SAMANTHA

She was the first. From the time she was born I have had the title of Mother. That's what I wanted--to be a mother. She was born on a Wednesday afternoon at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. The only one of our children not born at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake. (Is that why she's different?) We drove to the hospital early that morning and everything stopped. Since she was already a month late, the doctor told the nurses to start things going and I stayed. Dad read to me from Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley" for a while until the doctor came. (Dr. Ireland.) He told dad it would be a while, so maybe he should go home and rest. So dad did go home and rest. He came back in time for her birth, but dads couldn't come in the delivery room in those days, anyway.

We named her Samantha. There was a TV show at the time called Bewitched. The lead character was named Samantha and she was a Witch. Most people assumed we had named our daughter after the TV character. But it is a family name. My grandmother was Samantha Madsen Nelson and my mother was Lola Samantha Nelson Brimley. Dad was reluctant about the name so I said we could call her Mandy or some such thing. Well, I couldn't then, nor since, call her anything but Samantha. And no one else can call her anything but Sam. (Can you imagine her as Mandy?)

We took her home Saturday morning. Mama and Daddy fell for her immediately. (She called Daddy, Wilford, as soon as she was able.) When she was 9 mos. old we moved to Utah so that Dad could finish school. I will never forget the look on my mother's face as we pulled out in our Dodge Dart pulling a huge Uhaul. It was on this trip that Samantha got sick with her first ear infection. We didn't find out what was wrong until we got to Salt Lake two days later.

Being a mother was a dream come true. I can't say I have always been the best, but I can say I have always loved it.

Samantha is the child who first made me a grandmother, too. So the cycle goes on. I watch her -- mother, serve, and befriend and I thank my Heavenly Father for sending us children who would teach us so much and be such great examples.