Ida Louise Best, Our Heart, Soul, and Inspiration. If not for a lifetime of love, sacrifice, and lessons for life, our path would have been very different. We'd like to introduce you to the remarkable lady and her story.
Meet Ida, Our Guardian Angel
The youngest of three girls born in a small rural town in Western Pennsylvania during The Great Depression, Ida learned the meaning of adversity from a young age. She lost her father, a Golden Gloves champion boxer, at the age of three. She learned about resiliency, never giving up, making lemons out of lemonade…, from her mother, Zelma, a strong-willed lady who became a widowed mother of three precocious toddlers at the young age of 24.
Ida herself became a young mother of three, having given birth to her youngest, Brian, at 23. The wife of an Air Force lifer, she looked forward to a ‘happily ever after’ as a devoted housewife and mother.
Then, a few years later, her husband abandoned her and her children leaving her penniless, without job skills, without a permanent home.
From that point on, Ida never looked backwards, never felt sorry for herself, and refused to let adversity win. Without any previous working experience, she found work as a waitress in a nearby restaurant. Seeing that his wasn’t enough to pay the bills, she moonlighted at an additional restaurant. She taught her young children that, as long as they had each other, they were as rich as anyone. She taught them never to allow adversity to win, that they could be anything they dreamed to be.
She never remarried or relied on others to help her.
Eventually, she found low level tech work at a local electronics firm in the area. From there, she went to work at Cape Canaveral as one of the first female Space Shuttle Technicians and happily retired there in 2005.
Her children and grandchildren never went without.
We helplessly watched the ravages of Alzheimer’s take this strong, courageous woman away from us in 2022. We learned much from her, and our business, our life, our future is guided by her ever-watching spirit.
Best Options is dedicated to you, Mom.