Kinkade reflects on her mother’s life and legacy

The Dec. 25, 2025 issue of The Beacon contained a Letter from Sally on page 25 titled "Let's look at a letter Mum wrote in December 1944."

Would you like to see Mum's high school graduation picture, which was taken in June 1939 when she was 20 years old? That's because after she completed the eighth grade at a one-room schoolhouse on the Bean Road in Mt. Vernon, Maine, she stayed home for a year to help Uncle Arthur do the farm work at her grandparents' farm. Then she "boarded" with Bert and "Auntie" Robinson in Monmouth, Maine 25 miles from home, when she focused on home economics at Monmouth Academy.

Her graduation class had 16 members. She made her graduation dress. Wasn't she beautiful? Do you wish every child could think their mother was the most beautiful woman in the world? She married Daddy Nov. 29, 1939. I was born when she was 24 years old.

Didn't her letter to her Aunt Amy paint a good picture of what it was like in December 1944? Surely, she felt completely out of control, yet she was doing what she could do and having to wait and trust. Those two words are just as important right now, it seems.