On January 23, 1971, Sheila leaned against a huge white pine on the back side of Fort Mountain near Holly Creek. I leaned in to her, kissed her, and managed to ask her to marry me. I knew I liked her family already, but they were, at that point, HER family. And like most other young guys in love I was not much aware of the degree to which I was asking to assume a place in a second family. Well, Mavis Matthews, almost sixty at that point, had been raised in a very down-to-earth tribe. She had adopted four brothers-in-law. She had watched her own parents adopt sons-in-law and grandsons/granddaughters-in-law. And when on April 10th Sheila and I called her and Jay to tell them that we planned to marry, she adopted me. So when we hang the ornaments she gave us, I think of my other mother, Mavis Snell Matthews. No son-in-law has ever felt more loved by his wife's mother than me.
My favorite of the ornaments that were given to us by Sheila's mother is this. It was not intended as an ornament at all. She crocheted these booties for her first grandchild, our daughter Brannon. When they were no longer appropriate as foot-warmers we just hung 'em on the Christmas tree, and have done so again year after year after year since 1983.
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