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The Story via CNN:
Barbara Billingsley, who wore a classy pearl necklace and dispensed pearls of wisdom as America’s quintessential mom on “Leave it to Beaver,” has died at age 94, a family spokeswoman said Saturday.
The actress passed away at 2 a.m. (5 a.m. ET) Saturday at her home in Santa Monica, California, after a long illness, spokeswoman Judy Twersky said. A private memorial is being planned.
Actor Jerry Mathers, who played Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver, called Billingsley a lifetime mentor.
“Barbara was a patient advisor and teacher. She helped me along this challenging journey through life by showing me the importance of manners, and respect for others,” Mathers said in a statement. “She will be missed by all of her family, friends, fans and most especially by me.”
Tony Dow, who played Beaver’s brother, Wally Cleaver, also reflected on Billingsley’s legacy.
“She was as happy as a lark being recognized as America’s mom,” Dow told CNN’s Don Lemon. “She had a terrific life and had a wonderful impact on everybody she knew, and even people she didn’t know.”
She was the embodiment of what America used to be, before the ugliness set in.
Perhaps fittingly, “Leave it to Beaver” was canceled in 1963 on the eve of the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War and the tumult of the 1960s.
Hence, the ugliness of the 1960’s that I speak of. Say what you wish; but the 1960’s hippy movement in America turned it quite ugly. America’s golden age was replaced by the ugliness of the socialist hippy movement. If only we could go back to the 1960’s and someone could have screamed at John F. Kennedy, “NO! Do not start a war in Vietnam!, you are going to destroy this Country and everything that it was founded upon!” Perhaps America would be a much different place now.
There is something else, that I liked about this woman; was this here:
Asked once to compare real-life families to TV families, Billingsley responded, “I just wish that we could have more families like those. Family is so important, and I just don’t think we have enough people staying home with their babies and their children.”
That my friends, is how America used to be; before the liberalism of the 1960’s. When women knew their place in society, and still followed the Bible’s mandate on the role of a woman in the family. This was before the ugliness of the 1960’s, when a woman was taught that her sex organs were weapons and could be used to her advantage.
But alas, that America is gone for good, it its place, is an ugly America that is slowly beginning to destroy itself. We can never go back; but we always remember.
Rest in Peace Barbara, you lived a life that was full and you were a “Mom” to hundreds of millions —- including me.
Mrs. Billingsley is survived by her two sons, Drew and Glenn, Jr., who have, since 1974 owned and operated the Billingsley’s Steak House restaurant in West Los Angeles, in the tradition of their father and their great-uncle, Sherman Billingsley, founder of New York City’s very fashionable 1940s-era nightclub, the Stork Club.