Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Make a Motto

“If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

This is the motto which a group of young Georgia school children adopted recently, when their teacher -- a beautiful, soft-voiced lady named Ruth -- taught them that each person in the whole world is responsible for his own actions. And, that if they wish to succeed when they reach junior high school, they “must work hard, very, very, hard, now.”

These children do work hard. For, their teacher said, they know exactly what their motto means.

I met Teacher Ruth and learned of these youngsters in mid-February, in Birmingham, at a conference of American Mothers, Inc. (This is a nation-wide alliance of mothers dedicated to a motto and purpose which says: “To strengthen the moral and spiritual foundations of the family and the home.”)

The bumper stickers which members of American Mothers, Inc. place on their cars read: “Mothers Build America.”

There is a story of a renowned Flemish artist named Jan van Eyck (pronounced Ike) who had a memorable motto. Van Eyck lived back in the 1400’s -- that era which saw the French heroine Joan of Arc burned at the stake and the Spanish Queen Isabella helping Christopher Columbus with his ambitious plans.

Van Eyck was noted for his religious paintings and for his portraits of famous people. Today, each piece of his work that has survived theft and fires and storms and wars is viewed with admiration, almost awe.

This is said of Van Eyck: “In everything he painted his striving for beauty and perfection is always apparent.”

On the frames of many of his works he carved his motto: ALS ICK KAN (As Well As I Can).

What a motto!

It would be wonderful if Van Eyck had been commissioned to do a portrait of Joan of Arc. He would have preserved her motto, perhaps. Unfortunately, the only known contemporary portrait of her is a plain, small line drawing showing a slender young woman grasping her army’s sacred banner in one hand and a sword in the other.

From this drawing, though, one can almost hear the Maid of Orleans declaring her motto to be: “I’ll Fight and Die for God and Country.”

Van Eyck did paint a portrait of an Isabella, but it was not the Queen Isabella of Spain who supposedly sold her jewels to help finance Columbus’s first expedition to the New World.

The Isabella whom Van Eyck painted was the princess of Portugal who married Phillip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 23 July, 1429. This portrait was lost -- no one knows how or when.

Chances are that few of us will get to see anything except copies of Jan van Eyck’s masterpieces. We will probably never meet any of the Georgia children who say “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” And none of us will be a Joan of Arc.

But every day we hold in our hands pieces of money that carry the greatest motto imaginable: “In God We Trust.” Generations ago the leaders of our country chose this as the maxim to mark our currency, and, thank goodness, these words are still on every last dime and dollar in circulation.

Fortunately, any woman living in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico can join American Mothers, Inc., and, adopt its bumper-sticker maxim “Mothers Build America” as well as its chief purpose: “To strengthen the moral and spiritual foundations of the family and the home.”

Besides that, in this free Land any person can make and keep his own motto.

As for me, I’m going to combine the above mentioned principles and tell myself every day:

“If it’s to be, it’s up to me. ...Therefore, I will do ALS ICK KAN ... for God and Country and Home ... and help Build America … Because In God We Trust.”

Published March 1988. Click your browser’s “Back” button to return.