Tulsa's 'Big Mama' Keeps On Mowing Despite Setback

Rick Wells, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- A Tulsa businesswoman set up a lawn service, and everything was going well until last week when a thief took off with her trailer and equipment.

LeAnne Queen, also known as Big Mama of Big Mama's Mowin', is finishing up a customer's lawn.  Everything she's using is borrowed, except the trimmer.

When we met her last March she was slogging through a back yard mowing in the rain. She had just discovered something called crowd funding and had enough small investors to buy more and better equipment.

3/31/2011 Related Story: Tulsa Woman Finds Second Career In Mowing Lawns

Everything was going well until last week when she stopped to eat lunch.

"At 1:30 when we came out. Something's weird, my trailer's gone. I freaked out. I immediately started sobbing. My livelihood was gone," she said.

Someone had stolen the trailer and everything on it.  The mowing business is supporting her family.  Her husband is a nursing student and they have four kids.  It's taken a few days but she's over it.

"I can't dwell on what's taken, I have to move forward," she said.

And she has with the help of some friends.  Someone bought a trimmer and left it on her front porch.  Another lawn service loaned her the rest.  So she's mowing and will finish the mowing season with borrowed stuff.

"I think we have to choose to be happy sometimes," she said.

Sometimes happy endings are not based on circumstance, but are a choice. That's the moral of Big Mama's Mowin'.