Woven Together – A Report of the ADA House of Delegates

As the current president of the Utah Dental Association, my opportunities for service include meeting with other colleagues from around the state and country who share similar responsibilities. We learn together, counsel together, and share thoughts and ideas in a common vision of supporting and improving our profession and its supporting organizations. We recently had the opportunity to meet together in Houston, Texas at the annual House of Delegates meetings of the American Dental Association, where important business was conducted relating to the governance, well-being, and continued strength of the association. I now feel the responsibility to share what took place and what I learned.

Reports of the 2022 ADA House of Delegates. . . Through my eyes: My wife, Christine, accompanied me on this trip, and we arrived in Houston a couple of days prior to the start of the HOD meetings. We came early because we knew that I had close relatives who had come to Texas to work and to live, and we hoped to find where they had lived, married, raised families, and died. I must give the credit to Chris for researching these things and encouraging me to connect with my family.

My grandmother, Lattie, was born in North Carolina, and moved as a child with her family to the Hillsboro area of Texas, and her parents are buried in Crockett, Texas. Her family, along with many more of my ancestors from the Southern states were greatly impacted by the effects and aftereffects of the Civil War. I imagine that they moved to Texas, along with others, to seek out new opportunities to better their lives and improve their circumstances. They were farmers, most likely of cotton, but also worked in the cotton mills as weavers. We visited the courthouse in Hillsboro where Lattie received the marriage license to marry her first husband, who died a short time later in 1918 at the age of 22. Grandma was now a young widow with a little baby when she met and married my grandfather, Jeffie, again in that same area. Lattie and Jeffie eventually made their way back to Columbus, Georgia, where my mother and her three brothers were born. This is where I had always remembered Grandma. She is the only grandparent that I was able to have known. Lattie and Jeffie again worked as weavers in the cotton mill. Grandpa had a stroke and died when he was in his forties, leaving Grandma a widow once again, 35 years old, her older step-brother, and three younger brothers, the youngest being three months old. Grandma continue to work to support her young family, and never did marry again. She taught her children well to be faithful, to overcome obstacles, to meet challenges, and to be successful in life. She was a weaver.

A weaver works with their hands to weave threads and strands together to create textiles that are used as fabrics for blankets, towels and bedding, clothing and so forth. The individual strand may sometimes be varied in color or size, and may not be very strong on their own, but when woven together, they become the beautiful textile, ready and able to provide clothing, cover, strength, warmth, or protection. Our family have been recipients of blankets or sheets that my grandmother or others have woven at the mill. I feel honored and grateful that my grandparents worked with their hands and were weavers and good examples to their posterity.

So, what do these family history experiences have to do with the business I observed at the Hour of Delegates at the ADA? The House is composed of dentists from all across the country. Dentists who work with their hands every day in providing essential care to members of their communities. Though these dentists may not have great influence on their own, all come from various backgrounds, political stances, geographic areas, practice modalities, and economic backgrounds and situations, and all have the same desires to be woven together in our desires and efforts to provide the best oral health care in the best ways possible.

The House of Delegates was an opportunity for me to see the weaving together of ideas and values that will strengthen, benefit and protect our profession, and provide the means to clothe it with success. I would encourage every one of you to be a weaver! There truly is strength when we are woven together in our lives!

New ADA Executive Director, Dr Raymond Cohlmia and ADA Chief Economist, Dr Marko Vujicic are coming to Salt Lake. They will be discussing the future of the American Dental Association and the current trends in Dentistry.

February 28, 2023

More Information to Come

Dr Kay Christensen UDA President