Mom did it all. She hauled grain on the farm, near Filley. She basically was the hired man her whole life, her daughters like to say.

She cooked, too, huge meals for the family, even into her 70s.

Last year, right before she almost died, Mom even catered a Thanksgiving dinner at the town's Methodist church.

Her specialty was pie. Pecan pie. Pumpkin pie. She'd bring 10 to 15 different pies to Aunt Carolyn's house in Lincoln every Thanksgiving.

Mom -- Beth Yohe -- was cleaning the refrigerator Nov. 20 last year when intense pain hit. She called out to Dad -- John Yohe. An ambulance rushed her to BryanLGH Medical Center East.

Her lungs were shutting down. Her kidneys were failing.

Her four daughters came as fast as they could, one from Kansas and one from 90 miles away. Doctors told them she had pancreatitis.

"I heard ‘10 percent survival rate,'" said Amy Wallman, the third daughter. "On a scale of 1 to 100, he said, ‘Your mother is at 100.'"

Last Thanksgiving Day, she lay in a medically induced coma. A granddaughter with blue eyes just like Mom's brought little pecan pies to the waiting room of the ICU.

The day after Thanksgiving -- a day Mom always went shopping with the four daughters -- a doctor called them all into her room.

She's not going to make it, the doctor said.

The room was dark.

She needs to know her life is ending, the doctor said.

Mom? Die?

But Mom was too tough.

They stayed by her side, in shifts.

Dad rarely left her side. He had his own chair. Nurses moved it from the waiting area. "John's chair," they called it.

The daughters -- LaRita, Lindy, Amy and Jeanie -- put lipstick on her, and bought her lotions.

A nurse named Jake rubbed coconut lotion on her one time and she joked that he was her "cabana boy."

Over the five months she stayed there, the family got to know the doctors and nurses and other caregivers of the sixth-floor ICU. They got to know this family, and all of them became like a family.

On Friday, this family gathered again on the sixth floor, on the anniversary of Mom's arrival.

They had a surprise. A big cake. A big frozen turkey, wrapped in a big red bow.

Hugs. Tears.

One nurse brought in her 2-week-old baby girl.

Mona Reynolds, the nurse manager, brought in a chair from the waiting area. "John's Chair."

(The daughters conspired with the hospital. They couldn't tell Dad because he can't keep a secret.)

Mom thought she was just coming by to say hi.

Dr. John Fallick stopped by in his scrubs.

In his 10 years of practice, he's never had someone Mom's age survive such a bad case of pancreatitis.

"She never gave up," he said. "And her family was such a support."

Mom walked around just fine. She hugged everybody. She insisted that you eat a piece of cake.

In orange icing:

Giving Thanks For Beth Yohe and Family.

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.