I’m Don Sleight. I am the oldest of Mom’s four children.

Dad and Mom were married on December 7, 1940. Pearl Harbor was bombed exactly one year later.

Our family home was a white two bedroom located near the top of Marine View Drive at the west edge of Arbor Heights. It was a very happy home. Dad called Mom “Honey Bunny”. Dad would work on our 1937 Chevy in the driveway while Mom did gardening in the large rockery adjacent to the driveway. As a young child, I practiced rock climbing on the rockery.

In 1949 there was a blizzard, with heavy snow and high winds. The snow in our front yard drifted as high as the top of the picket fence along the south side of our yard. Dad put tire chains on our “new” 1947 Pontiac and drove to work at Boeing’s Plant 2 each day. Mom and I played in the snow. I rode my sled from 106th at the top of Marine View Drive about 1-1/2 miles down to the Fauntleroy Junction. The Junction was once called Endolyne because at one time the trolleys stopped there before returning to downtown Seattle. An old photo album shows Mom and Dad on the snow in front of our house with their skis on. Mom wore a grey ski bonnet (with tassels) that was trimmed with rabbit fur.
That winter we went skiing regularly at Stevens Pass. Each Friday night, Dad would drive to Swanson’s cabins (located between Goldbar and Index) and we would be greeted by Mr. Swanson’s shaggy collie dog “Brownie”. While riding up the “Daisy” rope tow, Mom’s skis separated and she hung on to the rope. She suffered a terribly painful injury to her right knee. Medical surgery for this type of major injury was not developed in the late 1940’s to repair her knee. Mom lived the rest of her life with a painful, damaged right knee.

Mom was always ready with mercurochrome or iodine and band-aids for the various abrasions and lacerations which I incurred during childhood play. She would “kiss the ‘owies’ and make them all better”.

When I was ten, Dad and Mom asked me “How is it being an only child”. I think something was in the works because Randy was born when I was 11. The family moved to the present house located near the north end of Lincoln Park two years later. Mom gave birth to twins (Dick and Laurie) when I was 13.

She was a GREAT Mom. She continued through her life as the loving center of our family. Mom cared for and loved everyone; children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I treasure the lifetime of memories that I have of my mother, Jean Moody Sleight.


Randy's comments...

My earliest memory of Mom was recalling her crying after she fell off the swing at our old house on Marine View Drive around 100th St SW. She had badly hurt her knee.
Later in the new house near Lincoln Park she would reassure or comfort me if I had fallen out of bed or had a nightmare when I was little.

I remember watching drive-in movies down near the Duwamish River as we waited to pick up Mom as she worked the graveyard shift at Boeing during the 50’s to help the family pay off the house, build a new ski cabin near Gold Bar in Snohomish County, or to buy some new cars.

When I broke my leg skiing at age 8, she taught me how to make a latch hook rug as I was laid up for six months waiting for my bones to heal. (It took six months to heal instead of three because of me showing off after I got my first cast off, by jumping off the rockery to show Mom how good I was with my crutches without my cast.  Anyway, I rebroke the leg and ended up in a cast for another three months. That's when Mom showed me how to do the latch hook rug after that second break.)

I always appreciated my Mom washing my baseball and football uniforms and making our sack lunches for school or giving us milk money or money for school bank day every week.

When I got into scouting she would gladly sew on my merit badges on my sash and any other awards that went on my uniform.

She taught me the love of history and helped me to learn more about my family tree especially the Moody clan as she studied and documented our own roots and genealogy.

Mom was easy to talk to and loved reading a good book. At church she was active in Readers, Church Mice, and Women’s Fellowship which she led one year.

She was a volunteer at Camp Colman for a nine year period as a Senior Leader and helped many girls learn crafts with their hands.

The last time I got to care for Mom on the weekend, we came to watch the play “Age Only Matters If You Are Cheese,” here at Fauntleroy which we both truly enjoyed.

I miss Mom, but feel she lived a wonderful life over her 90 years and she helped so many.


[ Laurie's words were read by her twin brother Dick. ]

"Three weeks ago this morning, my twin sister and I were beside my mother when she passed away.  Laurie was on her left, holding her hand.  I was on her right, counting her breaths until there were none.

And fifty-six years ago it was "ladies first" when we were born, so let me first read these words from my twin sister Laurie.

Laurie writes:

Mom always seemed happiest when her hands were busy. Whether she was at a ball game, or waiting patiently in the station wagon to pick us up after sports or school events, or on a family vacation, she was always working on a project. She loved to knit, and I still have my favorite sweater that she knitted for me when I was in the 4th grade. In fact, she asked me to wear it in a fashion show, sponsored by the PTA at Gatewood Elementary School. It was two colors of blue and had a beautiful pattern of white angora across the chest. When my own daughter was small, Mom surprised me by making a smaller version, but an otherwise identical sweater for her. I’m sure she never threw away any knitting patterns. Another memorable outfit was the orange and black clown suit that she made for me to wear on Halloween. That clown suit was passed on with many other special Grandma Jean hand-me-downs to some of her grandchildren.

How many people have ever made their own shoes? Mom once took a class at the West Seattle YWCA to learn that skill since she always had trouble finding shoes that fit right. So she made molds of her feet using Plaster of Paris and bought all the necessary tools along with leather, heels, and steel shanks. She ended up making a few nice pairs of shoes, and then moved on to her next project.

The beautiful Christmas ornaments Mom made with satin and stickpins have always been my favorite.

I can still taste the strawberry jam that Mom used to make after our strawberry picking outings. PBJ’s were a staple in our house, and Mom would often sneak an extra lick of peanut butter after making our lunches. Another thing we did several times was to motor in the family boat over to Blake Island, and pick plums in the old orchard. Mom had sewn large blue canvas bags to carry the bounty, and we would haul it all home so she could make delicious plum preserves.

Mom and I had one of those extra special mother-daughter relationships. After I graduated from high school, she and I took a two-and-a-half month trip-of-a-lifetime, and toured Europe by train. She had taken German lessons so she could get a student ID card. That allowed us to stay in youth hostels. At one point we even stayed in a convent in Munich. We just loved our adventure and spending time together.

Growing up with three brothers, I was always the “Tomboy.” At one point, as I was going off to college, Mom said, “Oh Laurie, I never taught you how to cook or to sew”. Well, I was often outside playing with the boys, and didn’t much care for the domestic things. But I’m sure many of her skills got passed on, as I did learn to become a good cook and to be good with my hands.

Some things are passed down from mother to daughter, like what type of mayonnaise you use, or how you fold laundry. — When my daughter was about three years old, we were folding laundry, and I noticed she would gently pat each item with the palm of her hand after neatly placing the item on the stack of folded things. Well, a couple years later when Mom was visiting us and helping with laundry, I observed the same pattern of patting, and realized I had picked up this habit from her, and passed it on.

I love my mom and miss her very much. But I realize that so much of her lives on in us, and for that, I am very thankful.


Dick's comments...

I hadn't put this in my remarks, but mom was positive. She was always upbeat. 
She would wake us up every morning before school with this song,
(sung) "It's seven o'clock...hurry up it's getting late."  That was our alarm clock!
 
Mom was present.  She could always hear me lift the lid on the cookie jar, even when she was downstairs in the laundry room.

The biggest crisis I knew, when I was young, was when mom got sick. When I was sick, she comforted. When I erred she forgave. She cheered my successes, and she kept my secrets.

Mom often reminded me that she got just what she wanted when she had her twins – a girl— and one with brown eyes.

She facilitated my dreams (no matter how trivial). She carefully sewed a mask and cape so I could become my favorite super hero.  She sacrificed her jewelry for a pirate earring (before they were fashionable).  A complete minuteman’s outfit for the bicentennial went to Scout camp with me. A Haida-style button blanket, shirt, apron and leggings clothed me as Allowat Sakima, Chief of the Fire.  Like Dorcas in the Book of Acts, she was beloved for the ways she blessed others with her crafts.
 
And she was the one who taught me how to bake cookies, a tradition I’ve preserved and passed on in the Sleight family.

For someone who struggled with reading because of her oft-interrupted early schooling, she became a lover of books. She would read to the family for hours on long vacation car trips ― and she sat in my office at the University of Washington and patiently dictated thousands of data points to me for my doctoral work while I typed them into my spreadsheet.
 
She gave me my start in an interesting way.  As the Gatewood Elementary School PTA president, she organized the end-of-year talent show. She called out maybe the only talent I had at the time – and made me the Master of Ceremonies.

A week after Labor Day in 1980, on a trip with my mom to Spokane, she reminded me of a friend I’d been fond of in high school. Less than a month later, Nancy Rutherford and I were engaged. Thirty years later I can say, “Thanks again, mom. You picked a good one.”
You can read in Proverbs 31 about the “good wife,” and it truly speaks of Jean. But one measure of a Godly woman you won’t often hear about is what the son-in-law and the daughters-in-law thought of their mother-in-law. In Jean’s case, she was dearly loved and praised by each one of them.
 
At the end of life, there remains only one question that really needs answering. Was her faith genuine? Had Jesus remained her Savior, Lord, and Friend? ― When it became too difficult for her to get to church, she and I would listen to University Presbyterian Church on the radio, and although I’d think she was sleeping, when the Lord’s Prayer was said…she’d chime right in with the congregation. When she sang around the house, it was generally a hymn.  And when my wife would, out of necessity, cause her pain as she doctored her feet, the name of Christ was vigorously (yet reverently) called upon for help.

I , for one, expect to see Jean again.  I pray that this hope of resurrection in Him is your hope as well.