THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505120216
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 245 lines
Today is Mother's Day, and the thoughts and attention of sons and daughters all over Chesapeake will be turning to mom.
In recognition of the role of our mothers in the lives of their children, The Clipper staff asked several mothers and children in Chesapeake to share their thoughts about this special relationship.
When Andrea Holbrook-Bond gave birth last Sunday at Chesapeake General Hospital to her daughter, Morgan, she couldn't help but think about her own mother, Mable Holbrook.
``I was in the delivery room and I remembered how much my mother played with me and my sister when we were young. She spoiled us with love and attention rather than material things,'' said Holbrook-Bond. ``I remember my father once asked her if she would still play with us when we were 30.''
Now a mother herself, Holbrook-Bond has vowed to follow in the footsteps of her own mother and spend as much time with her child as possible.
``My mother said don't have a baby until you're ready to take care of it. I think her exact words were, `Once you have a child you're going to strap it to your back and take it with you everywhere.' ''
That's why Andrea and her husband of three years, Everett Bond, waited to have children. ``We're ready to be parents,'' said Holbrook-Bond. ``There's a big difference in being a mother and giving birth.''
Holbrook-Bond added that she plans to pass her mother's old-fashioned values down to her daughter. ``I grew up knowing that my mother was in my corner. I also knew I had a responsibility to do right by her and keep my head on straight. I'm going to tell Morgan that she has that same responsibility.''
Claire R. Askew, director of Chesapeake's Department of Parks, Recreation and Building Maintenance, said her mother was always the disciplinarian in her family.
``She has been strong her entire life,'' Askew said. ``She was schooled in the old principles.''
Askew's mother, Thelma Robinson of Easley, S.C., set firm rules which kept her two children in line.
``In our family, Mama was the one who did the punishment,'' Askew said. When she or her sister would misbehave, her father would simply say, ``Mama, you've got to take care of your girls.''
``My sister and I used to joke each other and say if anything ever happened where Mama and Daddy would separate, we would go and live with Daddy,'' Askew recalled with amusement. ``But I thank her every day for being the strong female that she was. She's always been the dominant force in our family, and she's kept us on a positive road.''
Askew said she will travel to South Carolina to visit her mother on Mother's Day. It will be a bittersweet visit.
``She's sick now,'' Askew said. ``They found a tumor on her lung, but we hope everything will work out all right. I believe she has the strength to overcome it. She kept us straight with that strength.''
In honor of his 75-year-old mother, Robert L. Phillips of Chesapeake wrote a poem.
He said he did it to show the appreciation he and four brothers - William, Richard, Barry and Michael - feel about the hard work Kathryn Phillips did in raising five boys while their late father, a 28-year Navy man, was away at sea.
``It was the strength of her character that held us all together,'' Phillips said from the Wimbledon Chase home he now shares with her. ``She was always there.''
Phillips said all five brothers now live in the area and visit mom often.
``She raised five successful boys,'' he said. ``Just about everything we do now is for her.''
Phillips and another brother are law enforcement officers, two others are successful mechanics and another is vice president and general manager of Continental Imports, a Volvo dealership.
Phillips said his mother's favorite pastime is listening to country music.
``She likes Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, artists like that,'' he said. ``She watches their videos on cable. It keeps her young.''
To Our Mother
To our mother,
as proud as she can be.
She has raised four brothers and me.
To our mother,
with her warm thoughts and ways,
Who has helped get us all
through many trying and wonderful days.
To our mother,
who on this special day
has given us the chance to say,
``We love you, Mother, on this Mother's Day.''
- Robert L. Phillips
``My mother always looks for the best in everyone,'' said Rebecca Adams, principal of Great Bridge Intermediate School. Adams' mother is Virginia White, 81, of Richmond.
Every year at Christmas, Adams said, her mother chooses someone special from her church or the community and writes him or her a long letter about how they have inspired her or accomplished something that maybe other people may not have noticed.
``My mother has written her Christmas letter for years and years,'' said Adams. ``Anyone that ever received a letter from Virginia White treasures it forever.
``I hope I have passed along to my three sons the importance of community service.'' added Adams.
``Respect and to give back to others in the community are the most important things stressed around our house,'' said Clay Adams, 16, the youngest son of Rebecca Adams. ``In looking ahead I think we will be responsible for strengthening values and morals that seem to have gotten lost in our generation.''
To her two children, Ann Titus of Chesapeake handed down a love for life and a sense of humor.
``She laughed easily,'' said her daughter, Roberta Bell. ``Every time we went somewhere, you could always tell when Mom was there because you could hear her laughing. She could always find something to laugh about.
``My daughter and I are the same way,'' said Bell of Moyock, N.C., a pharmacy nurse consultant. ``Mother is so loving and giving. She's so thoughtful about sending thank you cards and birthday cards. I wish I had picked that up from her. I think about it, but I don't do it. Even now, she still sends little thank-you notes and congratulations cards.''
Titus, who grew up in St. Marys, Ohio, has lived at Chesapeake's Sentara Village since 1989.
Titus said her own mother taught her to be neat and to keep a clean house.
``Mother loved to sew,'' Titus said. ``She made all my dresses until I was in high school. She loved to crochet. Although I learned to sew and crochet, I didn't pursue either like my mother did.''
Geraldine T. Boone said it was her mother who first encouraged her to study music.
Boone, who retired a few years back as choir director at Blair Middle School in Norfolk, still keeps busy as musical director of the Chesapeake Civic Chorus, teaching private piano lessons, singing with the Virginia Opera and attending music conferences, conventions and workshops across the country.
When growing up in the Portlock section of South Norfolk, Boone remembers how every Saturday afternoon her mother, Mattie Hayslett, would religiously turn on the radio to listen to the New York Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. She said the dulcet tones of Rossini, Verdi, Mozart, Wagner and others would permeate their Middle Street home.
``She loved opera and knew all the tunes to most major operatic works,'' Boone said. ``Because of that we knew all the tunes as well. We didn't know what the words meant, but we loved the music.''
Boone recalled that when she was only 3 her older sister, Marian, took regular piano lessons. After Marian finished her stint at the family keyboard, little Geraldine would jump up on the stool and tickle the ivories.
``One day Mama was in the kitchen cooking dinner while I was playing after my sister,'' Boone said. ``At first she said, `Marian, you sure do play beautifully, and you practice so long.' When she found out it was me, she yelled to her neighbor and anyone else who could hear down the street, `My baby's playing the piano! My baby's playing the piano!' ''
After that, Boone said her mother supported every musical endeavor she undertook.
``If something was going on musically, she was there. She was always there for me,'' Boone said. ``She always had the patience to endure my practices.''
Rosemary Lynch of Chesapeake paused for only a minute when she was asked to share a memory about her mother that has made a lasting impression.
``My mother raised seven children,'' said Lynch ``without ever raising her voice.''
``My mother helped me learn about respect. She has great respect for other people, for their property and their feelings,'' said Betty Kitchen of Chesapeake.
Kitchen is the only child of 93-year-old Elizabeth Butler, another Sentara Village resident.
``She taught me to be grateful for things that other people do for us, even things like being a friend. She would never fail to thank someone for a kindness,'' Butler said.
``She also taught me to place a high priority on education, especially in the medical field,'' said Kitchen, who has been nursing for 47 years. ``Family is also very important to us.''
For six years after Kitchen's husband died, she and her mother lived with Kitchen's daughter and her family.
``Those six years were good ones,'' she said. ``We did a lot for each other and with each other. My mother is wonderful.''
Butler, who was born in Washington in 1901, is a graduate of George Washington University, will be thinking of her own mother on Mother's Day, too.
``She was from Pennsylvania Dutch country,'' Butler said. ``She was a marvelous cook. She loved to work in the yard and, boy, could she sew!
``She had very high principles, too. She and her brother always went to Sunday School and church. She was a perfect mother and never had a gray hair. She was very friendly and had lots of friends.''
Katherine Charles, Marian Mathews, Betsy Rhodes and Caroline Wright were asked what each had learned from her mother and what each hoped to pass to her daughter.
Charles, Mathews, Rhodes and Wright represent four generations of women in the same family, beginning with great-grandmother Charles and coming down to granddaughter Caroline Wright. Last week they rejoiced with the birth of another daughter, Jordannah Rhodes.
``My mother, Alice Whitehurst, was a wonderful, kind, Christian wife and mother,'' said Katherine Charles, 78, the family matriarch. ``She taught us right from wrong and to always love and support each other because we were family. I hope I have passed to my daughters and granddaughters the love of family.''
``The importance of family,'' said Marian Mathews when asked what she learned from her mother.
``There is nothing more meaningful in life than family,'' emphasized Mathews. ``We learned to be there for each other and to take care of each other both physically and emotionally, which we've continued to do as adults. And because of Mother, we're rich in experiences and memories.
``As I see Betsy's family create their own family circle, I also see a continuing of our tradition to commitment to family. I want to encourage my grandchildren to be independent and to follow their dreams but to always maintain their family ties.''
``I learned how to love unconditionally,'' said Rhodes, 38, about her mother, Marian Mathews. ``No guilt trips and no strings attached. Mother loves us because of ourselves not because of our strengths or accomplishments or weakness or failures.'' Rhodes writes the ``Issues of Faith'' column for The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.
``I want Caroline and Jordannah to be intelligent, assertive, independent and instilled with self-pride and values,'' said Rhodes, ``and still be feminine, nurturing women, as my grandmother and my mother have been.''
``My mom is teaching us to make our own decisions, be responsible for our choices and to help each other,'' said Caroline Wright about her mother, Betsy Rhodes. ``I'm looking forward to teaching my sister Jordannah about our family. We're so lucky.''
``Get an education,'' is what Glenn L. Koonce, principal of Oscar F. Smith High School, remembers as his mother's best advice.
``Although my parents weren't educated, they knew the value of education, and they communicated it to me and my brothers and sister,'' added Koonce.
He said that his mother, Callie Koonce, used to tell him to work hard and earn an education. She said that an education was one thing nobody could ever take from him and that someday he would come to value it.
``Mom was right.'' said Koonce. MEMO: Staff writers Eric Feber, Janelle La Bouve, Jennifer C. O'Donnell and
Susan W. Smith contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
When Andrea Holbrook-Bond gave birth to Morgan, she remembered how
her mother spoiled her.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Roberta Bell says her mother, Ann Titus, handed down a love for life
and a sense of humor.
Photo by JANELLE LaBOUVE
Betty Kitchen, the only child of Elizabeth Butler, said her mother
always thanked someone for a kindness.
by CNB