My Story
She began her life in an affluent home in rural Mississippi near a place called Pace. Her daddy was well-placed in life due to the singing and sharp business acumen of his parents. I understand that they were touring musicians who saved their money until they earned enough money to buy some land. I further understand that they settled down to farm.
My mother often told me how her Dad (my Grandaddy) raised hogs, vegetables, and some cows to feed the family. She told of having steaks many times during the week. She said that there were very few things that they went to town to buy. There was a peddler that used to come by selling some wares and sometimes they would be treated to some of his wares. But mostly, they ate what they raised on the farm.
She told of the idyllic days she remembered as a little girl when she and her sisters would make mud pies in the lead-crystal dishes that her mother did not care for. She often grieved over the crystal plates and bowls that her mother let them break up because she said she did not like them. We loved hearing about the days when our Momma would sit down and tell us about the way life used to be for her and her sisters. Then she would finish her reminiscing by saying that was the way it was then, but this is the way it is now. Then she would launch into her favorite tirade about falling from sugar to *!x*! The last sentence of her tirade was always, “That’s why you stay in school so that you can be somebody and have something one day, so help you God.”
I think she talked to me the most because I was always at home with her and because I was her only girl. At any rate, I digress. Momma's days as a carefree girl came to an end when she met and married my daddy against her Daddy's wishes, and lost her mother within three short months after the marriage. She told me that her mother had been suffering from gallbladder trouble and that the last attack left her motherless.
Nevertheless, she carried on, doing the housewifely things that farmers wives do. She told me that it was a big day for her when her old principal drove to her house to visit her. He had come looking for her because they needed a teacher and he remembered how smart she was. After much him-hawing, she told him that she would talk it over with her husband (my daddy.)
Daddy was against the idea of her teaching but they finally came to an agreement and she became a teacher. She taught for three years until she gave birth to my oldest brother prematurely. She said that she blamed herself for the premature birth because her sister was at her house and was teasing her unmercifully because she would not pick up the churn and pour my daddy some milk. She said that her sister said to her, "Child if that was my man done come in from the field all hot and tired I would pour him some milk." So, she did. She started hurting the minute she set the churn down and my oldest brother was born that night, a preemie. (Cont. tomorrow, if the Lord wills. word count already 582)
Doing What I Can, While I Can Because I Care,
Alma L. Jones
Christian Poet and Author
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