Anica “Anna” Gies
Mama was the rhythm of our home and our primary shield. A valedictorian at nineteen, she was a brilliant mind navigating a difficult life. In a house of mud and straw, she built an invisible fortress for her three daughters. She was the one who threw open windows in...
Charlotte Marks
When I was a single mother with a school-aged daughter Tamra and a black Labrador (Jewely), I was lucky to have Charlotte Marks as my neighbor. Charlotte was an older Quaker widow who volunteered with the Red Cross after a nursing career and raising two daughters...
Laura Belle Palmer
Born into a hardworking farm family where austerity, both physical and emotional was required, my mother brought all that plus her own dreams of a lighter more fun-filled life to be with my father. Where she grew up never acknowledging family birthdays, she made sure...
Pattie Ladd
From the moment we met, when I was 23 and she was 41, Pattie Ladd was an ally, a soulmate, a forever-friend. We read lesbian poetry out loud; we hiked amid waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge outside of Portland, Oregon. We deconstructed the state of the world and...
Shirley Berkun
My Mom was fiercely independent and loving and passed away last year at the age of 97. Her legacy, as the heart and soul of our extended family will continue in her strong, independent daughters, granddaughters and great granddaughters, and of course, all their...
Nora Lee Dandar
Nora: my 16 years older than me, sister. I miss her still. She loved to sing and the-earliest-to-arrive wildflowers and listening to your stories. Nora approached life with wonder, and she knew how to giggle. She was a quiet force: in her fierce and steadfast social...
Anne Maloney
The best advice I ever received from my mother was: pay attention to my gut feelings; live my life to the fullest; be sensitive to others’ feelings; don’t follow the crowd and don’t be governed by what others think; in the end you have to answer for your own actions....
Aminata Traoré
My mother was an exceptional woman and mother to all. She left an indelible mark on my life. As a young woman from Burkina Faso, West Africa, Aminata Traoré followed her husband to Senegal. She spent her entire life far from her native home Bobo Dioulasso, becoming...
Sylvia Boorstein
Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, has been teaching Dharma and mindfulness meditation since 1985. She is a founding Spirit Rock teacher, a psychologist, a writer, a yoga teacher, a justice activist, a teacher of Torah, a devoted mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Sylvia...