Industrial Chemist Victoria Sanchez. A Woman Ahead of Her Time. A Mother’s Day Story

I will pass this way, but once, and if there is some

good that I can do, then let me do it.

It is mother's day and I want to wish the mothers and grandmothers

and great-grandmothers and godmothers and stepmothers all over the world

a very happy and blessed mother day.

Whenever you celebrate it.

This is Catherine, your host of the podcast, your positive imprint,

the variety show, featuring people all over the world whose positive actions

are inspiring positive achievements.

Exceptional people rise to the challenge.

You can find me@yourpositiveimprint.com as well as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Listen from any podcast platform .Music by the legendary Chris Nole.

ChrisNole.com I'm celebrating my mom today.

Mother's day is coming up this Sunday, May 8th.

I am releasing this episode early instead of next week, but I will

be back in two weeks with Stephanie Parks, your positive imprint.

What's your P.I.?.

Mom has been the guest for mother's day since I started this podcast.

But this year I bring to you a menagerie from the last three years,.

Reflections of motherhood and reflections from a woman, my mom, Victoria

Sanchez, who was ahead of her time.

I'll major in chemistry.

I had a student who had a little trouble and came up to the office and he wanted

to be a doctor when I was a graduate assistant at Marquette, and I told him

what he needed to do to become a doctor.

And to this day, all these years, I've gotten a Christmas card from that student.

He went on to become an instructor in the medical school.

He told me that he told his students about me and how I helped him.

And I said, and did you in turn help those students?

And he said, yes I did.

I went first to NIH, the national Institute of health in Bethesda, Maryland.

And he offered me a position, but he offered it to me at a GS five level..

I said, why are you offering me this job at a GS five?

And he said, because you're a woman.

And I said, what has that got to do with it?

And he said, you're liable to get pregnant.

And I said, thank you.

I don't want your job.

I went to the national bureau of standards and I was hired on the spot.

I was the only female scientist among hundreds of males at the

national bureau of standards.

I worked in industrial chemistry.

In that day we didn't have our consciousness raised because there

was no legislation protecting women.

You are just a positive imprint in our lives, mom, and you

continue to be a positive imprint

I deliberately chose to stay at a middle school

in what's termed the war zone.

in our city because those kids needed a good teacher

in science, which I taught, I did not use the textbook.

I used hands-on experiments

They called me from the national science foundation and they

asked if I would address the house subcommittee on education.

And I said, yes.

I put down some things that I thought were necessary for the

improvement of science education.

I did address the house subcommittee on education.

And I will tell you that what I said in that year, I could tell them the

same thing now, because I'm sorry.

Things have not really changed.

They have stagnated.

I was a junior girl scout leader and I had the largest troop at 46 girls.

Max was supposed to be 32.

Whoever came on the first day of registration, I accepted and

nobody ever dropped out because we had so many activities.

They develop their leadership qualities as they became patrol leaders and

arrange the courts of honor . That's all important part of growing up.

You will pass this way but once, if there is some good that you can do, then do it.

I think that's maybe neglected today where we don't teach the young

people to take responsibility for their actions and be true leaders.

Mom, thank you so much for the life that you and dad

both provided for the siblings.

And of course the grandkids and now the great grandkids.

Your father and I are very proud of each

and every one of you kids.

You have all been concerned with the community.

You have contributed to the world, and we loved each of you as individuals.

And we were very proud of all your accomplishments

And the strength in our success and also our failures to learn

from them and to see, and to analyze our failures so that we can be successful.

And that was a good upbringing.

Your father and I did so much together that it's

hard to separate our activities.

We were coyotes spelled a C I O T E S.

Cultural interpreters of the environment.

Your father and I gave guided nature, hikes to hundreds of school,

children ranged all the way from kindergarten to the university.

It was fun.

Your father would talk about the geology.

I would talk about the flora and fauna . Your father would

always take the Spanish speakers.

One of the things your father told me every day, I love you.

And I did the same.

And he also said, you're beautiful.

Like I said, we were blessed and we look back and there were

many, many, many blessings.

A lot of them, you didn't recognize at the time, but they truly were blessings.

I have heaven on earth with him,

We have five children, Mary Carol, Robert, Catherine, and Linda

As a family, we espouse faith from the very beginning.

An important part of our life was family.

We did a lot of hiking,

always close togetherness.

For the grace of God go I, and that's something to be remembered and

also accept people's best efforts.

. One of the things that we really enjoyed was teaching you all

about, protecting the environment,

Bus.

Public transportation.

That was part of, saving the environment as we later told our kids

when they wanted to perhaps drive.

No, you take the bus.

I, well remember the, some of the kids who, your siblings who were at

the university said, oh, goody, now we get a ride to the university.

And I said, no mother takes the bus.

Just like you.

We did all the things that parents do with their children, dancing

lessons, sporting activities, basketball, football, cross country,

piano lessons, guitar lessons.

We went to church,

We always taught the kids, everything that we could about the out of doors

appreciation for plants, animals, conservation, the environment.

They knew about the trails, how to be trail savvy.

We had two, three man tents.

So it meant four of us had to sleep in one tent and three in the other.

We sang around the campfire, my husband played the harmonica

and we toasted marshmallows

Unfortunately the oldest daughter ran into one of the

support poles of one of the tents.

It was aluminum, so it easily bent.

We had a storm storm reverberated throughout that

canyon, the thunder was loud.

The hail was even more devastating as it piled up on the tops of the tent.

Wasn't too long when , our tent flap opened and the other three came in because

their tent had collapsed and was a wash.

So we were seven people in a three man tent

in the morning.

It was beautiful.

The storm was over the people who had horses, their horses were

gone, they knew the way home to their corral, but they were gone.

My husband and son got the squaw wood

we were sitting around the fire enjoying our hot cocoa and oatmeal, a stranger

came up a woman and she was very cold.

We believe she had hypothermia.

She had no shelter.

So we applied her with coffee and hat things, and we had a

black tarp that we'd used for our seven backpacks to cover them.

We gave her the tarp so that she could have, a little shelter of some kind

and then we gave her a fry pan and our son went out to the

lake caught some fish for her.

We have eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren and

two step great grandchildren.

Wow.

That was a long time ago.

In your way of thinking.

In my way, it was only yesterday.

It was only yesterday that you were born.

My husband and I were married 61 years when he died.

We were the first family to get the New Mexico philanthropy award

our philosophy was you were put on this earth for one thing.

To love God, to serve him and to be happy with him in heaven and in, so doing,

you would make the world a better place.

Remember there, but for the grace of God go, I,

One of the things that I often said to them, to thine own self be true,

be the very best that you can be.

You don't follow the crowd, you do the right thing.

, remember yesterday, ponder tomorrow but live for today.

I said that tomorrow may never come.

You, you will never know, but tomorrow might never come.

So you live for today and you make it the very best day.

And I also said, don't ever say anything that's not nice.

You can never take back words.

So that was something my husband and I lived by.

I was very blessed to have your father for 61 years.

And he left me a legacy.

One of the things that your father wrote to me.

He said always will I love you.

Even in death, my heart will be joined with yours, continuing to

bring happiness through memories.

Live each day to the fullest and be happy and be, be yourself and

be the very best that you can be.

We were very fortunate.

We were blessed and we thank the Lord for that.

You always stood by dad.

Truly our camping and our, our traveling back to visit the grandparents were

always filled with adventures wherever we went, because, we made things happen,

I did make all of their clothes, their prom dresses, their wedding dresses.

And since Catherine is here, when we were doing her wedding dress, she said

she didn't want just a chapel train.

She wanted a little bigger train, so she got it.

But the most fun of that was designing her veil together.

.

Our family was close and supported each other in all the endeavors,

Our oldest daughter's husband went in for a surgery for a

simple bypass, double bypass.

The doctor said, oh, everything is fine when he came out, well, everything

wasn't fine because a couple hours later he lapsed into unconsciousness and was

that way for two and a half, months.

Our daughter is the, assistant provost at Washington state university.

And although she used her laptop to communicate with her staff, two months

is a long time to be away from the office.

Her sisters, the first one was Catherine said, we'll go up and help.

I said you have to go back to your office.

And your sisters are coming up.

So Catherine came first and she stayed a week.

And was there all day early in the morning until at

night

He had tubes in every place that you wouldn't imagine.

So then she left and the next sister came up and she was there a week.

And then the last sister came up with her husband.

I'm happy to say that today, he is doing beautifully well, and he's back

to doing his woodworking and yard work

and enjoying life.

The power of prayer can not be underestimated because truly he died

twice when he was in the hospital there.

We have been blessed with many blessings and we are very proud of our

children and grandchildren for what they have managed to, be involved

with their community, to be real, real people, dedicated, faith loving, and,

uh, as a family, very, very close.

We had Easter egg hunts and to this day, the kids still like the Easter

egg hunts., imagine that, and with that conclusion, I hope that all your families

will be well, a happy and blessed.

My mother has taught us and of course dad, they brought us up with

education that helped each and every one of us be good, critical thinkers

with what it is that we are faced with.

Being able to critically think has helped each and every

one of us be a better person.

And to understand the perspectives of other people around us.

Happy mother's day.

Well, thank you, dear.

, well from both of us here at your positive imprint, we wish all

of you, a happy mother's day, wherever you are in the world

and love and value each member of your family.

Thank you, your positive imprint.