Anna Derby, Mutual 5 My ….

Anna Derby, Mutual 5 My Mother: Wonderful and Resilient It has been already 16 years since my mother passed away in the summer of 2005 but sometimes I still imagine I would hear her voice if I called Korea.

My mother was born and raised in small town southwest of Seoul. She was one of six girls, who was not given a higher eduction because, at the time, it wasn’t deemed necessary to find a good husband and become wife and a mother.

At age of 18, she married and at 19, she became a mother.

In all, she had nine children, losing two daughters in infancy. She did not have many resources or convenience in her life.

For her, being a mother was the most important role of all.

My parents wanted their children to have as much education as they could afford, an opportunity they did not have.

Our middle class family—my mother and father and seven children—was happy growing up and then we lost our father to a heart attack.

I was only 20 years old, and my mom was a widow at 49 years age. We didn’t have much to hold on to. The only sibling who had finished school was my oldest brother Bok Kyu. He had a good job at a bank in Seoul. With his sacrifice, the rest of us were able to finish our educations, and life went on. All of my siblings ended up settling in America, Germany and Vancouver, Canada.

My siblings and I missed our mother dearly as she stayed in Korea. We all called her weekly, but we had to make sure it was not during her prayer time. When she was 60, she converted to Christianity from Buddhism. She spent one hour a day praying for her children, grandchildren and their families.

Throughout her 89 years life, we had many significant moments and family affairs. One of the happiest came in the summer of 2001. My daughter Jane was to be married in a one-of-a-kind wedding in Malibu.

My siblings and I weren’t sure my mother could travel. She was 85 years old, suffered from painful arthritis, and the flight would be a grueling 11 hours. But I knew she wouldn’t miss her granddaughter Jane’s wedding, no matter how challenging it was to attend.

Her once-in-a-lifetime experience began with rehearsal dinner to meet the groom’s family and friends. A beachside wedding was held the next day. It brought her to tears. After that there was sightseeing in LA, a trip to the Santa Monica Farmers Market, to Brentwood and a Getty Center visit, with each of nine family members taking turns pushing her wheelchair.

It was most precious to spend time with her as a family. We all got to tell her how much we appreciated all she had done for us. Our hearts were filled with joy that we were able to show her love. My mom was fragile and vulnerable, yet she was determined to spend every minute possible with her children. The memory of that trip persists to this day as I pay tribute to my amazing mother on this Mother’s Day.

Ethel Carter, Mutual 2 My Mother: A Great Influencer My mother, Essie Mildred Bohannan Carter, was a great influence on my life. She was born on the 4th of July, 1909, in Huntsville, Arkansas. As a child she was rather shy and timid, but she was very protective of her younger brother and carried pebbles in her pockets on the way to school to use against any bullies who might attack him.

Essie’s family moved to California in 1928, after she attended college for a year at the University of Arkansas. They settled in the town of Fullerton. She married my father, John Cecil Carter, in 1934, during the Great Depression. She and Cecil bought a 2-acre farm in Anaheim on Ball Road three years later. I was the youngest of their three children, born in 1942.

As a farm wife and mother of three, Essie was a very hard worker. She loved animals and she and Cecil had a variety of animals, besides family pets, during the 40s.

At one time they had a thousand rabbits in hutches. Essie would often have to save baby rabbits when they fell out of their hutch by putting them on a newspaper in our kitchen oven, propping the oven door open a crack and putting the heat setting very low.

She helped plant a huge vegetable garden and fruit trees and canned green beans and peaches for the family to enjoy during the colder months. She was known for her boysenberry cobbler recipe.

I have fond memories of my mother rocking me as a toddler. She sewed dresses for me on a Singer Sewing machine with a treadle when I started school. She encouraged my love of singing and got me started taking accordion lessons when I was 9. She made sure I attended Sunday School and church, and read the Bible. She encouraged me to study hard and prepare to graduate from college to become an elementary school teacher.

I became a caregiver for my aging mother in 1997. She lived to the age of 93, having lived in Seal Beach Leisure World for the last nine years of her life.

Anna Derby's daughter Jane Mohon with her grandmother, Bok Nyu Lee, at Jane's wedding in Malibu.