Nurturing love: Readers share tales of people and their actions who affected their lives

Most religions have some element of love in them. Perhaps the most well-known sacred text on the subject comes from I Corinthians 13 in the Bible. Here are excerpts:

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. ... So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

For this Valentine's Day, we invited readers to send in stories of a special person or people who extended unconditional love to them, and so affected their lives. Here are three of their stories.

Marietta Bradford of Ceres was born in Nebraska, the sixth of eight children -- the last two were twins -- in a very poor family. Her fifth-grade teacher, Thelma Miller, stepped in to encourage and care for her.

"She invited me to her church, as was her custom when she had students who didn't go anywhere to church," Bradford, 68, said. "She saw something in me that told her I was worth her time and attention. Because I was from a very dysfunctional family, when I was in the seventh grade, she began inviting me to her house to help clean house or iron clothes or help her check her students' papers. She paid me, so I could buy some clothes. She eventually asked my mother if she could care for me and have me live with her. My mother agreed.

"So from seventh grade through high school, I lived with Thelma. She was truly my spiritual mother. She prayed with me, fasted for me when I was being difficult, fed me, clothed me and saw I was in church every Sunday and Wednesday.

"Every summer during the school break, we would take two weeks and travel by car to places all over the United States. She would begin hobbies with me such as rock collecting, stamp collecting, coin collecting and shells from various beaches. We were sure to see each capital building of each state we traveled through.

"Thelma put me through college, where I earned my teaching degree and taught fifth grade. The thing she is most proud of is that I married a minister and have raised my two children in the church. She is 97 this year and lives in my home state of Nebraska. She is not thinking as clearly as she always has, but when I call her, the one thing she always says before we hang up the phone is, "Remember that I love you and you are my family."

Bradford, who switched from teaching to working at the Stanislaus County Library before retiring, said she received a phone call Monday saying that her mentor had died earlier that day.

"She changed my life," Bradford said.

Gift during Great Depression

Ellen Dunbar of Modesto said she was 8 years old when her church schoolteacher made a special announcement: The church board would award a New Testament to each student who would attend class faithfully for three months and who would memorize the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes (also known as Jesus' sermon on the mount) and John 3:16-17.

"Needless to say, we were all very excited about the promised gift," she said. "At the end of the three months, every child received a New Testament -- the boys received a black one and the girls received a white one.

"When I first received mine, I sometimes had to dodge my little brother and baby sister to go hide somewhere to read. When I grew older, I incorporated the readings into my homework schedule. When I became a mother, I found time to spend with a more adult Bible."