On the rare occasion when Bill Snyder would stop working and be able to spend time with his children Sean, Shannon and Meredith, he would tell them stories about his mother.

How she had raised him herself in their downtown, one-bedroom apartment in St. Joseph, Mo. How she had worked at a department store to be able to send him to college. How she had thrown herself — all 4 feet 9 inches — in front of the door when he tried to leave without permission.

Or how he had broken curfew when his divorced father bought him a convertible for his 16th birthday, and how she had told his father, “Either you come and get the car, or I’m going to drive it in the river.”

Some weekends, he went to see his father three hours away, but he grew to be his mother’s son: accountable, consistent, meticulous. Even obsessive. Every detail mattered. If any little thing was left undone, he came to believe, there would be consequences.