Resilience and Chickens

Taft, all graduated—with honors! AND my button-clad chicken pillow, which is so much MORE than just a pillow!

What could this chicken pillow have to do with this photo of Taft on graduation day?

I have a great grand aunt, Margaret Mary Ann Dunkley, who had an experience with a rooster and some pea seeds that has helped me to better understand, own and even celebrate my sometimes fierce resilience when I want what I want and I won’t have it any other way, ha!

Here’s the story, written as Mary Ann, by her great granddaughter, Vicki Hays …

One spring morning I had laboriously prepared the soil in the garden and planted my annual crop of sweet peas in straight rows. After finishing the last row, I placed the seed bag over the stick at the end of the row and went into the house. A short while later I noticed a red-combed rooster strutting by my pea bed joyously plucking seeds trom the soil. When I examined the area I found that the rooster had eaten all my seeds. I thought, "That villain will not get away with this.” I moved stealthily and quick-as-a-flash grabbed that bird, wrung his neck and stuck him in boiling water, to remove the feathers. I then dissected him—sure enough, there were my precious seeds in his crop. I triumphantly replanted my most valued sweat pea seeds and stewed that fowl for dinner.

I laughed out loud when I first read this story—how crazy I thought—but six weeks later I was still thinking about it! I want that kind of determination and this story has since been my proof and my motivation for claiming it. Not long after finding this story, I purchased this really unique chicken pillow on Etsy and have now hand sewn many, colorful buttons to it. It sits on my reading chair in the corner of my living room AS A REMINDER of the kind of women I descend from—a nudge (always) to go after what I want.

So, last week at BYU’s annual graduation ceremony—for the college of humanities—I noticed right away that Taft was not wearing the gold stole indicating his ‘graduating with honors’ achievement. Afterwards I asked, ‘Why aren’t you wearing it?’
Taft replied, “Mom, I have been a little busy! I just didn’t make time to go pick it up!”

Please Note ❤️ Taft and his sweetheart, Laurelle Anderson were married the day before graduation. So it is true that finals and marriage prep have kept him quite busy!

”Son” I said “You mean to tell me that for the last four years you have taken extra classes, done extra research, written extra papers, completed a dissertation paper, defended it, created a poster about it—AND—you neglected to pick up your honors stole?
”That’s basically it” Taft said.

What happened next is where I am like Mary Ann, getting what I want—a photo of Taft in his honor stole!

This may have looked like me strongly encouraging the whole group of Julian and Anderson family members to walk to the far edge of campus (The Maeser Building) to see IF by chance the Honor Program offices were open (they were not) and then, growing desperate, most abruptly telling a lovely young woman, who just happened to be in the same building, that she would have a chance to do her ‘good deed’ for the day, by removing her honors stole and allowing my son to put it on long enough for me to take a photo.

✅ Got what I wanted

See? Stories matter. Stories inform, inspire, encourage and shape us. Stories of our family past are particularly influential and I am proud to say that I possess in a small degree that same kind of resilience that Mary Ann demostrated when she killed that stupid chicken and replanted her pea seeds.

I’m wondering what inspiring family stories you know that could somehow be displayed in your home?

p.s. The wedding went off without a hitch. It was a beautiful day and I am eagerly awaiting MORE photos!