Ruth's Friends

Mom LOVED Marie Cooley and thought she was a near perfect individual. She was, in Mom's estimation, gorgeous, popular, smart, spiritual, kind, well-dressed, everything! Mom always talked about how she couldn't figure out why Marie Cooley wanted to be her best friend when there were so many other prettier and more popular girls to choose from. The two of them kept in touch over their married lives. I met Marie a time or two. She really was a lovely person, but no lovelier than Mom...in my estimation. She died fairly young of breast cancer. Don't know the year, maybe in the late 60's or early 70's.

When I was little, I remember Mom to have been good friends with Chieko Okazaki (also my 2nd grade teacher), Dwan Young, Donna Bauman, and of course, Barbara Smoot. She also had
many women friends whose husbands were friends of Dad, so Dad and Mom often went out socially, traveled, or formed study groups with other couples. Some who come to mind are the Thomases, the Lumans, the Sherwoods, and the Pierces.

Mom had a very tender relationship with Margaret Harmon, a childhood friend of Dad's from Cedar who developed MS in her adult life. Mom would often go over to help Margaret with her hair and other personal things. She was devastated when Margaret took her life by overdosing.

During the last decade or so of her life, Mom went walking every morning with a ward member named Sandra Allen. I think they developed a close friendship. Mom was a people person, as we all know, and made friends with everybody from distant relatives, to her cleaning ladies, to homeless folks she would meet down town. She would often bemoan the fact that she wasn't as elegant or beautiful or stylish as some of the people she spent time with, but that never stopped her from being a sincere and sensitive friend.