Julia Frances in a Goat Cart

They could not get her to smile. 

 

1954 - Laughter and tears

There are coincidences in life that firmly link two events together.  In my childhood this book is one of those links.   It is the story of a peddler who walks from town to town selling hats.  He is not an ordinary peddler carrying his goods; he wears his caps one on top of another.  One day he falls asleep under a tree and when he wakes all the caps are gone.  It was a silly book just right for a six - nearly seven - year old.

If a book is the link; you might wonder what are the life events.

During the summer of 1954 my Grandmother passed away.  In all my memories of her she was in a hospital bed or wheel chair.  When I was a toddler she was hospitalized for weeks with an exceptionally high fever (either at Mercer or Emory  University hospital in Atlanta).  Afterwards she required constant assistance.  Because of her needs, my father managed to have stateside assignments that kept us nearby.  When he was transferred overseas, we returned to Manchester; so mother could help. 

 

This picture of Gaye and me taken at Ft Benning before we moved to Manchester. It was part of a Christmas card sent out in 1953.

When my dad received orders to serve the army in the Korean War, my mom was very pregnant.  His deployment was delayed until Barbara was born. Anticipating a return to Manchester, they built a sweet little house on Parkman Drive. 

Looking at this photo there appears to be no stress in life.  Yet... What a challenge to send your husband to war,  to be the mom of three little girls ... especially in the age of cloth diapers and clothes lines and cooking from scratch, to be a caring daughter of a very ill mother, and to be a busy church worker helping with Bible school in the summer and Sunday School all year.  If she was lucky I rode a bus to school, but I can not remember one.   So how did she manage to look so beautiful and composed?   Somehow she did everything well and kept the stress to herself.

That July Grandmama died.  While I did not attend the services, we went to the church together before the funeral.  On the ride home she spoke with me about death and separation.   I have reflected on that conversation.  Of course I do not remember the exact words she shared.  Just the tears in her eyes as the told me she was grateful that Grandmama didn't have to suffer anymore. She knew she was in heaven. 

Having her husband half a world away in war must have brought her  to worrisome thoughts. Concern for her father and feeling her husband's absence even more keenly, we moved to Granddaddy Harry's.  She could cook and keep the house and he could help with little ones.  She found a tenant to rent our home fully furnished.

Now back to the book.  Sort of.... 

Mother sang children's songs and told us stories and read children's books.  Golden Books were big favorites. They were inexpensive versions of  Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Engine that Could, Little Black Sambo (totally unacceptable today),  The Three Little Pigs, Peter Rabbit, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,  Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, and so many more. 

I am unsure when or even how often we read "Caps for Sale".  The stories we read were repeated often.  At times mother read to us and other times it was Granddaddy Harry. 

At any rate there was a day in December when the weather began to change for the worse.  The Lake became frothy mess from hail.  Quickly Granddaddy scurried around the house gathering quilts to cover the car.  Hail could destroy the paint and the hood and roof at worse.  Realizing that the hail could also damage him, he put on a heavy coat and two hats on his head for some personal protection.

As little girls it never occurred to us that he might have been hurt (Granddaddy's are like dad's ... super strong and can not be hurt.) We were laughing at how funny he looked wearing two hats.  No one wears two hats ... except people in silly books.

We had hardly stopped laughing and looking out the big window at the lake when the phone rang.  I ran to answer it and it was for mother.  Mrs Dorsey was calling.  I probably thought it was for a play date with Linda, who was in my grade at school and lived next to our house.  I held the phone waiting to give the phone to Mother and continued to stand there waiting to see what she had to say.  I watched Mother's face change from a big smile to a stunned look.  Mrs Dorsey  told her our house had blown away in a tornado. 

 

 

This is a historical photo of the storm damage.  Our home is in the upper right corner.  All that remained was a rug that landed on someone's roof, a refrigerator that still worked in 1983, a toaster, a china base lamp and odds and ends. The tub was still in place.  Even tile came off the floor.  Daddy had a big overstuffed green leather chair that was shredded.  Big trees in the yard snapped in half. 

 

 

Writing about a book may not seem relevant when I am thinking about the tornado make not make sense to an adult point of view, but I was a child.  When I think of the tornado or any tornado, my mind zips to my Grandfather wearing two hats and then to the book. 

 

Now Gaye may find her mind races to when Daddy retuned home.... and the brierpatch story.