But then, just the other day, I accepted Evelyn Ryan as my personal savior. I'm pretty sure that this stout and effusive mother of 10 will cover all my spiritual needs -- both religious and maternal. With me, as with so many things, Mrs. Leo J. Ryan of Defiance, Ohio, has killed two birds with one stone.

And I am giddy with relief. First, I have finally had one of those conversion experiences that will allow me to feel a modicum of charity for enthusiastic Christians. Second, I have a guide, my very own Good Book, to thump and dog-ear and annotate. And finally, I am free. I am deliciously unconcerned with the false gods and goddesses who squeal, cajole and finger wag with bad prose and illegitimate authority, who would have me believe that I could not know what is best, that I cannot be quite enough, that I will not do the right thing. And I am thrilled in the knowledge that Evelyn Ryan would find these people hilarious.

Evelyn Ryan, like some of the best personal saviors, is deceased. She is brought to life, however, in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less," a book written by Terry Ryan. The first great attribute of this book is that it is not a book about how to be a mother. It purports to be nothing more than a story about Terry Ryan's mom, who had 10 kids, entered a lot of contests during the 1950s and 1960s, when wit, humor and a dandy way with words could earn an enterprising person a couple of bucks and the occasional toaster.

But it is a book about how to be a mother. In the finest tradition of sacred texts, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" is a simple biography of an oblivious saint, a person challenged by events and circumstances so extreme as to be unbelievable in the context of anything less official than a daughter's deadpan narrative. And it is all there -- wisdom, solace, inspiration and a great garbage disposal subplot that offers no particular insights but fabulous yuks.

Evelyn Ryan, married while pregnant at the age of 20, gave birth every two years until she had 10 children. She lived with Lea Anne, Dick, Bub, Rog, Bruce, Terry (aka Tuff), Mike, Barb, Betsy, Dave and her husband, Leo "Kelly" Ryan, who drank a fifth of Kessler's whiskey and a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer every night, in a house where, as Terry writes, "Things went haywire on a regular basis, but if everyone was still standing at the end of the day, we considered ourselves fortunate."

This is a place where the refrigerator had to be opened with a screwdriver, where food was kept in the hard-to-open clothes dryer to keep the kids from snacking, where 12 quarts of milk lasted two days and Kelly Ryan's salary at Serrick's Screw Machine Shop was $90 a week, reduced to $60 a week after liquor purchases.

Here, for example, is how Evelyn Ryan used her clothes dryer with a faulty pilot light:

Every time she used the dryer (at least once a day), she brought out two matches, a pair of scissors, and a fan. Lying flat on her stomach, she would grasp one unlit match with the tips of the scissors, light the second match, use it to light the first, then stick the scissors through the door as far as she could reach. The fan, brought oh-so-carefully to the door with her other hand, was used to "jump the flame," as Mom explained it. Sure enough, the breeze from the fan blew the flame from the match to the pilot light.

Here is the best part:

Peering over Mom's shoulder through the little door, we could see a drop of blue fire dance across the dark abyss to land with perfect balance on the gas jet. "There," Mom said every day of her life at 801 Washington, "that's a little better."

These are the moments, firing up the dryer, changing gears on the car by pulling over and pounding them into place with a hammer, when Evelyn would say things like: "I feel that I'm doing exactly what I was meant to do in this life. I've never doubted it."

Order "Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood" from the editors of Mothers Who Think.