South Mountain Villager

My hero is Verna McClain.  She has been a driving force and inspiration in our family’s lives.  She raised three children all while working both at home as a wife and mother and running her own business or working for someone else.  She raised us to be honest, trustworthy, and respectful to others.

Our mother has been there for us through the good and bad times in our lives.  Some examples of our hardships would be sickness, failed relationships, the birth of our children, and when we lost children due to illness.  I don’t know what I would have done without her when my son was diagnosed with terminal cancer when he was two yrs old.  For the next three years, she spent every night with him when he was in the hospital this enabled my wife and I to be home with our daughter, and get some rest.  I don’t know how many times she has opened her home to one of us when we needed to come back home while we were having some kind of problem in our lives.

She has also had a hand in raising her grandchildren and her great- grand children.  As of now she has Eleven living grandchildren and twenty-four great- grand children.

At ninety-one years of age, she has out lived her three sisters and one brother.  She is still very active in her church and community.  She has received many awards for the great deeds she has done for the community. She humbly accepts these awards because she didn’t do these activities to gain any recognition for them; but rather she felt it was something that needed to be done.

I have heard many people say Verna McClain is my hero and inspiration to try and live a better life, But no one knows our mother and friend as we, her children, do.

I just want to say, ”Mother thank you for every thing you have done in our lives to make us the people we are today”.

Tom