Pure resolve transformed Mehrangiz Salimkhan - Mehra, for short - into an American last week.

She was sworn in as a U.S. citizen, along with hundreds of others in Baltimore's War Memorial Building, wearing a navy suit and a big smile, in view of her husband and 17 friends, children and grandchildren.

Two daughters and a son had gone before her, becoming citizens and professionals and sending their children to good schools. She helped make it possible. Salimkhan, 59, would never put food on her plate until everybody else had their fill.

Now, they were waiting on her.

Everything Mehra Salimkhan did was for her family. She cooked, sewed, cared for them almost from the age of 15, when she married in a small village in northern Iran. Her husband, a math teacher, worked long days as a private tutor to supplement his income. In the mid-1970s the two oldest daughters arrived in the United States as high school exchange students, and, when the Iranian revolution came, they stayed. Arriving in the United States with their son, Rasoul, for the wedding of one daughter, Salimkhan and her husband, Abraham Motevalli, decided than since their son was draft age, he, too, should immigrate, so they left him here just before Iran closed its borders.

A decade later, in 1987, Salimkhan and her husband returned to Baltimore for good. Three of her four children were here now, and she came for them. For six years she babysat for her grandchildren so her children could finish advanced degrees. Only when the grandchildren were school age did Salimkhan enroll in an English class herself. Her habit of waiting until her children had had their fill became a family joke: Whenever Salimkhan ate at her children's homes, they insisted she fill up her plate first.

A shy woman, she nonetheless made many friends. Women her age worked outside the home, she saw, and she, too wanted to work. She didn't have to work - her children could have banded together to support her - but she wanted to be independent.

She started by making lunches at Pikesville Middle School. Then she was hired by the Brock Co., the food service company at T. Rowe Price Co. in Owings Mills. She and her husband, who was employed at Black & Decker in Towson, purchased a second car, and she learned to drive the 6 miles to work. Eventually, she became responsible for ordering and supplying coffee and foodstuffs in two dozen kitchens spread over four buildings.

She was humble about her accomplishments, but her children saw the glow in her eyes when she spoke of her work. Her son, Rasoul, thought her independence gave her a pride he guessed had been missing from her life, a life of putting everybody else's needs first. Her command of English grew, and her friendships blossomed.

When the day came that Salimkhan was eligible for citizenship, she eagerly pursued it. Her biggest struggle was with writing. English did not come easy after Farsi.

The first time she took the test, on May 25, 2000, she failed the dictation. She faced a two-year wait to take the test again, and some family members thought she would give up.

But she only studied harder.

Every night after the dinner plates were cleared and her husband turned on the television news, she sat at the dining room table writing over and over again the things she wanted to memorize - the structure of government, the names of state capitals. When family members visited, she would bring out her books and ask her children and grandchildren to translate or dictate English sentences. As the test date approached, she enrolled in a citizenship class offered in Pikesville by Baltimore City Community College. When the class ended, she re-enrolled. Why leave anything to chance?

On the eve of her second test last June, she returned home from work anxious to begin a last-minute review. Her foot ached, she noticed, but she took aspirin and told her husband she was tired. When she sat down to tackle some exercises, she couldn't move her hand. She didn't want to complain, not with her chance at citizenship so close. Around midnight, her husband called 911.

All the way to the hospital in an ambulance, she mumbled in Farsi to her oldest daughter, "I can't go. I can't go. My test. My test. My citizenship test is tomorrow."

Her speech was slurred and her hard-won English gone.

The medics and doctors couldn't understand her urgent concern until a second daughter, Mahnaz Motevalli, a doctor, arrived in the emergency room and translated. Quickly, the ER doctor scribbled a note explaining she had been admitted to the hospital and couldn't take the test. Motevalli delivered the letter to immigration officials at 8 a.m. and returned with an official stamp to show her mother in the hope of calming her. Salimkhan had suffered a moderate stroke at 2 a.m. They did not want her to have a heart attack, too.

"Don't worry," the doctor told her. But she did, for two months, until she learned she would not have to wait another two years: A new test was set for Sept. 17, three months after her stroke.

Immediately after her stroke, Salimkhan couldn't walk. When she spoke, she mixed up Farsi and Turkish. When her teacher, Mickey Constan, called her hospital room a few days after her stroke, she wanted to speak to him. But whatever she hoped to say came out as a long wail.

She couldn't write. But rehabilitation experts gave her a pen wrapped in foam to make writing easier, and she pushed it so hard to scratch out her name that she broke the pen. She asked for her English books and her citizenship books.

Seeing a woman who was so capable now immobilized was heartbreaking to her children.

But Salimkhan cared less about what was happening to her body than she did about her citizenship, she said in an interview at her Pikesville home, with her son helping to translate and her husband serving tea and honey cakes.

She stayed a month in the hospital. Her strength returned, as did her English, after six weeks as an outpatient at Sinai's rehabilitation center.

She worked so hard, she said, because she wanted to return to her job and to continue caring for her family. "I want to be there 100 percent for my family," she said. "When I'm well, everybody in the family is well."

Her husband took over the cooking, cleaning - and her old job. After she learned she couldn't return to her food service job because of the lifting involved, she signed up to be tested at Sinai to find out what jobs would be suitable.

By the end of the summer, when Constan called to check on his student, he could tell that her memory had returned, along with her English. She memorized all 100 sentences the government said might be on the dictation test, and all 100 historical facts it listed for new citizens. She avidly followed Maryland's election for governor.

The day of the third test, Sept. 17, was uneventful; Salim- khan's daughter Mahnaz had expected to have to explain her mother's stroke and speech issues, but the examiner waved her away. "Your mother will be a citizen," he said.

To celebrate her perfect test score, Salimkhan took a big cake to the friends she had made at the rehabilitation center.

The decision to move to America came first, and it was the hardest.

The decision to become a citizen was easy. She had family here, children, grandchildren, many friends and a job. She had freedom, she said, her own independence. Women covered their heads in scarves in her village. They did not go to school.

"I like America," she said.

Only the language troubled her.

In late summer, Constan offered to coach her at home for the test. He was impressed by her determination to pass the test in English. She didn't have to do this.

She could have become a citizen without learning English. A permanent resident for more than 15 years and older than 55, she met the requirement to be allowed to take the test in her native tongue. But she didn't consider it after she failed the dictation in her first test.

Again, after the stroke took away her English this summer, she could have chosen to take the test in Farsi.

But she refused.

Nor did she consider the option taken by her husband, to wait until she turns 75, when she can win citizenship automatically.

"I worked too hard to have it handed to me," she said.

On the day she would become a citizen, Salimkhan rose at 5 a.m., unable to sleep longer. Through the morning at the War Memorial Building, where she stood in a long line waiting for immigration officials to check citizenship certificates, she beamed.

Her children's smiles were as big as her own.

"Usually we are first," said her oldest daughter, Mitra. "This was the one thing she wanted for herself."

Salimkhan took her seat. Her family surrounded her, taking pictures and chatting. Constan, her teacher, shook her hand. It was only the second time in five years that a student had invited him to witness them take the oath, and he came to commend her.

There were other important people. In front of Salimkhan sat the American family that had sheltered her children, and then she and her husband, when they arrived in this country. To the side sat her son and his in-laws, her daughters and sons-in-law, some Christian, some Jewish and some, like herself, Muslim. They had all been in this hall before. As a retired Marine Corps officer sang "God Bless America" people began humming. Then they sniffled.

It was just after "The Star Spangled Banner" that Salim- khan stood and raised her hand and softly spoke the oath that made her a citizen.

Finally, it was her turn.