06-05-2025
A prayer, the pope and a mother-in-law hack
Dolly Vilsack, center, shares a big laugh with her daughter Alice, left, and sister Marney. (Photo courtesy of Christie Vilsack)
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I only knew my mother-in-law for a short time, but she gave me three gifts: a husband, a prayer and a mother-in-law hack.
Dolly Vilsack loved and accepted me for loving her son, whom she'd brought home from a Catholic orphanage when he was six months old. She and Tom's dad, who she called Buddy, said they chose him like they would the Thanksgiving turkey, the plump one. I'm glad they did. Dolly also loved God and trusted her Catholic faith to help her defeat her dependence on alcohol, save herself and reunite her family. For that I am also grateful.
The Serenity Prayer
'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.'
It was the prayer she learned when she joined Alcoholics Anonymous in 1964 after leaving her family and committing herself to rehabilitation.
Before taking me home to meet his parents in the spring of 1969, our freshman year in college, Tom told me about his mother's struggles with alcohol. Westerns on TV and the movies provided me with plenty of stereotypes of drunks, but I'd never known an alcoholic.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got to Pittsburgh, but it wasn't the chic woman in a simple sheath dress, spectator pumps and chunky gold earrings. She worked at Mellon Bank, a job she had taken after sobriety. She was a small person with a big laugh. And she had a faith that gave meaning to the word for me. She and Tom's dad had separated when he was in junior high, but they were back together when I met them, and they accepted me immediately.
In small towns where we don't have much ethnic diversity, we often identify by church affiliation. In my hometown most people were Protestants, including a few of us Episcopalians. Next to Saint Alphonsus was the Catholic grade school complete with nuns in habits. Even though we didn't go to school together, I knew all the Catholic girls, because they were part of my Girl Scout troop, and they would later join us in public high school.
In confirmation class at the Episcopal Church, I learned how King Henry defied the Pope and started his own church so he could divorce or behead his wives with impunity. It was also that year I got involved in politics campaigning for John Kennedy, not because he was a Catholic but because he was a Democrat.
The boyfriend
When I met Tom Vilsack in college, he seemed different, because he'd grown up in a city and attended a private boarding school for boys, not because he was a Catholic. Ironically, when we met, he had gotten his mother back just as I had lost mine to cancer. Their illnesses had a lasting effect on both of us.
Dolly and Tom Vilsack with Christie at his Hamilton College graduation. (Photo courtesy of Christie Vilsack)
What triggered Dolly's alcoholism isn't as important as what transformed it into something she could live with. At her lowest point, on Christmas Eve 1963, she left her family and committed to recovery. She took her sobriety seriously, joined AA, and for the rest of her life attended meetings becoming a sponsor to others who needed her help.
When she asked me to go with her to an AA meeting one evening, I knew that I was family. I learned about the importance of her Catholic faith to her recovery, about the importance of AA's 12 steps that lead to sobriety, and the necessity of asking forgiveness. I learned the Serenity Prayer, the only prayer I've ever really needed.
The mother-in-law hack
Tom and I married at Saint Michael's Episcopal Church in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. I asked the Catholic priest to help officiate, but he told me he'd rather go fishing. You can imagine my mother-in-law wasn't happy that her son hadn't landed the priest. Then Tom got the time wrong for mass, so his extended family arrived at the church just as mass ended. Not an auspicious start. As far as his mother was concerned, it was his fault, not mine.
I didn't convert, and she never once said anything to me about it. Now that I'm a mother-in-law myself, I have come to appreciate how she lived the Serenity Prayer, how she accepted me and my decisions without judgment.
In the four years she was my mother-in-law, we only came to Pittsburgh once for Christmas. It was then I learned that Christmas was her time to celebrate renewal, resilience, and reconciliation. Every Christmas she wrote a letter to someone who had made a difference in her life that year, a tradition I've tried to continue.
She experienced the joy of grandchildren, Tom's niece and nephew. She loved going to the Jersey Shore, something they did as a family before her illness. She made great brownies that I'll never be able to reproduce. She managed to snag an autograph for Tom of Steeler star, Franco Harris, when he came to her desk at Mellon bank one day. But I regret that she never got to know our children.
Soon after I got pregnant, we learned that she had brain cancer. We came to Pittsburgh to pack her possessions in a U-Haul which Tom drove to his sister's home near Philadelphia. I drove behind him with Dolly in her little blue VW Bug. As we crossed the state, she experienced a series of small seizures, but we were able to talk. She asked me if I'd be willing to raise our children Catholic. The answer was an easy yes. I valued my own religious education, and I wanted that for our children. It made sense for Tom to lead the effort. Only now do I understand how hard it must have been for her to ask.
She died a few months later just before our first son was born, but she is with me every day as I say her prayer.
I often say jokingly that the Serenity Prayer got me through 25 years of politics. It did. But it's also gotten me through the personal and professional highs and lows of everyday life. Serenity is elusive. It comes and goes, stays for a moment, a day, sometimes longer, but finding serenity is a constant search and it requires faith, and faith is sometimes hard to come by in troubling times. And wisdom, that's even harder. I'm still practicing.
The pope
I came to like Pope Francis. I'm glad he lived long enough to affect real change in the Catholic Church. He brought a different culture and perspective to the job. I liked that he tried to be open to ideas and people who are different, that he opened his heart to those the church had previously rejected or turned away.
We were invited to the Obama White House in his honor, and Tom got to meet him. Oh Dolly, you would have loved it. You know Tom would have prepped for the moment, a Catholic boy who knows his catechism and wants to impress. He had it all planned out, what he would say to Pope Francis, quoting the Beatitudes, blessings that talk about the poor in spirit, the peacemakers, the mournful, meek and hungry. But he became tongue-tied and sputtered.
The president, standing beside him, had his back. 'Your holiness, Tom feeds the children,' he said. The pope beamed; the president smiled; Tom looked humbled. The photographer snapped the photo.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, right, meets Pope Francis at the White House with President Barack Obama. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)
If there's a heaven, as you understand it, Dolly, I hope you were looking down that day. You did something good bringing that baby home, loving him and helping him to understand the concept of redemption. You taught him never to give up on himself or others, including you.
If you're looking in our window this morning, you'll see him talking with our grandson about the purpose of confession and contrition as he helps prepare him for confirmation. We both kept our promise to you.
As for being a mother-in-law, I know that how-to books have been written about the subject, but I don't need them. I had you.
This column was originally published by Christie Vilsack's blog 'Common Ground.' It is shared here through the Iowa Writers' Collaborative.
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