ALL TIME FAVORITE TV MOTHERS - BEFORE FLORENCE HENDERSON WAS, "MRS. BRADY", BARBARA BILLINGSLEY WAS, "MRS. CLEAVER"..........

Since the Fall 1969 television season the world has become immersed with the "Brady Bunch", tv series and made actress Florence Henderson, who played the show's mother, "Carol Brady", one of television's all time, favorite moms.  Over the weekend the actress who made her own character as a tv mom favorite, a decade earlier than Florence Henderson, co-starring in "Leave It To Beaver", as, "Mrs. June Cleaver",  the renowned Barbara Billingsley, passed away at the age 94.  At first thought further reference to these two actresses and their situation comedy tv series roles may seem of little importance.  Except that both roles and series' have become part of television history folklore and have had a lasting impact on two generations of viewers and fans.  Barbara Billingsley in, 'Leave It To Beaver', portrayed the quintessential late 1950's, early 1960's, housewife and mother, always reliably at and in the home, providing for every need of her husband and children, always fashionably dressed, down to vacuuming in her pearl necklace.  She was a no nonsense, get the job done, kind of mom.  Florence Henderson, in the, 'Brady Bunch', was one of the first modern, with it, you might say, liberated, tv moms, in a groovy kind of way, to use the lexicon of the late 1960's and early 1970's.  June Cleaver, is a caring and duty driven tv mother, while Carol Brady, is a caring but fun loving television mother.  Both portrayals are meritorious representations of the mothers of their era's, but would need to be blended into one to be a fuller pictire of real life moms.  The later version of Barbara Billingsley's character in a 1988 version of, "Leave It To Beaver", saw her as June Cleaver, evolve into a widowed mother and grandmother, twenty years older and wiser, but still at home with, and tending to her family.  The updated  Carol Brady character Florence Henderson played in the 1980's and 1990's, in subsequent re-creations of the "Brady Bunch", portrayed a mother / grandmother role, with a more activist, out in the working world, Mrs. Brady, still caring for home and family, while working at jobs beyond the family home. Barbara Billingsley made a lasting contribution to the ideal of motherhood, on television and will fondly be remembered always.  May we commemorate her for reminding us in her role as June Cleaver, that faithfully family caring, mothers with a strong sense of discipline, are needed today in our homes as they were fifty plus years ago.  Maybe more so.  May She Rest In Peace.....Now age 76, Florence Henderson continues to extend the horizons of the Carol Brady spirit, as evidenced in the past five weeks by her appearances as a contestant on, "Dancing With The Stars", from which she was eliminated last night.  Just as in the Brady Bunch, she was up to every new experience the first blended or fusion family, in tv history ever presented encountered, so too now as a senior citizen and more than fifty year veteran of television, has her competing on DWTS, shown that persons with spirit and determination can continue to conquer new horizons.  Lastly, this focus on favorite tv moms should  cause us to foremost reflect on the kind of motherhood today's moms are required to provide in an ever fast changing world, where maintaining and exemplifying family values is a constant necessity.  The kind of television mothers Barbara Billingsley and Florence Henderson played are an ideal prototype, but the world - families especially, would only be better and stronger, if more moms were striving to be a combination of these two television mothers..........In Thanks For The Television Roles These Women Have Played As An Example And Inspiration To Mothers Everywhere,   Fr.  Troy