My Mom, Patricia Ann Gottsch

Helpful Hints

She often said, "If you look in the mirror too long, you'll turn to a pillar of salt".
(As a teenager, I was quite insecure - and thus self conscious and always checking something in the mirror). I think she wanted me to be humble and authentic.

Regarding boys, she would say, "Look at his family". She believe you could tell a lot about how he treated his mother, what he learned from his dad, if he had many siblings, etc. She was right.

When I asked her where babies came from, she said, "When a mother and father love each other soooo much, God gives them children". (I was 14 and didn't have a clue, so I bought it).

She used to watch me from the front porch as I followed my brothers to school. I think I lopped along just like them. So, she told me, "Stand up straight so that your head touches the sky, and suck in your stomach". I still do that.

And when I was picked up for a date, she'd yell from the front porch, "Remember your body is the temple of the hold spirit". Nuff said.

My Mom.

My mom, Patricia Ann Gottsch, maiden name, Dodt, was the 4th child in a Catholic family of 10. There were six girls and four boys. I think she was the child in the middle who got lost. Her father was in real estate, had a restaurant on the beach in Santa Cruz, was a staunch Catholic who invited the priest over to supper on Sundays. I only know she was a gift wrap girl at J.C. Penny Company and that her dad taught her to save her money. When my dad met her at a dance in Santa Cruz, she was 20. They married when she was 21. Honeymooned in Lake Tahoe. My dad says she cried all the way there because she didn't want to leave her family. My dad was 23. They were so young.She became a mother and a homemaker. To me she was like Doris Day. Naive, sweet, innocent. She prepared 3 square meals a day, cleaned house, did laundry like a Gap employee who folded clothes crisp enough to display in a store, rolled her blonde hair once a week, wore only lipstick, and idolized my father. She sang the French song, "Ce sera sera, whatever will be, will be", to us. She listened to Roger Miller albums. She woke me up when Elvis Presley or Tom Jones were on the Ed Sullivan Show.She rose at 5:00am every morning to make my dad a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs and coffee. Then made lunches for all us kids, customized to our taste for mayonaise, mustard, balony or cheese only sandwiches. She scrolled our names on neatly folded brown paper bags in beautiful red cursive with a red ElMarco felt pen and lined them on the top of the bookshelf by the door.We wore neatly cleaned pressed uniforms and went to Catholic school. She made life beautiful. She believed in love, God and always stood by the underdogs.