By Danny Minton

Ilion Jones writes that “On the great biographer Ida M. Tarbell’s 80th birthday, someone asked her to name the greatest persons she had ever met. She responded, ‘The greatest persons I have ever met are those nobody knows anything about.’

“Once, the New York Times was asked to help a group of club women decide on the twelve greatest women in the United States. After due consideration, the editors replied, ‘The twelve greatest women in the United States are women who have never been heard of outside of their own homes.’”

Jones concludes, “I ask you, who was greater, Thomas A. Edison or his mother? When he was a young lad, his teacher sent him home with a note which said, ‘Your child is dumb. We can’t do anything for him.’ Mrs. Edison wrote back, ‘You do not understand my boy. I will teach him myself. And she did, with results that are well known. (Morning Glory, January 8, 1994)

I was fortunate to grow up in a time when many of us had mothers who could stay home and raise their children as they grew up in their younger years. My mother was there when we got home from school. She made sure we had home-cooked meals. I remember her making our clothes when we were in elementary school, packing our lunches, and, of course, having a bottle of mercurochrome (now banned by the FDA) or iodine for those many cuts, scrapes, and scratches from playing outdoors.

She was there to care for us when we were sick or injured. I still picture her sitting on the couch with my little brother, Gary, and his bandaged head after I accidentally hit him in the head with a golf club. She was there as we went through having the mumps and measles that were still around at the time. When I broke my neck playing football, she stayed in my hospital room while my dad drove my brothers and sister the 70 miles back home. 

After we adopted our two sons, my wife was able to be at home with them as they grew up. I saw the same thing in her that was in my mother. She was there when they were sick, often staying up all night to be there for them. She bandaged our children’s cuts and scrapes just as my mother had done mine, but with an FDA-approved ointment. She made fancy birthday cakes for them and spent many hours watching soccer games and school plays. She spent many nights sleeping on the couch when our oldest was having breathing problems from being sick. 

They were adopted, but she loved them as much as any mother who bore her children would. She felt their pains and hurts and laughed with them when things were going well. Most importantly, she prayed for them from the time they came into our home. She’s that example of a mother you see in Proverbs 31.

Today, many mothers have to find jobs outside the home. However, I see so many of them balancing work and kids. They still make sure they are fed and cared for when sick. They often get off work and spend the after-hours shuffling to whatever activities their children are taking part in. They are there for their games or performances. If need be, they take their personal work days off to be at home when their child is ill. They know that their primary love is family.

As Ilion Jones wrote, “‘The greatest persons I have ever met are those nobody knows anything about.” The tabloids and news programs will spend pages and hours discussing celebrities in all aspects of public life. They will be the ones who stand up on a stage and receive rewards and honors. Their faces will be seen on the covers of magazines and in stories that grace the screens of our televisions. Their names will be known by millions. But the ones that really matter in most of our lives are those women who have cared for our parents, who have given hours to us, who are there for our children, and those who are mothers to our grandchildren, and all those who have come before and will come in the future. Remember, the one person who will always love you no matter what is your mother.

You may not know them all, and some have passed, but they are still remembered. But to Lillian, Aline, Pearl, Dortha, Dorothy, Kathy, and Daniella, may God bless you for being great mothers in my life.

Danny Minton, a member of Southern Hills Church of Christ, is a hospital chaplain