I was blessed to have a close relationship with my mother growing up, and one of our favorite activities was reading aloud together. In this way I was introduced to many classics of great literature, and lately, as I have been thinking about the subject of motherhood and carrying on this tradition with my son, quotes from some classic mothers have been coming into my mind. I wanted to share some with you all.
“And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel… Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy clothed with a linen ephod. And his mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice…” 1 Samuel 1:20, 2:18-19 from The Bible
“Anne sewed and planned little winter wardrobes . . . and sometimes thought of Hannah, weaving her little coat every year for the small Samuel. Mothers were the same all through the centuries, a great sisterhood of love and service, the remembered and the unremembered alike.” -Anne (Shirley) Blythe, from Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery (a sequel to Anne of Green Gables.)
“Holding a hand of each and watching the two young faces wistfully, Mrs. March [Marmee] said in her serious yet cheery way, ‘I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved and respected; to have a happy youth; to be well and wisely married; and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send . . . My dear girls, I am ambitious for you but not to have you make a dash in the world . . . I’d rather see you poor men’s wives, if you were happy, beloved, and contented, than queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace.'” -Mrs. March (Marmee), from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
“. . . Don’t you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties that make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear and forbear that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all? . . . Work is wholesome, and there is plenty for everyone. It keeps us from ennui and mischief, is good for health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion . . . Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty.” -Marmee, from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
“If wisdom’s ways you wisely seek,
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak,
To whom you speak,
And how, and when, and where.”
-Caroline Ingalls, from Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
“She knew that faithful, self-forgetting service and the love that spends itself over and over, only to be renewed again and again, are the secret to happiness . . . Margaret knew now that her mother was not only the truest, the finest, the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well . . .” -Margaret, from Mother by Kathleen Norris
God bless all of the mothers out their, and all of their daily sacrifices, seen and unseen, for their family.
