by Rebecca Copeland | Aug 26, 2026 | Family, Memories
Mother always managed to turn hardship into opportunity. I’ll never forget our trip to Japan in the summer of 1976. Mother, Luke, and I traveled first to Portland to visit with older sister, Judy. After a few days with her, we flew to San Francisco where we had a long... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Aug 12, 2026 | Family, Memories
Mother was a natural healer. Even without a degree in nursing or training in first aid, she always knew just what to do. Although she was a rather timid person normally, when it came to patching someone up, she was fearless. My father liked to work on his mountain... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Jul 29, 2026 | Family, Memories
Scrape a knee, bump an elbow and Mother was the person to go to. She had a ready supply of Bactine and Band-aids, drops for swimmer’s ear, and needles for splinters. No matter how badly I banged myself up, she always made me feel better. Her healing properties didn’t... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Jul 15, 2026 | Family, Memories
Mother enjoyed keeping notes. She’d jot down recipes, make memos to herself, and keep lists. For a woman with five children, an active husband, and a full schedule of her own as a social worker and guardian ad litem, keeping notes was an essential strategy for staying... 
by Rebecca Copeland | May 13, 2026 | Memories
Ron perched on the edge of the desk. He held a book of poems in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “We’ll work on Japanese forms today,” he said. “The tanka. Show me what you’ve got.” Over the weekend he had assigned Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems from the... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Apr 8, 2026 | Memories, Retirement
Lately I’ve been going through drawers upon drawers of files, deciding what to keep and what to toss. Retirement approaches, and I need to clear out my office. I have more than 35 years to go through covering the work I’ve done at Washington University. Some files and...
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