Pat was—everyone says this but Pat really was—a wonderful mother to me and Nora. She was warm and generous, had a great sense of humor and a very lively imagination about what children's lives were about. She a great interest in talking to them and making their lives good. This wasn't just for me and Nora—her nieces, nephews, grandchildren, cousins, and children of friends all testify to this. Pat's mother, Dora, had—ahem—a rather sharp tongue and a tendency to nag. My mother told me when I was in my teens that she had made a conscious decision not to do that with her kids, and she didn't. I think this was akin to people who stop the chain of child abuse: we felt loved and valued, and she gave us the confidence to feel we could tackle anything. My birthday was Christmas day, and Nora's was the day before Halloween. Each of us had a birthday party every other year—on the off years we had just a family celebration. The birthday party I remember best was one of Nora's, which was a dress-up party. Nora and her friends went shopping to different rooms in our house, where they chose ladies dresses, and hats, and got some makeup put on. Then they had a ladies lunch, at which I and Marilyn Lewis and Lori Hartman (girls in my girl scout troop) acted as waitresses. Mom always made Halloween costumes for us—she thought the costumes sold in stores were tacky, which I'm sure they were, but we of course envied them. One year we wore our Mexican folk costumes, and each led a goat in the school parade. My cousin Lisa said recently that Pat was one of her favorite people on the planet—and she was certainly that to me, all my life.