Bev's Biography

Family Home

It’s been a 6 + decade journey from my birth, during the depression, in Minneapolis, Minnesota to becoming Mama Mel on the web site. We lived in a suburb of Minneapolis and I had an uneventful childhood except for an illness in my 12^th summer. My mother being Christian Scientist did not take me to the doctor, but as the plan would have it, I recovered by the start of the school year. Years later I would come to know that my life plan had changed that summer and some contracts were made with 5 friends in spirit to have them as children – 3 by birth and 2 by walk-in.

I had a very ecumenical back ground – there was a time when my mother took me to a Christian Science Sunday School. There I learned, among other things that God was omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient – all powerful – always present and all knowing. That seemed right to me – It was very comforting. Through my teen years I sang duets in the Baptist Church, with my friends, occasionally went to church with my aunt who was Lutheran and visited the Methodist Church for events. I even spent a few hours in the Catholic Church waiting for friends to go to confession. I never did understand that. I truly believed you didn’t need a intermediary to speak to God.

My uneventful life came to a crossroads in 1950 when I graduated from high school and my father insisted that I have a career that I could fall back on if needed. My best friend at the time, had applied to a school of nursing and I decided maybe that would be something I could do as well. True to life’s twists and turns, I became the nurse and my friend dropped out of her program. My classmates and I lived in a 4 bedroom townhouse in Minneapolis and as young RNs we had lots of parties. Someone was always up as we worked different shifts. One boy that used to come by, was very fond of one of my roommates. I knew him from high school. In the fall of 1953 he brought with him a classmate of his that just had been discharged from the Air Force. In June of 1954 the former Air Force Sergeant and I were married. I was almost 22 years old. In August of 1955 my father died, a loss I felt very deeply. We spent a couple years with me working at the hospital in the OB department and my husband working towards his business degree at the University of Minnesota.

In October of 1956 Karen was born and I quit working as an R.N. We had just moved into our first house. Randy was next to be born in August 1958. We were active in my husbands church, The Union Congregational Church. We sang in the choir and through the years the kids attended Sunday School there. In June 1963 Diane (aka Tatiacha) was born. This was to complete my birth children.

We traveled every summer, taking trips to Canada and Mexico as well as most of the states. In 1967 I was advised to return to work and this time I started to work in ICU, followed that year by a brand new coronary unit. I always liked to help people and nursing was a good fit. I had always accepted death as a apart of life and when medicine started to get more technical, and death was seen as the enemy, I started to doubt medical practice. In the mid 70’s divorce found it’s way in to our family. Diane and I went to live in an apartment and 1 year later moved to Seattle so that I could go back to school and get my degree. Karen was married and Angie was born January 1st1976. She was 6 months old when we headed west. Randy went with us driving the U-Haul truck. The first in the long string of what U-Haul termed Adventures in Moving, that we would have. He had not graduated from high school then so he returned to Minnesota to complete school and shortly after joined the Navy.

Diane and I settled down in Seattle in a big house built in 1906 on Phinney ridge, right by the zoo. It was to be an interesting time, but busy. We took short trips around western Washington almost every weekend when I didn’t have too much studying. I entered a RNB program at Seattle Pacific University to get my Bachelors Degree in Science. In 1979 I graduated with a BS degree. We kidded about my being BS – BS. My last name started with S too. People didn’t know if I was stating a fact or making a judgment. In march of 1980 we took a trip to Hawaii and moved into a house in Kirkland Washington on a hill overlooking the Cascade mountains. My mother was in a nursing home for 11 years with Alzheimer’s disease. This was a very difficult karmic time for me. In 1982 the day after Thanksgiving she died. The night before Diane and Randy went with me to visit her and for the first time in years she looked at us with clear eyes and recognition. I told her it was all right for her to go and that she had fulfilled her duty to us. Within hours she left the planet. Her job and experience here complete.

Diane had been going to Summit School, an alternative school in Seattle, and completed all her requirements in English etc… for graduation, leaving physical education and social studies. At this time she had to transfer to a regular high school to do this. She saw this as an unacceptable option. Her solution was to drop out of school, but my solution was to call her father and asked him for assistance, and I prevailed. She returned to Minnesota for her junior and senior years in high school coming back to Washington in the summer between and after graduation in 1982.

In January 1982 Randy was transferred to the Submarine Base in Bangor Washington and was able to come home on the weekends. From 1982 – 1985 Randy and I attempted to develop our entrepreneur within. We acquired property in Woodinville Washington and created full plans for a huge childcare complex. Our investment group was made of the same people that started Costco the wholesale buyers club in Kirkland, WA. We were ready to go and then the tax laws changed making owning property a disadvantage for the investment group. By the time we were through with this process we were essentially bankrupt and very disillusioned. We made several other attempts at business when we finally realized that we were not suppose to be entrepreneurs for reasons unknown to us at that time.

Diane was following her own path at the time from Alaska to Hawaii and back to Minnesota, and the family was separated literally and figuratively. She returned to Washington in 1985 and the family was reunited when her stillborn child was born August 19, 1995, but that is more her story. In late August of 1985 Karen and her three children joined us in Kirkland following her divorce. Eric was 15 months old. Randy was discharged from the navy in October 1985 and stayed with us in the Kirkland home.

In the late 80’s I was the Director of Nurses at a small Seattle hospital. The hospital had been sold to 2 California investors and this was to be the 2^nd big life lesson regarding money, greed, and power. This time I was to learn the lesson well. In 1989 I quit that job and Randy and I were both without employment as he was helping me with policy and procedures. I was very tired and at the time felt the need for a major change. We had been reading lots of books. Our introduction to metaphysics so to speak. The good old standards like Ruth Montgomery, Carlos Castaneda, T. Lobsang Rampa, Autobiography of a Yogi etc… it came to our attention that Dick Sutphen was having a seminar in Sedona and we decided to go. This was to be the place we would come to remember about vortexes, Spirit Guides, automatic writing, psychometry, past life regressions, and we remembered Sedona. When we returned, Diane asked us if we knew what B E S T A L I meant. We said we did not know but taught her to automatic write and the rest is history. We all channeled as a group of 3 from Bellingham, WA. to Ocean Shores, WA. This was unique and people liked having 3 different Ascended Masters give them their different perspectives.

In November of 1989 Karen and the kids went to Bellingham, WA. with a friend and Diane, Randy and I moved to Darrington, WA. in the north Cascade Mountains. It was a beautiful 5 acres and very healing for the spirit. It had a year round water fall and creek and was up about 500 feet on Mount Higgins facing Whitehorse Mountain which had a glacier year round. It was while living there that we got the grandfather drum and the smaller deer drum and our tape Heal the Heartbeat was made. We started making many creative things such as rattles, drum beaters etc… At the time I was still working as a R.N. in Everett Washington about a hours drive away. We had many gatherings at the house. We belonged to an organization called S.H.E.S. – Spiritual Healers and Earth Stewards and were ordained ministers of the Whitehorse Congregation of Sacred Energy. We ordained many others as well. We had truly begun working our spiritual path.

It was in the summer of 1991 that we stopped channeling. It was done. We had been taught the lessons we needed from that experience. Diane was married that September,>

And we left Darrington and headed for Arizona the next month. The house was on the market and a realtor neighbor was watching it. Spirit said go and we obeyed. We stayed in Flagstaff for awhile and were reunited with friends. We finally found a house to rent in Sedona and with our friends decided to open a metaphysical store. We found a great place to rent in West Sedona and The Healing Spirit began to take form. It was Diane, her new husband Craig, Randy, Karen’s daughter Angie, Eric and Myself. We had quite an adventure with medicine wheels (see family stories). It started out to be so much fun. Was I really going to be a business woman?? And the answer was no. Soon there was a falling out and I took all my things and moved up to Flagstaff. There were no nursing jobs there, so off to Scottsdale I went. The first time I lived alone since Diane was going to high school in Minnesota. I finally got a job at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital. Life was good. On a beautiful day, March 31, 1992, I started up to Flagstaff to visit my friends when I hit a patch of ice. I remember thinking I was going into the ditch and then waking as the ambulance attendant was starting an IV in my arm. After a week in the hospital I was released into the custody of my friends who nurtured me back to health.

About the same time, Diane, Craig, Randy and Eric were on the move again, this time to Colorado. They closed the store in Sedona in one day, packed, put things in storage and moved to an orchard in Paonia. I had to give up my Scottsdale condo and my house in Darrington had not sold so I took a LOA from the hospital and flew back to Washington state. Karen picked me up at the airport. It was then that I found out that the realtor neighbor had done nothing to sell or maintain the house so between my grandson Jeremy and myself, in slow motion, we restored the house and property. Karen and her significant other and the kids were living in Sumas, Washington near the Canadian border. She had planned to join us in Arizona but was playing the lack karma game and had not been able to. A friend in Mercer Island Washington had a car for sale, so she sold it to me with my time payments starting when I returned to my job in Scottsdale. Oh, I love the way spirit works.

The house was on the market again with a new realtor and I had to return to my job in Scottsdale. Karen and all moved down to Darrington to stay in the house until it sold and I drove back to AZ. The house finally sold in October of 1992 and I again flew to Washington for the closing. This time we packed up Karen, the kids and friend and all of us returned to Phoenix. Karen’s friends family lived in Quartzite so we dropped him off there. I had arranged for a larger apartment in Phoenix for the rest of us. It was Karen Jeremy and I at that time. Eric was still in Paonia, Angie had gone back to Minnesota to live with her father. Karen and I took a trip to Paonia and picked up Eric in the summer of 1993. Karen, Jeremy and Eric moved to Parker, AZ and I moved to a condo in Scottsdale about a mile from the hospital. I was ready to stay put for awhile. Eric was visiting every other weekend and we did some interesting things like going to the observatory etc… Meanwhile Diane’s marriage was faltering and she and Randy moved to Show low, AZ. We got together for Christmas of 1993 for the 1^st time since I left Sedona 2 years earlier. They introduced me to the puppies born in November. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. (We now each have 2 for a total of 6). Again, we got the pull of spirit to move from Arizona to Montana which we did in June of 1996 after moving several times in Arizona between 1994 – 1996 including living in a motor home and tents for awhile. Our humbling process continued by our introduction to Montana and the food banks. Employment, at last in August followed closely by a move into a rental in Lakeside, MT in October before winter started. This was a creative period, a time when the divination cards were created. In June of 1997, we moved to Bigfork and as 1998 began plans began for a web site. I am working in the local hospital doing what I can to walk my spiritual path. You know, my life sounds like a travelogue. The karmic path to enlightenment? It has been interesting, and the best is yet to come.