My Great Aunt the Movie Star

Aunt Thelma was not really a movie star. But when I was eight and heard her sing on the radio, I just knew she was! I grew to learn that Thelma was not famous, but she was lovely just the same. And her captivating voice filled my life for years to come.

Church would not have been the same without her. With one main song to her repertoire, Thelma's hauntingly beautiful voice set the tone for the service. I don't know the origin of her song, but it went something like this:

Dark clouds hover all around me

Dark clouds hover all around me

Dark clouds hover all around me

Pray that I'll be able to stand.

Pray, Saints. Pray that I'll be able

Pray, Saints. Pray that I'll be able

Pray, Saints. Pray that I'll be able

Pray that I'll be able to stand.

This could go on for several minutes with, When I'm in the valley, Pray that I'll be able..., or When I see him coming, Pray that I'll be able..., or When I'm at the judgment, Pray that I'll be able.... Now intersperse those with several refrains of Dark Clouds hover all around me..., and I think you get the picture. The lyrics were depressing!

Yet, couple Aunt Thelma's booming voice with a pair of guitars, a banjo, and a backup singer or two, and it was simply beautiful. Before the song was over, women were shouting in the aisles and folks were headed toward an altar of prayer. The preacher didn't always get to preach!

What made Great Aunt Thelma sing this mournful tune? I can only surmise. Sometimes I thought people who reared families during the Great Depression never really left the depression in their minds.

Thelma was not unpleasant to be around. Like her sister, my grandmother, she was a gracious woman. Last time I saw her, she was visiting my ailing grandmother. I wondered what my family will be like without these aged women, the glue that held us all together? That chapter is still unfolding. I pray that someday my nieces and grand-nieces (and someday granddaughters) will remember me so kindly as I remember Thelma and Mamaw.

I'm afraid I've failed so far. But I do believe the saying, "as long as there is life, there is hope." God grant me the courage, strength and willingness to change, to become a godly example for generations to follow.

Flour Sack Dresses

Here's a picture of Mom and two of her siblings, circa 1947, in Plymouth, OH. I wish I had a better photo so you could see the little flowers on these homemade dresses. Mamaw made them from flour sacks. I've been told that a 50 lb. bag of flour cost a whole $0.25 back then! I wonder if one bag made a single dress, or two?

Left - Wanda - One year older than my mother, she died six months before Mom at age thirty-eight (two months before her thirty-ninth birthday).

Middle - Richard - He was the sixth child.

Right - Carol, my mother. She was six years old in this photo. She also died at thirty-eight.

Soup Beans and Fried Potatoes: A Lesson In Hospitality

My grandmother--better known as Mamaw--was a hospitable woman. No matter what time of day or night, if you went to her house, you were going to eat. Sometimes it was a whole meal. How she had enough food in the house to feed a family of six, who were unannounced, at any given time, was beyond me. Other times she'd bake a peach cobbler and serve it hot, with ice cream.

She also had a history of feeding strangers. Mamaw worked in a factory and raised seven children on her own. It was the 1940s. They were poor, but Mamaw and her brood never went hungry. They had soup beans (pinto beans) and fried potatoes every night for supper. Very often, they had unexpected guests for dinner--hoboes.

Willard, Ohio was a railroad town. The tracks went near Mamaw's house, which meant the hoboes did, too. Whoever knocked on her door in the evenings was invited in to eat supper. Sometimes they just asked for water. But they got soup beans and fried potatoes. These homeless men were always respectful. They never molested this poor, generous family. Always grateful, they would quietly leave when dinner was over.

Times are different, I know. I would be so afraid to open my home to homeless people, especially if I had no husband around to protect me and my children. Perhaps hospitality has gone the way of the dinosaur.

Hebrews 13 [2] says, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." I wonder how many angels enjoyed soup beans and fried potatoes at my grandmother's house?

Ever heard this saying, "A Woman's Place is in the Home?"

I used to ask my Mom about her childhood dreams, what did she long to be when she grew up? A wife and a mother, she would say. No, Mom, that's not what I mean. You know, what did you want for a career? All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother, she would say.

And she did it well. Her housekeeping skills were stuff of legends. No lie. People used to say they would eat eggs off her bathroom floor. Personally, I don't know what could compel me to do that (except maybe starvation). Yet, that's what folks said. She cleaned all morning, read books in the afternoon, and started cooking supper about the time we got home from school.

After school was a magical time for me. Mom focused on me and my stories. She peppered me with questions, as though I were the only child on the planet. My squeaky-voiced little sister sat beside me on the floor as we gazed into our mother's face, and drank in her attention.

Mom played games with us: Sorry!, Monopoloy, Uno, and her favorite, Trouble. She spent all the time she could with us. She cherished her children. However, her time on earth was to be a short one.

My mother bore four children, but her frail body did not allow her to see them into adulthood. She was thirty-eight when she died. One of the last things she said to me was, "I prayed to see my children grow big enough to take care of themselves. Now I wish I had prayed to see my grandchildren."

I remember voices from my childhood saying, "A woman's place is in the home." It was a derisive comment meant to demean women, something along the lines of keeping your woman pregnant in the summer and barefoot in the winter. As for me, I was glad to have my Mom home, however incomplete the time was. She was 100% at home. She never longed for a career, never desired to compete with men in a man's world, never made her kids feel like an inconvenience, never acted like housework and childrearing were beneath her.

My mom stayed home on purpose. She made our house a home. God bless every woman who puts her heart into homemaking and childrearing. Her kids will never forget. They will rise up and call her blessed.