May 10th, 2025. Those of us who are truly lucky have more than one mother. They are the

cool aunts, the elderly ladies, the family friends, even the mentors who whip us into shape.

By my count, I've had at least eight mothers.

One of the most important was Sally Adams-Baskham-Auggen-Stern.

Mrs. A, a widow who had played cutthroat bridge with my grandmother in the 1950s, lived near my family in Maine in the summer. I began vacuuming and weeding and

painting for her when I was about 12, but it wasn't long before my time at her house stopped being a job.

She was bossy, demanding, sharp as attack, and funny and thoughtful, and she remembered most of the

century. She would sit in her rocking chair by the sunny window in the century. She would sit in her rocking chair

by the sunny window in the kitchen, shelling peas and telling me stories while I washed the floor

with a hand sponge to spin out the time. Sally, not Sarah, Bascom, was born on December 25, 1903. For folks in Maine keeping score, that made her almost a

full year older than Millard Robinson, a fact she loathed. She was the oldest of six children and spent

her youth taking care of the younger ones. When I once asked her what was the most important

historical event in her lifetime,

this woman, who had lived through the Depression and both world wars, answered without hesitation,

the washing machine. It had freed her and her mother from constant laundry. She could finally

have some leisure time, which she spent listening to the radio

and driving in cars with boys. Because her mother always needed her at home, it was not she,

but all her younger siblings who went to college. By the time Mrs. A. was an adult, she was certain

she wanted no part of motherhood. Mrs. A never forg an adult, she was certain she wanted no part of motherhood.

Mrs. A. never forgave her sister for driving her Model T through a field.

She saved aluminum foil not because of World War II, but because of World War I.

She supported herself and refused to marry until she met an older man who offered to take her

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