More Than All Right

A Daughter’S “Momoir”

Long before Steel Magnolias became a hit movie, Holly Ridge, North Carolina had produced its own vigorous southern flower, Lena Shepard Morris Bird. In this memoir of her mother, author Patricia A. Bird narrates how Lena inherited all the best of her traditional world while developing the gifts that allowed her to unconsciously model a newer one.

Through nineteen vignettes, Lenas story shows how she applied her motto, If its worth doing, its worth doing right, in her home as mother of three and wife of fifty-four years, at her church, and in her workplace. Raised in this environment, Patricia Bird became one of the earliest women Episcopal priests in the United States.

From childhood on, Rev. Bird shares the memorable recollections of her mothers ninety-three years that helped shape her growth. More than All Right portrays Lena as a woman of great energy, great humor, and unconditional love. It presents an evocative portrait of family life in the forties and fifties.