The day before Mother's Day....

On this Saturday before Mother's Day my thoughts are on my precious mother-in-law, Leona Mabel Snyder. What a sweet, caring, and funny woman she was! I loved being her daughter-in-law.

I met Dennis in January 1966 and married him in April 1966. Can you imagine Leona's thoughts as she hears that her son will marry an 18 year old girl that he has only known for such a short while?? And I was afraid to meet her! You know all the stories about the mother of the guy you want to marry!! I didn't know what to expect. Would she like me??!! When I met her just 2 days before we got married, I felt like I had known her all my life. She hugged me, and accepted me right there. As did Dennis' brother, Gary, and Gary's wife, Sondra, and Dennis' dad, Edward. There was no awkwardness. I was going to be Dennis' wife, and a member of their family....welcome, come on in.

Ed and Leona came to spend two weeks with me while Dennis was on a Med Cruise courtesy of the U.S. Navy. They drove me all over Florida, and we had such a good time. Leona asked me to call her Mom and I did for all the years she was my mother-in-law. It felt right.

Leona loved to garden, and grew all kinds of veggies on their large 3 acre lot. They had blackberries, and strawberries, too. And four big apple trees. Leona kept the weeds at bay in that garden! And she expected us to weed our share, too! =) Of course, Dennis and I didn't keep up with those weeds like she did.

Mom's home felt like home to me. She wasn't big on decorating, and only had what she liked and felt comfortable with. I loved that. Nothing fancy, just a ton of love was in that house.

And boy! could that woman cook! She made the best vegetable soup in the world. She walked out in the backyard and picked what she wanted to be in that soup, walked back in the house and made the soup. Yummmmyyyy!

I had my first ever camping trip with Ed and Leona. Dennis and I bought a tent and went camping all the time with Ed and Leona. The campfires, the laughing, the hikes, the food, the marshmellows.............ahhhhhh, what a good time we had. We camped all during the growing up years of our three oldest kids. They were practically born in a tent. =) I remember one time when I woke up hearing a sound in our tent, and I was so sure we had a bear in there! Dana was only a new baby, and Denise was about 3 1/2 years old. I was terrified that my babies would be eaten by the bear. Somehow Leona knew something was wrong over in our tent, and she called out to us to see if she could help us. I was terrified for her to come to our tent! But she did come over, and she took both of our girls to their camper to spend the rest of the night. She never said she didn't believe we had a bear! Not for a minute would she say she didn't believe me! What a woman.........

Leona passed away in January 1996. Such a sad day for my family, but it broke my heart. I miss her so bad. She loved me, and she always wanted me to know that. She didn't hesitate to tell me she loved me and was proud of me.

It would have been easy to sit down and write pages about my wonderful mother. But how many women write about their mother-in-law? Mom didn't have any daughters, and she said I was the daughter she never had. I still love and miss you, Mom.