This morning, I attended the funeral of Helen Bauss. She was 77 years old.
Sister Bauss first entered my life sometime in my teenage years. She was called as Young Women's president, and as a Laurel, she taught our Sunday lessons (so I guess it was when I was either 16 or 17). She is one of two Young Women's presidents that I can remember having (the other being her successor, Elaine Starko, who was around when I graduated high school).
I remember going to Girl's Camp one summer, and she was our leader (hence she must have been with us when I was a Mia Maid). I remember Sister Bauss as being so much fun. She kept us laughing long into the night, and never lacked a smile. I remember one night I woke up in the middle of the night and I woke her up and just started a conversation with her (we shared a bunk bed). She was more than happy to talk to me and laugh with me. I loved it.
Being only semi-active (I didn't go to weeknight activities), I'm not sure what she thought of me. Plus, I didn't have an active mother, and my step-father was very strange. When I think about girls like that in my own YW organization, it's easy to marginalize them because they don't fit the typical mold. Maybe she felt like I was a bit unusual, but she never let on.
After my freshman year at Mt. Holyoke, I had about seven months before I got married. My mother threw me out of the house because I was getting married, and I hopped between houses where I was asked to either house-sit or pet-sit. I'm not sure how people found out that I needed a place to stay (hello ward council, except that my non-member piano teacher also asked me to house-sit for a while) but it worked. However, come October, I had run out of places to stay. I had all of my worldly possessions in three large brown boxes in my tiny Honda Civic hatchback. Sister Bauss somehow found me and asked me if I would like to stay with her. I took her up on her offer immediately, seeing as I would be sleeping in my car otherwise.
She gave me my own room, my own key, and let me come and go as I needed to. She did have a very specific rule though about my bath towel: I wasn't allowed to hang it on the furniture, but instead was to hang it on the towel rack that was installed on the back of the door. To this day, I install towel racks on the backs of my children's bedroom doors. She was a god send. And it took only a week to start calling the Bausses "Mama and Papa Bauss" which they didn't mind.
She also threw me a meaningful bridal shower. I needed everything seeing as I had nothing but three brown boxes to my name. All of the "heavy hitter" women in the ward were invited--and because she was throwing the shower--all came. They furnished me with everything I would need in the beginning: pillows, dishes, knives, towels. It was wonderful.
I desperately wanted her to come to the temple with me when I got married, seeing as I had no parents or siblings there, but I received this note from her (which I still have):
Her husband, Harvey, wasn't a member of the church yet, and she hadn't taken out her endowments, so she couldn't come with me.
And then once John and I were married, she let us stay in her house for almost two months. She let us eat anything in her house, and it was as much our house as it was hers.
And as "payment"? We drove her 12 passenger van out to Utah for her son when we moved out to BYU.
That first Christmas (before we left for BYU), she and her family went somewhere else to celebrate Christmas, so John and I were left alone in her home, taking care of Spike. However, she left us a gift that has become more and more meaningful through the years:
I wish I could find the copy she gave us. We had it last Christmas, but it frequently is lost (with John taking it home teaching and such). She wrote in it that it was a family favorite of theirs and hoped it would be for our family as well. It is.
Every couple of years, we would return to Ann Arbor, and there wasn't really anyone else I wanted to see besides Sister Bauss. And when I would stand up and introduce myself in Relief Society, she would always interject that I was one of her "young women", and it made me incredibly happy to belong to someone.
And every year, I would send her a Christmas card. After a while I wondered if they meant anything to her, and I considered not bothering her anymore with the picture of our growing family, but while visiting Ann Arbor once, she came up to me and begged me to never stop sending her a card, no matter how long it had been since we had seen one another. So even up until last year, I sent a card to 3322 Yellowstone.
People today repeatedly mentioned her sparkling blue eyes, her infectious smile, and her mischievous looks. Her son mentioned that sometimes the house felt like a Motel 8. And when the stake president spoke, and he asked for a show of hands of people who had been Sister Bauss' "best friend". Over half the people there raised their hands. And I realized that while I had felt that she and I always had a special connection, she had made everyone feel special. She had shown that unconditional love to anyone she came across, and certainly she was no "respecter of persons". I love her for that.
As we sang as a closing hymn today, God be with you 'til we meet again, Sister Bauss. It will undoubtedly be a joyous reunion <3
I remember going to Girl's Camp one summer, and she was our leader (hence she must have been with us when I was a Mia Maid). I remember Sister Bauss as being so much fun. She kept us laughing long into the night, and never lacked a smile. I remember one night I woke up in the middle of the night and I woke her up and just started a conversation with her (we shared a bunk bed). She was more than happy to talk to me and laugh with me. I loved it.
Being only semi-active (I didn't go to weeknight activities), I'm not sure what she thought of me. Plus, I didn't have an active mother, and my step-father was very strange. When I think about girls like that in my own YW organization, it's easy to marginalize them because they don't fit the typical mold. Maybe she felt like I was a bit unusual, but she never let on.
After my freshman year at Mt. Holyoke, I had about seven months before I got married. My mother threw me out of the house because I was getting married, and I hopped between houses where I was asked to either house-sit or pet-sit. I'm not sure how people found out that I needed a place to stay (hello ward council, except that my non-member piano teacher also asked me to house-sit for a while) but it worked. However, come October, I had run out of places to stay. I had all of my worldly possessions in three large brown boxes in my tiny Honda Civic hatchback. Sister Bauss somehow found me and asked me if I would like to stay with her. I took her up on her offer immediately, seeing as I would be sleeping in my car otherwise.
She gave me my own room, my own key, and let me come and go as I needed to. She did have a very specific rule though about my bath towel: I wasn't allowed to hang it on the furniture, but instead was to hang it on the towel rack that was installed on the back of the door. To this day, I install towel racks on the backs of my children's bedroom doors. She was a god send. And it took only a week to start calling the Bausses "Mama and Papa Bauss" which they didn't mind.
She also threw me a meaningful bridal shower. I needed everything seeing as I had nothing but three brown boxes to my name. All of the "heavy hitter" women in the ward were invited--and because she was throwing the shower--all came. They furnished me with everything I would need in the beginning: pillows, dishes, knives, towels. It was wonderful.
I desperately wanted her to come to the temple with me when I got married, seeing as I had no parents or siblings there, but I received this note from her (which I still have):
And then once John and I were married, she let us stay in her house for almost two months. She let us eat anything in her house, and it was as much our house as it was hers.
And as "payment"? We drove her 12 passenger van out to Utah for her son when we moved out to BYU.
That first Christmas (before we left for BYU), she and her family went somewhere else to celebrate Christmas, so John and I were left alone in her home, taking care of Spike. However, she left us a gift that has become more and more meaningful through the years:
I wish I could find the copy she gave us. We had it last Christmas, but it frequently is lost (with John taking it home teaching and such). She wrote in it that it was a family favorite of theirs and hoped it would be for our family as well. It is. Every couple of years, we would return to Ann Arbor, and there wasn't really anyone else I wanted to see besides Sister Bauss. And when I would stand up and introduce myself in Relief Society, she would always interject that I was one of her "young women", and it made me incredibly happy to belong to someone.
And every year, I would send her a Christmas card. After a while I wondered if they meant anything to her, and I considered not bothering her anymore with the picture of our growing family, but while visiting Ann Arbor once, she came up to me and begged me to never stop sending her a card, no matter how long it had been since we had seen one another. So even up until last year, I sent a card to 3322 Yellowstone.
People today repeatedly mentioned her sparkling blue eyes, her infectious smile, and her mischievous looks. Her son mentioned that sometimes the house felt like a Motel 8. And when the stake president spoke, and he asked for a show of hands of people who had been Sister Bauss' "best friend". Over half the people there raised their hands. And I realized that while I had felt that she and I always had a special connection, she had made everyone feel special. She had shown that unconditional love to anyone she came across, and certainly she was no "respecter of persons". I love her for that.
As we sang as a closing hymn today, God be with you 'til we meet again, Sister Bauss. It will undoubtedly be a joyous reunion <3
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