I have no reason to know if Bill wrote the obituary, but it does stand to reason that he did. If so, I can declare Bill to be a man of few words and uneven spelling.

If the obituary had been left up to me, I might have included that Mary died 4200 miles from where she was born and 1700 miles from where her mother was buried. And that she buried five of her children but still had children in three states and two countries, and, by my rough estimate, 39 grandchildren. All while surviving for 36 years as a single woman in a rough and tumble world.

Mary likely didn’t meet all of her grandchildren. Polly had kids in Wales after Mary was stateside; Charlotte had kids in Alabama after she went her separate way; Margaret had six kids in Wisconsin after Mary split for Montana. There was even one grandchild that came along after Mary passed. My mom!

So why Muskegon Michigan? Why Bayfield, Wisconsin? Why Kalispell, Montana? To quote Iris Dement and her song Let the Mystery Be: “No one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me, I think I’ll just let the mystery be.”