Hollywood's classic movies are filled with classic mothers - women who guide their children and stand by their families through thick and thin.
This week, American Movie Classic - a cable network dedicated to recreating Hollywood's Golden Era - presented a real-life mother from West Jordan with the "Classic Mom of the Year" award.On weeknights, Elvera Penrose joins over 20 million Hollywood movie classics fans and watches her favorite films.
Her life is different now. Several years ago she lost her husband, had nine children to raise, sacrificed and worked hard to keep her family together and struggled to save enough money to pay for her children's educations. Now she has less responsibility, less sorrow and more happiness.
Penrose has been chosen to represent Utah in a nationwide competition sponsored by the cable channel to find the "Classic Mom of the Year." She won the award when her daughter, Kathy Gibson, wrote a letter to the network explaining why her mother should be selected from among 4,000 contestants.
In her letter, Gibson explained how her mother, widowed at age 47, lived on the family farm after her husband's death, overseeing the milking of 28 cows twice a day and irrigation of the 400 acres they owned. She also taught school and traveled 90 miles round-trip three nights a week to finish her education.
Later she moved to the Bear River area, where she taught school and supported the rest of her family.
If Penrose wins the national contest, the channel will fly up to six members of her family home for the holidays. AMC will also fly the winner and a guest to the channel's studios in New York where she will co-host the holiday classic "It's a Wonderful Life."
"She's lived a life that is pretty special," said Gibson. "She has just served so much of her life for us children and thought about others more than herself. I felt she deserved once in her lifetime to be honored for what she did for all of us."