Women’s history month, Ora and Ruth

Autos by Women

Helene Rother Ackerknecht, born in 1908 in Leipzig, Germany, was the first woman to design cars for GM.She worked on all the 1940s cars.

For today (Wednesday):

I enjoyed ‘some’ history in my short time in school. Since then I have also heard and read names of people who made a historical difference. Jane Austen was a writer that did some stirring of her own. Maya Angelou was also a poet and entertainer who walked on the edge. I have never known anyone who effected change in history enough to get their names in history books.

But in my short history I have known many women who could have given advice to Presidents, kings and Queens.  You have got to know the women behind men in uniform to know what they have overcome. Ora, who once blogged but now is alive on Facebook can hold you spell bound with her life, following her husband who was a Chaplain in the Army. We drove to Kentucky to talk her about the Cochlear implants I was considering. She is a wonderful, articulate and open lady. She gave me some pointers and a lot of good advice. She is also very cool, that lady. LOL

I had a sister in law named Ruth. Since my brothers were old enough to serve in WWII and I was still a baby, their wives were old enough to be my mother. Ruth was a down to earth MOTHER. I looked forward to staying with Ruth in the summer. They lived out in the woods. Her son Howard was near my age.

I related this in the book, “Jack and Sherry’ A love story”. When I was about 6 yrs old I had a runny nose and spied a box that I was sure was Kleenex. But the things were stuck together and I could not pull it apart. Ruth spied me sitting on the floor beside the box pulling at this thing. She asked what I was doing. I explained I needed to blow my nose. She was so sweet, “Honey use my hanky,” And she took the Kotex from me.  Well you must admit the boxes look a lot alike to a 6 year old.

Later in life at the Dr’s office he discovered she was on the verge of a heart attack. He started to call an ambulance and she flat refused. My friend will drive me there. Finally he agreed. In the car she told her friend to go thru Hardees drive thru, ”they won’t feed my anything at the hospital!” That is the Ruth-Truth, and she arrived at the hospital in time to be treated for a ‘for-real heart attack!’ That was her.

Nite Shipslog                       

Women’s History Month, Sister Shirley…

Autos of beauty

Erika Newsome, race car driver...

For today, (Tuesday):

In the past I have said a lot about Shirley. She and I were mom and dad’s second family. We were raised together and for 9-10 years we shared the same bedroom. She would slip me cookies in bed. She taught me to ride a bicycle; put up with a kid brother playing hop-scotch.  Shirley once drove on the drag strip in a 1953 Buick

 She interrupted my bed time prayers when I made an error in English. Shirley thought I should use the proper English when talking to the Lord. One night it got so bad that I had to call mama to tell her ‘if Shirley interrupted my prayers one more time I was gonna knock her down. Mama explained I should not get mad during prayers, said good night and left our room. She had to get the last word, “You were wrong Jackie!”

 At 17 she organized a trio and entered them in a talent contest. They opened with Shirley playing the accordion and switching smoothly to the piano. They won the talent contest and appeared on TV. In 1952. We didn’t even have a TV to see her.

 She grew to be a lady of culture. I guess the only one of our family to have ‘class’; I joked and laughed at her and with her. WE had fun. She did know which fork to use and enjoyed entertaining. When she would get a little high ‘falootin’, I would remind her of the time she jumped out of the hayloft of our black friend’s barn, into a pile of straw and manure yelling Geromimo. She could get away with anything with dad, she was his pet. LOL

   Shirley on the way to sing Country/Western

In her late 70’s Shirley (a widow) was asked to sing with a band; thus fulfilling her dream to be an entertainer. She was successful locally because she was a very good pianist and had a great voice.

That girl could get anything to grow.  She was also an artist and many times her growing was decorative; watermelons and cantaloupes in her front yard. She was my last surviving sibling leaving us two years ago. I miss her. 

   Queen Shirl Taken at her surprise Birthday arranged by her boy friend Smokey Coe During a Senior's meeting..
 

It was very rewarding to hear stories of her picking up the tabs of folks less fortunate at stores. You may remember Lucy from Aol Journals and blogger. I ran across a cancelled check for $350 to a veterinarian In Nebraska. It was a VET bill for Spunky, Lucy’s Beagle.

Every one stay safe.

Nite Shipslog     

Women’s history month, Big Sister, Katherine

Autos of beauty:

Meet Sheron Gauci, executive Director of GM  Design.

For today (Monday):

This is Women’s history month. Of course I never knew Anne Franks, but her name is known worldwide by her diary.  Madam Marie Curie was before my time but she studied uses of uranium and coined the word Radioactivity which has brought forth many cures of some cancer. These ladies changed history.

That brings me back to women I have known and that influenced my life. I have lost both my sisters. Kat was a character. She married @ 16 to S.A.(Dick) Lankford, who was also 16 and working full time in the cotton mill.

Dick had always felt he should be a preacher, he studied hard, worked and prayed and by the time he was 22-23, they left to organize a church. Kat followed her mama and mentor and furthered her 9^th grade education thru correspondence courses. This helped her to fill the life of a pastor’s wife and mother and later as an administrator herself.  Dick was assigned our churches overseer-ship of  NY and later all of Canada. Kat learned fast to produce a monthly paper, organize state wide meetings and supervise the state women’s works.  The Haitians and Jamaicans called her Mama.

One of the thousands of examples of Kat being Kat. The General Overseer asked her to speak to a meeting of worldwide administrators and missionaries. When she took the podium and started her speech she said something about a woman’s position in marriage and church that did not set well with the General. “Now wait Sister Katherine….” Before he could finish she continued. “You hold it big boy, you asked me to speak, and this is my microphone.”  She got a standing ovation of the thousands in attendance. The General even apologized for interrupting, saying, “That is why she was asked to speak, she is one real lady!”

 

After retirement Kat & Dick became RV’ers. WE ran together for a few years. They were the ideal traveling buddies. They loved the state parks and Corps of Engineers parks with outdoor fires we did too. Dick was a fisherman and taught me to fish; I had a ‘folda-bote.’ Kat and Sherry could cook some of the best meals on the road. Having Kat & Dick with us, even to Alaska, holds so many memories.

Kat & Dicks motor home crossing the Yukon River.  Below that they are adding our names to the' Sign Forest' in the Yukon

 

I built them a home, Kat made some changes to the plans and we adapted them, we are still enjoying her creativity with a sit-down breakfast bar.

I cannot say enough about a wonderful lady, my older sister Katharine.

Nite Shipslog  

I am missing so many pictures in the Other computer.                     

Women’s history month, Mama

Autos of beauty

  Michelle Christensen, She is not a model, she is the designer of this Acura she designed. She is the company’s first female exterior designer. (nice job, huh?)

A woman also designed the Corvette Stingray!

For today (Sunday): 

This is Women’s history month. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows there would be NO HISTORY without women. I know women have contributed to WORLD HISTORY. I did not know Helen Keller nor Rosa Parks. But I have known some GREAT women.

 Above that is  who we called Sister Mahaffey from KY. An evangelist's wife. They often came to stay with Mama & dad between revivals. They could drop in for a week and never stirred mama's feathers.

Mama: She laughingly called herself, Gracey Missouri Gertrude Loyd Darnell.  She married down they said. I came when we were poor. She was married to a preacher who quit work to preach, and never worked at secular job again. That meant that mama like many women in her day learned to make do with what she had. She created meals. Her water gravy was delicious. Her biscuits were the best. If she was out of something she filled the gap somehow. Again like other women in her day she raised chickens always had a garden, could always find room for some flowers. She canned, she laughed when the pressure cooker blew up. She could tell the best bed time stories.  If I had to go get a switch, she never applied it mad, it was to teach but it was applied.

                               Mama with me, her baby boy

I NEVER SAW HER OUTWARDLY UPSET, she was dad’s calm in a storm. She was steady as she goes. She could sew a ½ mile a minute with a treadle machine.  When daddy had that thing fitted to be electric, she went to a mile a minute. LOL  There are a million things you and I could say about mama, and it would never say it like it was.  I think she loved everyone. She was talented. She arranged flowers and sold them with everything else she had on her plate. She raised enough money to build at least 25 or 30 churches in Africa. Our local paper once did a full page spread on her mission work.

She was raising a family of 2 boys and a girl during the depression. Then in the 1930’s lost two children and added 2 more, Shirley and I.

  Mom & dad at their 50th anniversary

 Mama's family that lived, Jr., Odis and me in back. Shirley and Kat in front with dad and mom.

When my dad passed she wanted to go also. She never recovered. Over the next few years she became bed fast and the other woman in my life was there. She quit a good job she liked in Wash. DC to come back to NC to take care of MY mama, while I stayed in DC until I could arrange a transfer (no small feat). 

 

I planned to cover all the women in my life in this post. How silly to think that. Thank you for reading this. Be safe and take care of yourselves.

Nite Shipslog 

 ps: I do have better pictures of mama but they are on the other sick computer.