To be a woman today, one is blessed with a multitude of choices that perhaps were denied our own mothers and grandmothers. And yet, our mothers and grandmothers were respected and honored for their appointed role. Did we really require liberation from this, I wonder? A letter from my grandfather to his daughter, my mother (he was often travelling):

Charleston, SC
Monday, March 18, 1935

Dear _________________,

Your mother has told me of the discovery you made a few nights ago, and I have thought of you a great many times since.

It is one of the most important milestones of your life – a life which I hope may be a very happy and useful one.

What mysteries our lives are! The manner of our origin – the nurturing we have received from our own mothers before our eyes see the world – the thoughtful pensive solicitation on the part of our mothers while our bodies were growing within their own, wondering, hoping, planning for us before we were yet born. And the mystery, just as great, of the growth of our bodies after we come into the world – our bodies, and our minds growing and developing and unfolding as though there were, indeed, a divine hand which had worked out the entire plan in some miraculous way.

Please be sure that there is no creature so beautiful as a good woman. You have been a good girl. You are now a woman. How I hope you will have as the prayer of your whole life, “God make me a good woman”! And that you will always be just that.

Do not try to understand the reason why you – as a woman – must be that way. As the moon changes every 28 days, so must you. Why, never mind. It has to be, that’s all. But remember, too, that as the moon controls the tides, and as she plays her part in the seasons, the years, the balancing of all earth’s forces – so may you, the woman, become one of God’s Chosen Vessels in influencing the good things which only good women can accomplish.

Do not consider yourself unfortunate. Do not pity yourself. You have nothing in the planning of these mysteries. You should offer no complaint that they are so.

But please – my own daughter – when you are in your room all by yourself – be grateful that you have reached this milestone, that you are the perfect, normal, healthy member of your sex. Be conscious of the high station you are called to, and vow that – no matter how other girls may do, you will always be the one to whom everybody can look, and say, “there’s the best woman I know.” Be glad that maybe you will some day marry, and that you can become the mother of children. And be determined that if that time comes, you will be as good a mother as your own mother has been, and is.

Please accept this little word of congratulations, dear – as just between us two. You are very precious to me. And you will never know the joy, and the heartache and concern a father knows when his first-born daughter reaches that period in her life you have reached.

I know you will never fail me.

Best love,
Daddy