We have been taught that remembering can help us maintain meaningful connections to those that went before us. “A Memory with My Mother” is our center’s “Remember and Record” topic this month. With both Memorial Day and Mother’s Day in May, this prompt made me think about my amazing mother, Elinor Critchlow Frost, and the impact she has had on my life.
Mom’s father passed away when she was only seventeen, and through her hard work (and the efforts of her mother) she graduated from Brigham Young University and worked as an English and journalism teacher where she was advisor for the school newspaper and helped the students achieve All-American ratings for their paper from the National Scholastic Press Association for several years. After being courted for 8 years (there was a war during part of it), she married my dad, Herbert Hamilton Frost, and they moved to Rexburg, Idaho where he was teaching at Ricks College. Sadly, shortly after they arrived there, Mom’s doctor told her that he thought she might never have children.
She taught five years in Idaho, and then my parents moved to Ithaca, New York, where my father was working on a PhD at Cornell University. Mom found a job at the university and typed papers on the side for extra money. Surprisingly, she discovered that she was pregnant. Unexpectedly, seven weeks before her due date, she found out she was having triplets! After we were born, the fun began! It was the “olden days,” and every day she sterilized 24 bottles and washed 35 diapers in a wringer washer, hanging them outside in the summer and over a clothesline strung up in the bathroom in the winter. She had a schedule, so when one of us woke up at night, they woke us all up and two were fed by Mom and Dad and the other was propped up. Dad was working on his dissertation and was president in a branch that was 35 miles away, so Mom had a lot of responsibility. She was also typing Dad’s dissertation. I really don’t know how she did it! Her journal of that first year also relates how she pushed the three of us uphill in a buggy to attend church while Dad was at the branch, canned fruit, permed her own hair and served in callings!
The rest of her life was spent in service to her family. She nurtured the three of us and our two younger brothers, cared for my grandfather for seven years while he lived in our home, supported my dad as bishop for eight years and in three bishoprics, helped grow and preserve fruit and vegetables from our large home garden and served lovingly and well as a Relief Society president, Primary president, and her favorite, Relief Society Cultural Refinement teacher. As an adult I appreciate that she “made” me keep my room clean, do chores, practice the piano, and study hard in school! She supported me in everything I did.
Although she claimed she did not like “genealogy,” she completed scrapbooks for her children, kept a journal for many years, and wrote life histories of her parents, grandparents, and our two brothers. I know about her life because of the records she created. Her family history contributions are a blessing to our family!
Elder Gong has taught, “Learn and acknowledge with gratitude and honesty your family heritage. . . Let good things begin with you.” As Memorial Day approaches, I am grateful for my mother and remember her for the remarkable influence she has had on my life.
– Marianne Bates, Consultant, Granite FamilySearch Center