When Clara Wellington’s son came home from college and told her he wanted to marry a poor girl from Montana, she was horrified. “But who are her parents?” she asked. “What do they do?”

“What does it matter?” her son Brad asked. “I love Frannie, and that is all that matters to me.” Clara pressed her lips together. Of course, birth and status mattered, they mattered a lot! At least to Clara, they were everything!

When Clara and her husband, Brad Senior, met Frannie Heckle and her parents, all her worst expectations were confirmed. Clara supposed the Heckles were what her father-in-law would have called ‘salt-of-the-earth’ people, but not what she wanted as her son’s in-laws!

Mr. Heckle was a tall, burly man who wore a light blue suit that pouched at the knees and elbows, and Mrs. Heckle favored painfully bright floral house dresses and white plastic shoes…

Clara shuddered. They would have to do something about their clothes! She wasn’t having them spoiling the wedding by looking like the hicks they so obviously were! She said as much to her husband and his reply surprised her.

“Leave them alone, Clara,” Brad Senior had said in a cold voice he seldom used with her. “Brad loves this girl, and these are good, genuine people who care for him. What they wear doesn’t matter!”

Clara was angered by her husband’s refusal to see how very important it was to give the right impression, to present the right image. Her son would one day be a wealthy man, with a place in the city’s high society.

Don’t pretend to be something you’re not, and don’t deny your roots.

People would be talking about this wedding for years and Clara was determined that it would be an absolute success — there would be no snide remarks or criticism of her only son’s wedding!

Clara invited Mrs. Heckle and Frannie out to lunch, and carefully explained to the two women that what they wore was VERY important.

“Mrs. Heckle, I think you should rethink your image. You should go to Bloomingdales, there are some quite acceptable off-the-rack clothes that won’t be too expensive that would give you and your husband the right look.”

Frannie and her mother looked at each other. “I can’t afford things like that, Mrs. Wellington,” said Mrs. Heckle firmly. “I already bought my dress.”

Clara pressed her lips together. “Well, Mrs. Heckle, I just wanted to talk to you about it because there IS going to be a dress code!”

Mrs. Heckle frowned. “I’ll wear what I like, and no one will tell me different!” she said.

“Well, since I’m paying for the wedding, I beg to disagree!” Clara snapped. Things might have gotten very unpleasant if Brad hadn’t arrived just then, and put a damper on the discussion.

But Clara had an idea. She smiled to herself: “Why don’t I just get the help to take out the trash?” She had a plan, and it was in effect on the wedding day. Mr. and Mrs. Heckle arrived at the Wellington estate (the wedding was to be held in the garden) and were confronted by a security guard in a smart black suit.

The security guard took one look at Mr. Heckle’s checked brown suit and Mrs. Heckle’s flounced polka dot dress and stopped them. “Excuse me,” he said politely, “I’m afraid you can’t go in.”

“We are the bride’s parents!” Mr. Heckle said. “We have to go in.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the security guard. “But there is a dress code and I was instructed not to let anyone not in compliance in…”

“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Heckle angrily, “I demand to see Mr. and Mrs. Wellington!”

The security guard looked at Mrs. Heckle’s bright pink and yellow print dress and winced. “Mrs. Wellington warned me some trashy people would try to get in, I’m acting on her direct orders!”

“Trashy?” cried Mrs. Heckles, “What do you mean trashy?”

The security guard threw Mr. and Mrs. Heckle a scornful glance. “If you have to ask…” he sneered, “Now off with you, back to the trailer park you escaped from!”

Mrs. Heckle started to cry and Mr. Heckle put his arm around her. They were walking away from their own daughter’s wedding because the security guard called them trailer trash!

It was then that Brad Senior arrived. “What’s going on?” he asked, and when the security guard told him, he got very, very angry. “Come with me,” he said to the Heckles and led them inside.

Upstairs he ushered them into his dressing room and gave Mr. Heckle one of his tuxedos, then stepped into Clara’s wardrobe and pulled out a fabulous dress and shoes. “Here,” he told Mrs. Heckle. “It might be a bit big on you, but it should be alright!”

Twenty minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Heckle walked into the silk tent in which the wedding was to be held, and at first, Clara didn’t recognize them, then she gasped. Mrs. Heckel was wearing an Armani dress she hadn’t even worn yet!

That was HER dress! Clara opened her mouth to protest and then she saw the look in her husband’s eye. She smiled graciously and nodded at the Heckles and the wedding march began to play.

The wedding was in full swing when the best man announced the toasts, and first up was Brad Senior. He picked up the microphone and smiled at the bride and groom.

“Frannie,” he said. “I want to welcome you to our family! You are everything I hoped my son would find in a wife — a kind, loving woman. That matters more than anything else, even money.

“But in case you’re worried about that, let me tell you that marrying poor girls is something of a family tradition. You know, Brad, when I married your mother, she didn’t have two cents to rub together! She wasn’t even wearing shoes!”

Clara listened in horror, then as the high society people around her started to sneak peeks at her and snicker, she turned and ran out of the tent and into the garden. She had never felt so ashamed in her life!

She was sobbing on a garden bench when she felt a gentle hand on her head. “Mrs. Wellington?” Clara looked up and saw Frannie looking down at her. “Please, don’t cry, it’s OK!”

“I’m so humiliated…” Clara sobbed. “The things Brad said…”

“You should be proud of your origins, Mrs. Wellington,” Frannie said quietly. “I think you’re an extremely elegant woman. I have a lot to learn, and I know if I can learn as well as you, Brad will be proud of me.”

Clara looked at Frannie’s sweet, kind face and said, “Frannie, there’s nothing I can teach you. You are already more gracious than I have ever been, and Brad is already proud of you.”

Frannie smiled. “Nevertheless, I want us to be friends,” she said. “You see, we both love Brad more than anything and that is a wonderful thing to share!”

Clara went back to the tent on Frannie’s arm, braved the sly looks from her posh friends, and danced all night. Towards the end her feet were sore and she took off her shoes and didn’t care what anyone thought at all.

What can we learn from this story?

• Don’t judge people by their appearance or their financial status. Clara was a snob and she despised her son’s in-laws but ended up being outed by her husband.
• Don’t pretend to be something you’re not, and don’t deny your roots. The truth is that Clara had grown up very poor, but she pretended to be an aristocrat, and when the truth came out, she was humiliated.

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a woman who is shocked to see her dead husband blink when she kisses him goodbye in his coffin.

This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life. If you would like to share your story, please send it to info@amomama.com

A man is horrified to discover that his frail elderly neighbor has been living in her broken-down old car even though she has a house.

Sometimes it takes us a long long time to realize that something is wrong, very wrong, and has been for a long time. David Castle was used to seeing his neighbor Olivia Madison arrive and leave in her car at the same time as he did.

At least that’s what he thought, until the night he came home at 2:30 am and saw Mrs. Madison in her car — apparently fast asleep. Had she locked herself out? David wondered. And then he realized that he had never actually seen Mrs. Madison drive her car, not once.

Worried, David approached the beat-up old Ford and peered inside. Mrs. Madison was reclining in the front seat on the passenger side, covered by a thick comforter, fast asleep.

In the back seat were several boxes of groceries and basic necessities neatly organized. It was obvious: Mrs. Madison, seventy-nine years old, was living in her car!

But why, wondered David aghast. She owned the house next to his, a pretty Victorian two-story, which had started to look sadly neglected after Mr. Madison’s death three years before.

David went home and woke up his wife. “Lydia,” he said, “I think Mrs. Madison has been living in her car. Honey, please fix up the guest bedroom. I’m going to bring her in.”

Lydia jumped out of bed. “Oh my God, David! Mrs. Madison?” she gasped. “But she must be ninety if she’s a day!”

“I know,” said David grimly. “I never thought I’d see someone I know living on the street. I’m going to go get her.”

“Don’t scare her, David,” begged Lydia.

“Don’t worry, I won’t, but it’s freezing tonight,” David said. “And she’s not sleeping in that car one more night!”

Many of us pass through this world without really seeing what surrounds us.

David walked back outside and approached Mrs. Madison’s car again. He knocked gently on the window until Mrs. Madison’s eyelids fluttered. “Mrs. Madison,” he called softly. “It’s David Castle from next door!”

Mrs. Madison woke up and she looked a little frightened, but David’s kindly smile reassured her. “Mrs. Madison. Please come out of the car and come inside. My wife has a nice cup of hot chocolate for you and a warm bed.”

“David,” Mrs. Madison said, “I’m quite alright…Please don’t worry.”

“I’m not leaving unless you come with me,” David said firmly, and finally Mrs. Madison opened the door and got out of the car. David wrapped her in her comforter and led her up the path to his door.

Inside, Lydia waited with the promised cup of hot chocolate. Mrs. Madison took the first sip and tears filled her eyes. “I used to make hot chocolate just like this for my Charley when he was working night shifts…” she said.

“Mrs. Madison, why were you sleeping in your car?” asked Lydia gently.

Mrs. Madison closed her eyes. “I can’t go home, you see…Not since Charley…”

“You haven’t been home since your husband passed away?” asked David shocked.

Mrs. Madison was weeping silently. “I did at first,” she explained, “But then…There was this terrible silence where he used to be, and then suddenly I’d open a drawer or a door and I’d smell him like he’d just been there.

“I couldn’t live with his absence or with the constant reminders, David, I couldn’t live with that pain. So one night I just took my comforter and came out to the car. That was the first peaceful night for me since Charley had passed.

“So I started sleeping out here, but soon I couldn’t stand going into the house for anything. I had the water and lights switched off, and began living in my car. It’s been two years now. You are the first person who noticed.”

“But how do you manage, for bathroom facilities, I mean?” asked Lydia curiously.

“I have been a member of a senior citizen gym group for ten years, I used to go with Charley,” said Mrs. Madison. “So I go there, have my bath and whatnot…I manage.”

“Mrs. Madison,” said David gently. “Why don’t you sell the house and move somewhere else?”

Mrs. Madison blushed. “Oh David, I’ve thought about that, but the house is such a mess!”

“Well, you go to bed now, and tomorrow I’ll go look it over, OK?” David said kindly. “And if you allow me to, I’ll have the house cleaned up and you can sell it.”

Mrs. Madison gave David and Lydia a grateful hug. “Thank you, my dears. You’ve given me hope.”

The next day, David called a friend of his who had a small business restoring old homes and asked him to visit Mrs. Madison’s house with him. When the two men walked into the house, they were shocked.

The whole house was covered with layers of dust, and thick veils of spider webs hung from the ceilings and the light fixtures, but worse of all, the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with a strange-looking black slime.

“Out!” cried David’s friend, and pushed him out of the door. He went to his car and brought back two face masks and a series of glass tubes. The two men went back in, and David watched as his friend collected samples of the substance he said was mold.

David’s friend was shaking his head. “Buddy,” he said, “this could be bad. I’m taking this to the lab to see what they say. but it may be bad news.”

“Come on,” said David. “I can call in a cleaning service… Just a little mold and dust isn’t the end of the world.”

But David’s friend shook his head. “If this is what I think it is, there’s no way that this house will ever be clean — or safe to live in.”

“Safe?” asked David. “What do you mean?”

“If that is toxic mold, it will have seeped into every crevice of that house, under every floorboard, inside every wall. In fact, if your old lady friend had been living in the house, she’d be seriously ill by now!”

Three days later, the news came back from the lab. It was a variation of the very dangerous Stachybotrys mold which the technicians had never seen before. They reported it as an “extreme case,” and recommended all the spores be destroyed.

David told Mrs. Madison the bad news, and the two decided to call in the Fire Department and ask for their help in dealing with the problem. The Fire Department expert told them that the only way to make sure that the mold did not spread to other homes would be to burn the house. Dismantling the house would send clouds of the spore up into the air, and allow them to spread all over the neighborhood.

Sadly, Mrs. Madison accepted the Fire Department’s advice and watched as they set a carefully controlled fire. And as her old house burned, she wept. David placed a gentle arm around her and said, “You have a home with us, Mrs. Madison, for as long as you want, you know that!”

Mrs. Madison nodded. “I know David, thank you, but I was hoping to have my own little place again…”

David had an idea, but he kept it to himself. The next day he called a meeting of all the closest neighbors. “As you all know, Mrs. Madison burned down her house to prevent the spread of a toxic mold that could harm us all.

“I think we should all pitch in to try and solve her problem. Does anyone have any ideas?”

One of the women raised her hand. “I’m a real estate agent, and Mrs. Madison’s plot is big, much bigger than any of our plots. I think I know a developer who might be interested!”

As it turned out, the developer was very interested, and David negotiated an excellent deal on behalf of Mrs. Madison. The developer was building a series of assisted living cottages, and as part of the generous pay-off, Mrs. Madison got to live in one of the best units for life.

Thanks to David’s kindness, Mrs. Madison received a good price for her plot, and a little independent home all of her own, and she stayed in the neighborhood she loved next door to her best friends, David and Lydia Castle.

What can we learn from this story?

• Many of us pass through this world without really seeing what surrounds us, and so we miss the opportunity to help those in need. David had been seeing Mrs. Madison living in her car, but because he didn’t pay attention he didn’t realize it.
• From the worse misery, a great blessing may flow. Because she was living in her car, Mrs. Madison wasn’t affected by the potentially deadly toxic mold.

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a man who refused to attend his twin brother’s wedding.