Charity Never Faileth: Woman's Last Wish for her Family Fulfilled
by Randolyn J. Emerson

Thalia Petersen had everything she needed to preserve a lifetime of family photos — dates and explanatory notes on 56 years of family snapshots, acid-free mounting sheets, colorfully patterned paper, scissors to create fanciful edgings, and decorative stickers for every life event imaginable.

She was ready to join the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who have caught the fever of the fastest growing craft in America today — scrapbooking.

She just ran out of time.

After a two-year remission, Thalia's incurable cancer returned for a final accounting. She shared with a visitor her last wish: that somehow her legacy of photos might be preserved for her husband, four sons, and two granddaughters with the scrapbooking supplies she had lovingly collected.

A close friend, Marilyn Taggart, felt the irony of Thalia's request.

From 1996 to 2000, Thalia Petersen had served as the Wake County president of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a 4.7 million member worldwide women's organization whose mission is to offer relief from the physical and emotional challenges of the world.

In this volunteer capacity, Thalia herself had nurtured seeds of compassionate service in hundreds of Latter-day Saint women throughout Wake County. Taggart knew it was now Thalia's turn to savor the fruits of the Relief Society's motto: "Charity Never Faileth."

A Labor of Love
On Friday, January 18, long worktables were set up in the living room and hallway of the Taggart home near Falls Lake.
The elegant dining room table was covered with protective plastic. Large labeled Ziploc bags containing thousands of peel-off stickers were laid across the brocaded crème couch. Shoeboxes holding decorative pens, dispensers for acid-free photo-attaching tabs, cups filled with edging scissors, and plastic tubs containing rainbow-hued papers were placed on every table.

North Raleigh resident Julie Howington helped Taggart implement a clever numbering system that allowed individuals working at different paces to transfer Thalia's photos to scrapbooking sheets while preserving the images' chronology and topical grouping.

First the women came from locales closest to Taggart's home. Wake Forest residents Camilla Marcom, Elizabeth Braddy, Jennifer Absur, Kristin Hanna, Angie Cunningham, and Faye Moore helped during that first weekend.

Even Taggart's 82-year-old mother, Norma Whitehead, found her own unique way to serve. Each day she would examine pages that other women had laid out, select just the right decorative stickers to fill in the open spaces, and painstakingly peel the stickers off their adhesive backing and apply them to the bare spots. "I haven't had this much fun in years," Whitehead said with a smile.

Wake Forest women contribute to marathon service effort: Kristin Hanna came to scrapbook on four different days.

But the task was formidable — the number of photos needing acid-free protection would fill close to one thousand scrapbook pages. With each side of a page taking more than an hour to design and mount, Taggart soon realized that this handful of women, with families and schedules of their own, could not accomplish the task within the week.

On Tuesday, January 22 — Day Five — a countywide call for help went out to Latter-day Saint women via phone, email, and word of mouth. Taggart's home became the labor of love's round-the-clock headquarters as more women came from Wake Forest and North Raleigh. Then carloads came from Raleigh and Cary, and from Garner, Apex, and even Holly Springs.

Christina Rawlings was one of several young mothers who made the 50-minute drive from Apex to Falls Lake to help, even though she had no knowledge of scrapbooking or Thalia Petersen. "My mother died when I was just a baby, so there is nothing like this in my family," Rawlings shared. "It feels good to take the time to do something really nice for somebody."

Narda Dudley, formerly of Cary, said it was not the thrill of scrapbooking that motivated her to come. "I'm here because, right now, my hands are Thalia Petersen's hands, and that makes me feel very content."

New mothers laid sleeping infants across their laps while they worked. At-home mothers of preschoolers traded babysitting so they could rotate their participation.

More than one volunteer brought her own daughter. Several young women came with their mothers-in-law — and worked happily at the same table. "I bet we can do more pages today than we did yesterday," Bethie Taylor grinned as she squeezed mother-in-law Beth's arm.

All were motivated by the report on Thursday that Thalia and her family were joyously immersing themselves in the beautiful scrapbooks being shuttled from the Taggart home west of Wake Forest to the Petersen home in Cary as soon as they were finished. "Thalia's in-laws, sister Sarah, husband Art and the boys were gathered around her wheelchair, and everyone was just laughing and telling stories about the events in the photos," Taggart related.

A Race Against Time
By Friday, January 25 — the seventh day of the massive effort — Thalia was losing awareness. Her husband, Art, said that during her lucid hours, all Thalia wanted to do was look through another scrapbook. She would run her fingers down each page and smile with tear-filled eyes. More than 600 scrapbook pages had been completed over the course of the week, but there were still at least 350 pages to go.

Working against time to fulfill the final wish of their former Relief Society leader,
Latter-day Saint women from Youngsville to Apex work a scrapbooking shift at Marilyn Taggart's Falls Lake home.

Knowing that time was short, many women returned to scrapbook a second, third, or fourth shift. "Just come on in" was posted on Taggart's front door, so that no one needed to leave their work to let in new arrivals. Instructions were given to keep the decorating to a minimum — creativity would now have to take a back seat to productivity. Food set out in the kitchen remained untouched as lunchtime approached, and then passed.

Hearing that the scrapbooking effort was uplifting as well as time-sensitive, one young man from the LDS congregation organized for single adults found that the activity made for a unique date. And several male volunteers who came to contribute over the second weekend demonstrated that this opportunity to serve through scrapbooking was not just a "woman's thing."

Another member of the singles' congregation, Wake Forest's Kristin Hanna, eventually worked on Thalia's pictures on four different days. "I found that I was really getting to know this woman and her family through her pictures," 21-year-old Hanna said. "It was a very special experience, especially knowing that Mrs. Petersen was aware of what we were trying to do for her."

Paula Henderson's teens, home from school in North Raleigh, knew to call her at Taggart's home if they needed anything. "They understand completely why I've been here every day," Henderson said. "They know the peace and assurance we're trying to give Thalia and her family in the time she has remaining."

"Does anyone have a picture of this lady?" asked Megan Young, who had driven in from the northernmost reaches of the stake to contribute her well-honed scrapbooking skills. "I'd love to be able to see who we're helping." By the end of the week, the majority of the volunteers preserving Thalia Petersen's legacy did not even know who the woman was.

Thalia Petersen in her youth and young womanhood (top) and starting to scrapbook in April 2001 (bottom).

Scrapbooking Thalia's photos with tears running down her cheeks, however, was one who had known Thalia and her family quite well. Roberta Clayton of Holly Springs recalled many familiar people and events from when the two families lived near each other in both upstate New York and Florida. "Our first babies were born at the same time," Clayton reminisced. Clayton drove from the southernmost corner of the stake to help on several days.

On Sunday evening, January 27 — Day Nine — the scrapbooking was finished. More than 80 Latter-day Saint women and men had contributed 600-plus hours to creatively mount 1000 pages in 21 scrapbooks. Taggart asked Art Petersen to whisper in his beloved wife's ear that her photos were done.

"When you're in that outer circle of a family's friends and supporters during a sensitive time such as this, you always wonder what you could do that would truly help," shared Phyllis Bray, a former Wake County Relief Society president herself. "This was one of the most tangible acts of compassionate service I've ever been involved with. For me, it was a local version of 'Make-A-Wish.' "

"It's difficult to put into words the incredible feeling of love and sisterhood that has been present in my home," Taggart reflected. "So many women selflessly devoted time out of their own lives to preserve Thalia's legacy — I don't know of anything that has affected me more. It has been a very spiritual experience."

Thalia Petersen passed away at her home in Cary thirty hours after her scrapbooks had been completed. Her husband, Art, wanted it known that Thalia died as she lived, "with dignity and grace, and in peace." Her final wish for her family — a lifetime of preserved photos — was respectfully displayed at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Raleigh after Thalia's funeral, which was held on Saturday, February 2.

Thalia Petersen had a rare form of cancer that affected her bones. She was diagnosed in April 1999, but went into remission while her youngest son, Brett, served a two-year LDS mission in Fresno, California. In September 2001, two months after Brett's return home, Thalia's cancer resurfaced. The Petersen family thinks the remission was a special gift of time from God.

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