The Rich Life: My Other Mom

In my life, there are a few women in addition to my own mother, who have played a mother-like role for me. The mothers of my close friends have always loved me and treated me like I was one of their own children. Liz Tripp, Barb Fawson, Sherry Larsen, and Debbie Allred have all been bonus moms to me and I'm so grateful for the influence they've had on my life and the relationship I still have with most of them (Sherry sadly passed away several years ago).

But when I married Jeanell, Carol Jefferies became my other mom and she has blessed and enriched my life ever since.

Carol can be intimidating. When Jeanell and I dated in high school I think I was a little intimidated by her. I don't know exactly why that is, but maybe because she is so accomplished, focused, and driven and in some settings she can be a little reserved. But once you get to know her, you'll find her to be warm, funny, and kind to a degree few are. I don't remember getting to know Carol real well when Jeanell and I dated in high school but I do remember on one occasion being at a gathering with some of her siblings and her putting her arm around me and how that made me feel accepted.

(On the subject of being focused, we joke about how Carol only looks at the road when she is driving. I have passed her and waved at her dozens of times over the years when she's been driving. I think she saw me and waved back once).

I've related elsewhere about how one of my first interactions with Carol before Jeanell and I even started dating was me (with a little help from my friend Aaron) breaking the legs off of her piano bench. (Way to make a great first impression Rich!). She never seemed to hold that against me.

Another early memory I have of Carol is she and her sister Jean organizing a group of kids around my age to learn songs that we would then go and sing at various sacrament meetings. I'm sure there were other songs that we sang, but the one I vividly remember is "In This Very Room."

After Jeanell and I had broken up and we were getting ready to graduate, I was part of a group that was going to sing "This Is the Moment" from Jekyll and Hyde at our graduation. Carol taught us the music and accompanied us on the piano as I recall.

When Jeanell and started dating again in the fall of 1999, Carol made me feel welcome from the start. I've related elsewhere how she accompanied Jeanell and I when we went to pick out Jeanell's engagement ring. But something else I remember from that experience is her going out of her way to make sure I felt ok about the expense (i.e., that I wasn't spending more than I felt I could afford).

The night Jeanell and I got engaged I remember returning to the Jefferies' home and Dave and Carol congratulating us. Carol made it clear that very night that she thought of me the same as one of her own children. "No 'in-law cards'," she told me.

The first few months Jeanell and I were married we lived with the Jefferies. Things didn't always go smoothly as I adjusted to being a husband and father and there were times I didn't handle situations as well as I should have. I still have letters of encouragement and advice that Carol wrote me during that time that helped me and meant a great deal to me.

Since marrying Jeanell, I have had more of a first-hand glimpse at the remarkable woman that Carol is. She has worked for and eventually owned and run the grocery store business that her great-grandfather started, expanding it to a second location in 2011. Running the store keeps her plenty busy, but she also ran and served on the school board for several years. On top of that, she auditioned and made the Tabernacle Choir for many years. Even after her retirement as a singer, she stayed involved with the choir for several more years, preparing elaborate gift baskets for the various guest performers that would come to sing with the Choir.

But I think what impresses me most about Carol is that despite all that she has to do, she never seems hurried or frazzled and always has time for her family. (Her daughters will say that sometimes "party day Carol" will come out, but I can't say that I've ever witnessed it).

Carol has always gone above and beyond as a Grandma and I love the relationship that each of my kids has with her. When Caleb was young his brothers would spend every other weekend with their dad. On those weekends, Caleb would go and stay with Grandma and Grandpa Jefferies so that he wouldn't feel left out or notice the absence of his brothers as much.

When Lila was born, that was the first birth of one of her grandchildren that Carol wasn't there for. Lila was born about 7 AM in Logan with a significant snowstorm happening. Carol missed her birth by about 15 minutes.

Carol is a terrific cook and prepares wonderful meals. She is a brilliant cake decorator and has made the wedding cakes for most (if not all) of her children and grandchildren. Her gift wrapping and presentation is elaborate, with each present having a personalized card instead of a label. I still have cards that were on gifts from years ago because they're too nice to throw away.

Carol has organized and taken us on numerous trips over the years that have contributed to the relationship we have as an extended family and have made wonderful memories that we will always share.

A funny experience from one of those trips was at Universal Studios. We were waiting to do the studio tour and Carol purchased a pretzel with cheese that she shared with some of the grandkids. Not exactly sure what happened or how it happened, but I believe it was Jeanell that first noticed that she had cheese on her glasses, then someone noticed cheese on her shirt. It seemed like everywhere we looked we would find more cheese.

Years ago I was asked to sing in sacrament meeting (I was never asked back) and asked Carol to accompany me. I'm pretty sure she had to miss a Choir performance to do it, but she immediately said she would accompany me, rehearsed with me multiple times, and perhaps most importantly made me feel that my performance was good.

When Dave and Carol built their new home, they included a large hall on the back of it that can accommodate a lot of people. Carol has two beautiful pianos in that room and allows local music teachers to hold recitals there, free of charge. This is just one of the many ways Carol serves the community, in her quiet and unassuming way.

When my dad died, Carol invited my mom and siblings and families to her home for an amazing dinner prior to my dad's viewing. That's a lot of people and was a lot of work (my son Devin and his wife Kareena were living with Carol at the time and helped with the preparations, as well as Dave), but was such an appreciated service to me and my family.

A few years ago, Carol was talking about going to Europe when she was part of the BYU Folk Dancers and said that they had seen Les Mis in London. I'm not the encyclopedia of musical theatre that Uncle Scott is, but I knew that Les Mis was not yet a thing at the time this Europe trip would have happened. I of course couldn't let it go and told her there was no way she had seen Les Mis in London in the early 70s. But I didn't let it rest there. I went home and did some Googling and found a travelogue of that trip on BYU's site. There were entries that Carol herself had written. We learned that it was in fact Fiddler that she had seen on that trip. And that's how I became the family fact-checker. Now, whenever someone in the family makes some kind of a claim, their warned that I will likely check to make sure their claim is true.

Carol has been a tremendous blessing in my life. Grateful to her (and Dave) for raising an amazing daughter, for loving me like one of her own children, and for being an amazing grandma to my kids. I love you Carol.