Fern Ford Wolfe

is honored with a Brick from Carol Wolfe Konek.

As I contemplate the eighty-six years of my mother's remarkable life, I celebrate her amazing qualities. Fern Ford Wolfe was the second child in a family of ten, born in a sod house on the Irish Flats, 22 miles southwest of Meade, Kansas. She grew up in an extended family, surrounded by cousins and double cousins born to the Lowreys, Keltners and Fords families in which the brothers and sisters of one family married the sisters and brothers of a neighboring family, producing a clan of hard working and hardy farmers and farm wives.

Fern worked in the fields along with her sisters and drove a truck when she was a mere child. She "escaped" to town to go to high school, where she lived with the family of Hazel Wood, who along with Norman Wolfe, arranged for Fern (whom they called Dizzy) to go out with Leonard, whom they believed to be as shy as Fern.

Fern's letters to Leonard during the time she prepared for the teaching certificate, which would permit her to teach all eight grades in a one-room schoolhouse, reveal her admiration for her suitor, along with her ambivalence about marriage. Leonard would make most of the decisions in their more than fifty year marriage, and Fern would prove herself to be as loyal, loving and enduring as the Ford, Keltner and Lowrey women had taught her to be.

She had won a prize as the prettiest girl in the county, and another prize with the highest scholastic scores in the county. Leonard knew he had the prettiest, smartest girl in the county, as he knew he could count on her to stand beside him, regardless of what came.

She gave birth to the children he wanted, advanced their careers and considered their needs before her own. She sewed her own and their clothes, took in boarders to put him through college, worked as a draftsman in an aircraft plant on two occasions; during WWII, and later, moved to California, then back to Kansas to keep books at the Wolfe Motor Company, living under the same roof with his parents because Leonard thought it practical, and returned to California, in search of his dream, where she earned an Associate's Degree, learned to climb mountains, to swim and to do white-water rafting and distance bicycling. She fulfilled his dreams, posing for his camera, hosting his students, and encouraging his children.

When her brilliant husband, the love of her life, lost his mind, she took care of him, patient and enduring to the end of a marriage that remains to me, a wonder.

Remarkably, she not only survived, she prevailed. After his death, she kept swimming, kept walking, attended concerts, had a gentleman friend, and remained a source of comfort and inspiration to me, to my brother, Tom, my sister, Linda, to her grandchildren, Jill, JD, Jana Jeff, Will, Gregory and Warren, and to their children, Dylan, Damon, Ian and Kelsey.

To tell the story of my mother's life is to tell of a woman inspiring herself, facing challenges, without complaint, remembering her costs, her roots and maintaining her connections while showing everyone she touches the meaning of endurance and humor. My mother is forthright and practical, optimistic and generous. She is curious about the lives of everyone in her large and various family. She will live a long an wonderful life and will receive the love she so richly deserves. I honor her for all she has endured and for all she has given.

Submitted by Carol Wolfe Konek