Letters From Mother-1

My Take

DiVoran Lites

My goal has been to learn to write as beautifully as my mother,Dora Bedell Bowers did. We started corresponding when Bill and I got married in California in 1957. Dora and Ivan, my parents were in Albuquerque, and my brother, with his wife and baby, were already in California.  When Mother went to heaven in 2006, the letters stopped. I’d like to share her love-letters with you. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.  

April 15, 1983

Dear Ones:

I worried and worried the other night about serving my nephew and his wife when they visited. It was a bit of a shame because we have all kinds of different foods to choose from.

In the morning, Roger called and said they would be here after lunch but could stay only a little while. They came at two and left before four. They picked some Valencia oranges from our tree, sampled the lemon iced tea, and ate some Ruby Red Grapefruit from Coachella Valley. Later, I took two pictures of them and served strawberry shortcake. Not the kind Mother would have served, sweet, mashed strawberries over sweet biscuits with fresh, heavy-whipped cream from one of the cows I had milked. Mine was bakery cakes, strawberries from right here in Vista, and cool whip.

I think they will remember the stop, anyway. Dad gave them a bouquet of roses, some grapefruit, oranges, and lemons from our little grove. I gave Nancy a hot-dish pad that I crocheted when we were fishing at the Salton Sea.

Well, the sprinklers at home work. I told my sister, Judy as long-range planning, I prayed for new stucco on the house, the sprinklers to work well, and a new carpet, and we are moving right along in the Lord’s good timing.

Today, we are going to your Uncle Lowell’s for dinner and the night, then on to your cousin Kathy’s for lunch tomorrow. It’s about a 5-hour round-trip drive to Victorville. Then Sunday, I guess we’ll go back to the Salton Sea. You’ll recall that your Grandmother surprised us all by getting on a jet and flying from Colorado to see Kathy. 

The wind blew and tore our awning at The Salton Sea last week. We were able to repair it. Fishing isn’t really good yet.

We have renters for the house, but they won’t keep our cat Patches. We’re getting along fine with the neighbor’s cat here at the Salton Sea. He spends the days with us and goes home to the trailer next to us at night.

You would have enjoyed the desert in bloom at the Salton Sea. We saw a dainty and lovely.desert Indigo bush. The bloom was like a single pea bloom in Indigo. A fishhook cactus was interesting; it had stickers in the shapes of fishhooks. There is a museum at Borrego Springs that is great for learning about the plants. The hills are covered with Orange Ocotillo and yellow brittle-brush, lavender, verbena, tiny white flowers, and white ones close to the ground. Best I’ve ever seen it. I have an article from our paper and a picture of the hills at Borrego Springs. In the fall, the colors change with the seasons.

                  Love you all lots.

Is there any chance of your coming to WA this year. We’ll pay for between LA and WA again.

Remember how cool it was.

DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn.  She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”

Tags: A mother's letters, Family Memories