Saturday, March 28, 2020

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.

 
                   

10 comments:

Mevely317 said...

As ever, I'm enjoying getting to know your sweet momma a little more. Oh, what would we be without our memories! This reminds me of a favorite verse (Flavia) -- "Sometimes our hearts borrow from our yesterdays. And with each remembrance we meet again with those we love."
Love from Coosada!

Chatty Crone said...

Thank you for honoring women. I loved to read about your mother. She sounds soooooooooooooooooooo sweet. sandie

betty said...

You have had great women in your life Jack starting with your mom and of course you are married to a great woman!

Betty

Susan Kane said...

Your mama was a precious precious woman. She never gave up, kept and raised you all. I love this lady.

I like these photos, plain and untouched. those photos are the best.

Lisa said...

You lost me at “water gravy”. I’m thinking if she made good gravy with water, she had to be special. I love reading about the older days and how they did things. You had a wonderful Momma.

NC bound in the morning
Lisa

yaya said...

Women were and still are the strength of a family. What's that saying about the "hand that rocks the cradle" rules the world..or something like that! Your Momma sounds like a real gem and how sweet to give her this lovely tribute. I'm glad you have many wonderful memories of her. Thanks for sharing them here with us!

Jean said...

Beautiful tribute to your mother.

Beyda'nın Kitaplığı said...

Anneler çok değerli. Sevgilerimle.

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

Your mom was an extraordinary woman for sure. What wonderful memories you have and thanks for putting the spotlight on women. So many time they are forgotten and the men are praised. Your tribute is proof of your love. She was amazing woman!

boromax said...

LOL. I made a similar miscalculation recently, thinking I was going to mention all of the "mentors" in my life. Once I started bringing them up, I realized how many there were. Same with the women in our lives, eh? Starts with mama, and sisters, and grandmas, and aunts.... it truly is a wonderfully long list. And you reminded me of something - I hope you can indulge me. When I was at Officer Training School, one of the traditions was a "spirit shirt," which was a plain white t-shirt that your classmates decorated for you with drawings and quotes and so forth. One of them wrote on my shirt "I'm used to being under women," because during our discussion of the roles of women in the Air Force I mentioned (in those words, unfortunately) that as a prior enlisted member, I had already reported to female senior NCOs and officers. Funny how the memory works. Thank you, Jack!!