In the summer of 2006 my mother, the former Martha Rose Ham of Charlottesville, VA passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at her home in Tallahassee. She went out in the back yard to do some tidying up late in the afternoon on a very hot and humid day. She loved this kind of activity and nobody could have convinced her not to do it. My father was doing office work, and when he went out to check on her she was lying on the ground immobile. A lifetime Marine and veteran of three wars, my father recognized that there was no life left in her. He and the paramedics did what they could, but to do avail. My mother was an amazing person, and to say she was down to earth would be a major understatement. All of her grandchildren, including our four children, knew her as Mimi. None of us will ever forget her contribution to our lives and her caring for everyone she had contact with. My mother was 87 and had been married to my father for 63 years. In the picture above, taken in 2004, are, from the left, my father, Mimi, her beloved brother Louis and her beloved sister Jane.