Mack West understands sacrifice.
She understands hard work, as well as loss.
But that isn't what the 94-year-old sees when she looks out across the fields of tall grass that surround her home on a hilltop west of Poplar Bluff.
It is the happiness of a life well lived.
"I've had a good life," said West, who grew up on a family tobacco farm near Doniphan. "I've had a good, good journey through life."
Six decades ago, West was a single mother raising two young sons after the end of her first marriage. Monthly salaries at the time from a downtown women's clothing store were less than a day's wages now.
She would later remarry, but see the loss of her husband and a son. She would face a health crisis that left her bed-ridden for weeks.
Those are not the moments West let define her life.
"We have to be ready for change. It's always an adjustment," said West, a small woman at barely 5-feet tall, who seems bigger through sheer force of will. "We have to work with what we have. You just keep busy. Don't let go and just keep busy. I see so many people, they turn loose too quick."
As a child, West saw her life following the same path as her parents.
"All I wanted to do was get married and have a family, have children and enjoy life. Go to church on Sunday and have good kids. But my life changed. We change," said West.
West was a mother who was involved in her children's lives. If they camped, she was there. If they rode horses, she was there.
She married husband Marion West in 1959, and they began to build a life together, including a home on a then-empty stretch of PP Highway. West went to business school and became the manager at Libson, a clothing store and the second business to open at the city's new Valley Plaza Shopping Center.
"If you work hard enough, you can always find a job," West said.
West knew her worth, and wasn't afraid to walk away if others didn't.
"The thing about it is, if you're not appreciated more than that, you need to go home," she said.
In 1980, West became the first woman named to the board of directors at the chamber of commerce. She helped bring in new members and bump up a membership that was below 50. The chamber was also working to attract factories like Briggs and Stratton to its new industrial park on the south side of Poplar Bluff.
"I felt like the whole community should be a part of it. If you were in business, you should be a part of it," West said.
West and her husband helped spearhead efforts to develop Three Rivers College. The donation for the Rutland Library was sparked during a conversation she had with the donor at a meeting for the Women's Democrat Club, which West helped start. West has also served with the county board which helped build the current sheltered workshop, with an advisory board for the college nursing program and with Women Aware.
She and her husband also traveled the world together, with multiple trips to countries like China, Thailand, Germany, Greece, Italy and Switzerland.
"We can do anything we want to do," said West, on a tour through a barn that was once home to a bustling cattle business, and now displays decades of family photos. "We have to accept the turning in our life. All we've got to think about is tomorrow, where we'll be."
West's days still start at 4 a.m. She takes care of the flowers that fill the spaces around her house, including a row of peonia bushes planted by her mother using a single bulb taken from her childhood home in Ripley County. She makes big batches of cowboy cookies and Hawaiian banana bread, enough to share.
She also stays active with the Women's Democrat Club and Kay Porter Edgewood Children's Home, which has cared for more than 200 foster care children over the decades.
She makes plans for road trips to visit her sister in New Mexico, and family reunions that will be hosted on her farm for grandchildren and great-grandchildren from across the country.
"I've really enjoyed what I've done," West said. "A lot of good people have an effect on our life, I think, if you pick the good ones. We have to sort things out, don't we?"