With news

of murder and mayhem now a virtual staple of daily life,

it's easy to throw up one's hands and say, "Enough.

Turn off the box. Discontinue the paper. I can't stand

another interview with neighbors, sheriff's deputies and

numb family members."

Maybe I'm overreacting. But

just when I felt that my emotional thermostat had been

set on rage as unrelenting as the heat wave, there came a

cool breeze.

There came a letter from a

loving son asking if we wouldn't tell the story of a

remarkable force for good.

Tim Anders wrote to say

that his family is celebrating the approaching retirement

of his mother - at 75 - and extolling the

goodness that one woman has contributed to society simply

mother, physician and counselor, Sunday School teacher,

co-founder of a home offering unwed mothers hope,

mother-in-law and grandmother.

And made it look so easy.

In a time when education is

sometimes neglected, Rebekah and Pat Anders saw every

child through at least a college degree; all have

advanced degrees, including three medical degrees.

In a time when 50 percent

of marriages fail, the Anderses have all stayed married

- the "youngest" marriage 14 years old.

In a time when patients are

resigned to hasty consultations limited by HMO quotas,

Rebekah Anders' gynecology patients get all the time she

needs to find out how they and their whole families

really are. "Her practice has been her

ministry," physician son David said.

In a time when working

mothers sometimes take marginal roles in their children's

lives, Dr. Rebekah is remembered by hers for marshmallows

on toothpicks roasted over candles. Paper dolls she drew

herself. Playing in the rain. Chaperoning band trips.

Driving to piano lessons. In between leading the PTA,

Brownies and Girl Scouts, church choir and Sunday School.

Now, I might as well

confess my personal interest in this story. There was an

Anders (all the boys, I believe) in the high school class

of each of my daughters. I knew David best. He was drum

major of the Fayette County High School band when Mary

was first chair flute, and a handsomer drum major never

took the field.

Preoccupied with my own

family, I scarcely knew theirs then, and it's really only

now that I'm beginning to fathom the wellspring of

inspiration from which these over-achieving young people

drew.

When I began writing the

stories about their mother found elsewhere in this issue,

I was inundated with reminiscences from several extremely

articulate writers. Lacking room for everything they

sent, I beg to use this space for a few of the anecdotes

that are just too good not to share.

My favorites were the ones

in which Dr. Rebekah bent the rules. David remembers

listening to a baseball game with his Braves super-fan

mom, but being sent to bed when rain put the game on

hold, the Braves leading the Dodgers 1-0.

"After a two-hour rain

delay, she awakened me in what seemed to be the wee hours

of the night in time for me to hear the game was now tied

1-1 in the ninth. In the bottom of the ninth Eddie

Matthews hit a home run off [Sandy] Koufax to win the

game.

"It was a thrilling

victory, especially for a 9-year-old boy recognized by

his mom as being a true fan whose need to hear the game

transcended bedtime rules and regulations."

David and his wife, Kenya,

whose mom, Joan Houghton, is no slouch herself, named

their firstborn Rebekah Joan for their mothers.

Buffie Anders DuPuis said

Rebekah was unflappable. Once when she and her siblings

had been particularly mischievous, her mom's worst threat

was that she was going to run away to Alabama.

"But that was as

flustered as she ever became, never raising her voice, no

four-letter words, always calm, and without the help of

Dr. Laura or Prozac. In spite of being surprised by cats

jumping out of refrigerators (placed there by my

brother), and worse."

Tricia Anders Jones tells

another tale about rules:

"Mama never talked

about bodily functions, being the Southern lady that she

is. We were not allowed to say `hate' or `guts,' because

she didn't like those words. So when we got mad we would

tell each other, `I dislike your intestines

intensely.'"

Tricia remembers her

grandmother Yates, living out her last years with the

Anderses, as "the perfect grandmother," a

model, no doubt, to Dr. Rebekah when her own turn came.

"I came out to the kitchen one day and caught her

feeding a breakfast of Oreos and M&Ms to my Jennifer,

who was about 3. This from the mother who made us clean

our plates or no dessert." Tim Anders was the first

to mention that he and his siblings, as well as their

spouses, "are all college-educated or beyond, all

married with no divorces." Tricia credits her

parents for that too.

"They were pushy about

[our going to college] and I thought the 11th Commandment

was, `Thou shalt not get married before you finish

college.'

"I truly love all five

of my in-laws. As I told Mama once, we out-married

ourselves. But I think that speaks highly of how we were

reared - we wouldn't have chosen so wisely if we had

not been brought up right."

Refreshing news in the

midst of a shriveling summer.

<!--##############