Anna Lee Kelley
Since Mother's Day has just past, let me take time to introduce you to my Mom. Anna Lee Kelley was born on October 3, 1930 to Talton and Annie Bischer. She was a mischievous and active young child who was stricken with polio in October of 1934 just after her fourth birthday. Her parents were told that she would not live to see Christmas.
But, live she did! After six months in a polio ward at hospital in Gastonia, she returned to the family home in Randleman, North Carolina. Although the Bischers were a poor farm family struggling through the Great Depression, they found a way to take young Anna Lee to Greensboro, NC (20+ miles away) every other week to see the doctor. Due to the sacrifice of her family, she continued to make progress and was soon walking with the aid of braces and crutches.
Mom soon was back to a pretty normal childhood (in spite of the braces and crutches). She was a cut-up and often the instigator of mischief with her friend Charlene. Ask me sometime and I will tell you about some of their pranks. The four year old who would never see Christmas entered school at age eight and graduated from Randleman High School in 1950 at the age of nineteen.
After high school, she attended business school in Greensboro. While eating lunch at Woolworth's there, she met a young airman, John Kelley. They soon married and settled on the farm with my grandma and grandpa. Life was good and the business school days were gladly left behind. Mom's real passion and desire all along was to be a wife and mother, but Mom's doctors had warned her against trying to have children. They sternly advised that a pregnancy would certainly end in miscarriage and put her own life in jeopardy as well.
Needless to say, she didn't heed that advice. Did I say that Mom was determined and stubborn? To her great joy, she found that she was pregnant in March of 1955. On November 2nd of that year, a baby boy was delivered by caesarean section and her ambitions were fulfilled. After the birth, mom spent six weeks in the hospital in a body cast to strengthen her spine which had been taxed by the strain of carrying me to term. What amazing love and sacrifice!
Many people have impacted my life and I owe each one a debt of gratitude. Yet, I owe my Mom a debt that can never be repaid. Anna Lee Kelley not only gave me life, but she gave me an example to follow. I have had the privilege of knowing many great individuals, but none of them compare to Mom. She is a true hero.
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all." Proverbs 31:28-29 (English Standard Version)
