Mary Sampson is tall and slender with shoulder length light brown hair. A good-hearted woman with good lines. Understanding and forgiving with an inviting warmth. Supportive and approachable. No pretense. Steady, sure in her vision and confident in her values. Glasses without pretense. Rooted, loyal optimistic.
Eden was a paradise explored by all the local kids. Life was wider for children when Mary was a child. Parents had no fear of letting their children roam from sunup to sun down. Mary would leave the house in the morning and only return for lunch and then finally at dinner. She would catch crawdads and salamanders in the local streams and built forts in the wood where her and her friends would pretend to be early American explorers finding a path and creating a new home in the wilderness.
Every kid in town knew the abandoned mill on Mill Creek. It was three stories tall, made of solid stone with rusted metal roof that after all these years still held the rain a bay. The water wheel was bent and broken and sediment had filled in the dam that once held back the water. Now there was a eight foot water fall into a wide pond that was a favorite swimming spot for kids and adults alike.
Mary built her world around her childhood dreams. Her hope chest was full of her future, with grandma's hand sewn quilt and the Salt and Pepper shakers that mom put out with the important meals throughout the year. There was the Jadeite Juicer that grandma would use to press lemons. On rare occasions, Mary would sit at the kitchen table as oranges were pressed into juice. And then there was the apron. It was hand made by grandma and also worn by her mother. It was given to Mary on the twelfth birthday and she had carefully stowed it away in the hope chest. The chest was full of such memories. The blanket that wrapped Mary and the prints in black ink of the soles of her feet from the day she was born. The arrowhead she found down by the creek and the ribbons she won in the Four H competitions. The family bible was there and it listed all the major events of Mary's family. It went back four generations recording all the weddings, births and deaths in the family.
Mary was a force of nature. She had a plan, a vision from as early as she could remember. She saw herself with her home and family years into the future. Three kid and a dog. Sunday school and Saturdays at the park. Baseball leagues for the boys and 4H raising chickens for the girls. She would be a stay at home mom and return to work when all the kids were in school. It was her vision and it would all happen in Eden. The town where she grew up. Where her parents and grandparents lived. Maybe even in Nana’s house. A stone house built in the 1920’s with hard wood floors, a grand stone fireplace and bay windows looking out over the hay fields that surrounded the town.
It had all come true just as she had seen it. She met Ted in high school. They both attended a local community college and found they had classes together. Traveling in the same circle of friends, it wasn’t long before he caught her eye. She decided that he was the one and Ted never knew what hit him. Once she made up her mind, she would not be denied. She smiled her smile, laughed at his jokes, made it a point to be around when he was around. She asked him for help studying even though she was a better student than he was. She listened intently as he explained the course work and before he knew it, they were an item.
It was a April wedding in the church where she was baptized, with a reception following at the Fellowship Hall. The same church where her parents had wed. Where she took her first communion. Babies came as the years rolled by. It was all going as planned. Just after marriage they had lived in the house that her grandfather built and raised her children there. After a few years, they had built her dream home. And just as important, she had cared for and nurtured her community.
At first, she was concerned when Ted went into law enforcement. She worried that he would get hurt, that he would harden with the demands of the job. Ted surprised her as Eden became his extended family. He was more like Andy Griffith than Clint Eastwood.
Her role as the sheriff’s wife came with burdens and responsibilities. She was active in the community and anytime someone’s son would run afoul of the law, their mother would come to her with plea of leniency. “My boy is a good boy. “He didn’t really mean any harm” was the standard approach. She had learned that her role was to reassure the mother. Everything would be okay. Rarely if ever was jail time ever an issue. The worst case was probation and community service. She was understanding and supportive. She empathized with their heartache. She calmed their fears and explained the process. She could have been a family counselor.
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