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Flying into My Mother’s Footsteps

cwester
Explorer C

My mother, Ellen Wester, has been a Southwest Flight Attendant for 35 years.  I always tell people I've been flying since before I was born, because that's the truth! I am so thankful to have a mother that taught me to be kind, work hard, and to always follow The Golden Rule, much like the values that are ingrained in every Southwest Employee—mine just started a little bit earlier at home. I'm a true Southwest kid.  Other Flight Attendants, who have their own young children, often ask if it bothered me when I was younger to have my mom gone a lot.  I always tell them it didn't; not because I didn't miss her, but because I had such a close knit family, extended family around to help, and was busy with school activities.  Even while I was young, I knew my mom LUV’d this Company, and was working hard for and because of us, so for that I never felt anything other than pride. After watching my Mom’s LUV for this Company, I began my own Southwest journey in January of 2011 as a Marketing Intern.  I then moved into Customer Relations for about two years before joining the friendly skies in February 2013.  I am so grateful that I now get to share this experience with my mother from time-to-time at work.  It doesn't happen as often as we would like, considering she is very senior and I am very junior; however, when we do fly together we have a blast!  We've gone to Nashville to the Grand Ole Opry, up and down the Pacific coast between Malibu and Los Angeles, and places in between.  One day, we even had Mr. Herb Kelleher himself join us on our last leg from San Antonio to Dallas! chelsea I'm looking forward to sharing more experiences and fun times with my Mom here at work, and I can't wait for our next adventure! Happy Mother's Day, Mom!