On Mothers

During one of the periods in which Jesse was in England in WWI, there was an outlook, an observation tower on the army base. Jess climbed the tower one night and found a solitary soldier. Jess asked him, "Why are you up here in the tower rather than down carousing with the other boys?" The soldier replied, “My damn mother.” Jesse later told his seminary students, “One of the things that’s absolutely necessary in life is to have 'damn mothers' who help you understand what you need to be.”