ways of reaching her in these declining days and of uniting the family is through the message of the hymns we have all shared. I remember the family standing around the Burnham’s piano singing hymns after Dad’s funeral. Mom was accompanying. I think we all felt Dad’s presence. I felt a very strong spirit as I went through the hymnbook picking out hymns that I thought would bring comfort to the troubled soul:
Hymns for Mom: 108, 97, 166, 284, 124, 100, 292, 286;
Hymns for family: 165, 98 (334), 293;
Hymn that Dad and I sang many times at the end of his life: 252
How I long to meet Mother on the other side, as a strong and vital woman, working side by side with Dad and her beloved parents. I will be patient, but I will be conscious of my worthiness to see that glorious day.

Iris Roslyn Lillywhite Udall