Not Your Typical Mother-in-Law

Let me tell you about one of the most remarkable women I have ever been blessed to know.

 

I’m just back from accompanying my 93 year-old mother-in-law, Ailsa, from Los Angeles to Huntsville, Alabama.  She spent two months with her daughter, and I volunteered to be her “escort” back home, where she lives quite independently.  (Even though I’ve been widowed from her only son for nearly five years, we remain close.  One of the benefits, if you will, of not being divorced: you get to keep the good family members.)

 

Ailsa remains dynamic. Spunky, even. Red hair, blue eye shadow, big diamonds.  She’s incredibly vain, which is actually one of her charms.  British accent—she’s from Wales.  She’s also stooped, frail, unable to walk more than a hundred paces, can’t open any screw tops by herself…and insists that driving her Lincoln Town Car makes her feel “relaxed.”  Sure, a few health issues.  A little high blood pressure here, a little glaucoma there.  She hates when people can't talk about anything but their health.  "Don't they know how boring they are?"

 

We had egg salad sandwiches and champagne while we hung out in the Admirals Club, waiting for our flight from LAX.  Formerly a Tiger Woods fan, she read the latest Vanity Fair I offered her, the one with Tiger on the cover. “Such a sad man,” she declared.  “He’s a rotter.”

 

We arrived at her place later than expected. A 2.5 hour flight delay, then the main route from Nashville was blocked off by police cars and barricades. (Ailsa can only tolerate direct flights, so the plan was to fly LAX-BNA, then rent a car for the 2+ hour drive to Huntsville…and, oh, by the way,  the car had to be a Grand Marquis.  She adores big automobiles.)  So, thanks to GPS, we meandered the 139 miles by way of two-lane, S-curved roads, in the dark, through tiny Tennessee towns with speed limits of 35 mph.  Ailsa thought it was fantastic.  "We're having an adventure!"

 

The next day, people began calling to welcome her home.  She was tired after our eleven hour trip, and planned to “be lazy” on her first day back. Then, while I was out, getting groceries and supplies, she hatched the idea of having a “reception” to just deal with everyone at once.  After all, she keeps champagne in the refrigerator.  At 93!

 

Ailsa married Leslie, when they both lived “across the pond," in Great Britain.  They emigrated to Canada, and Leslie began a career that would hopscotch them across the USA.  She had four children in six years.  She was the anchor of the family, wife to an eccentric physicist.  He would go on to become a quality expert for Boeing and NASA.  He would be the key Expert Witness in the Ford Pinto case, the man who would tell the jury that the design of the Pinto was never safe.  But Ailsa was always the proverbial "woman behind the man."

  

They were married nearly 60 years, until this brilliant man, who perpetually forgot to tie his shoe laces, fell while sweeping the porch, tripping on one of those untied laces. It happened on Ailsa's birthday. Leslie died two weeks later, from complications of the broken hip he sustained in the fall.

 

She mourned, she grieved.  Eight years later, she visits his grave regularly.  On the anniversary of his death, she brings a bottle of Chardonnay, and toasts him.

 

If you're in Huntsville, drop by.  She will serve you champagne--or whisky, if you prefer--while she tells you about getting her driver's license when she was 39, with all four kids in the back seat...

 

Meet Mary Ailsa Neill Ball, who will be 94 on March 13.  This photo was taken when she was 91.  Her financial advisor asked her for a picture to hang on the office wall.  Not having a recent photo, she went to J.C. Penney's.  "I sat there will all the babies until it was my turn!"

 

You’ve got to love this woman. 

 

Comments

[Lauralee]

This city girl plans to retire in Huntsville. I hope Ailsa is still around when I get there. What a woman!