Roxanne Rustand is back today to tell us about her mom whom I also love. After all, she loves my books! Here’s Roxanne:

“Strong women, brave stories. What a wonderful theme Lyn has, to carry through all of her novels! I love her books for that very reason–along with the wonderful writing, of course. I think so often of my own mother and grandmother, when I see Lyn’s brand. My mom grew up during hard times, as everyone of that generation did. When the depression hit, her family lost the very rural Kansas farm they’d been living on–which had never prospered at any rate– and they ended up living in a dirt-floored basement. Not a house–because nothing but the basement of this place could be completed, after times got hard.

Mom talks of how my grandmother tried to keep it clean, but how do you keep a home and four small children clean with a dirt floor? During those years, a toddler sister drowned and the beautiful, eldest sister was killed in a car/train accident on Christmas Eve. Life must have been unbearably difficult on many levels, yet my grandmother soldiered on, baking bread every day for the neighbors, bartering it so that her children could have a ride to grade school and have an education. To attend high school, my mother had to move to a distant town and work as a live-in maid.

After that, this girl who grew up dirt-poor gathered the courage to move even farther away, to attend nursing school in Winfield, Kansas, where she became an R.N. Despite her early poverty and hardships, at the age of 93 my mother is still one of the most gracious ladies you could meet. She is still fiercely independent, still maintains her own, beautiful home, and refuses to have regular help despite some physical infirmities that make some days very painful for her. Though it’s more of a challenge for her now, she is still a delightful hostess who loves company and must have everything “just so,” and she still has a wonderfully sharp sense of humor.

She also still has her strong Swedish stubborn streak–inherited from her indomitable mother–though when she digs in her heels, it’s always with a firm smile. Maybe that’s part of the secret to overcoming troubles in life–the tenacity, stubbornness, determination and faith in God to take what comes and to rise above it–along with a dash of humor!