Chapter Six

RECOLLECTIONS AND RETROSPECTIONS OF OUR MOTHER
AND
MY LIFE WITH HER

By Bryant Randall Clark

As I attempt to write about my mother I am aware that my recollections of her are interwoven with the influences which affected her life, her ideals and aspirations, her accomplishments and her day-to-day living. I shall attempt to write of her in terms of what she meant and means to me as a mother, and what she meant to me as a friend, an angel of mercy and a source of inspiration and influence. The details of her life are at once both vivid and fading in my memory. If what I say seems a little personal rather than biographical, it is because I feel it reflects mother's infuence and portrays the forces which influenced her life.

I should like to start with some of the scanty recollections of what she told me, and what I have gleaned from various sources of her background, parentage and her childhood.

Mother was first of all a Randall which means many things-- at least to those who are, or know the Randalls. One Randall once said to me of another Randall: "He has never met a stranger yet." Mother was not extremely out-going in a forceful or spectacular way, but she made friends easily, understood their motives and problems and their needs, and in good Randall fashion offered them her inspiration and aid and friendliness. She was also a Harley--not Morley as some records erroneously record--and the Harley traits gave her, as well as her bothers and sisters, a definiteness of purpose, a confidence in her planning and an almost stubborn determination to accomplish her goals.

She was not one to seek glory or praise. Her own satisfaction of doing what she felt was right was all the reward she looked for. Her ideas of "what she thought was right" were well defined and definite in her mind; so much so that at times she was considered to be a little blunt. Let me hasten to say that if she was not the most tactful person at all times, she had a quality of diplomacy which allowed her to move easily into difficult and delicate situations where few others could go.

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