A Tribute to A Special Lady

There is one lady who changed my perspective of love, marriage, the home and family, and writing. This sweet amazing lady’s earthly body would have been ninety-nine today. Today would have been my maternal grandmother’s birthday if she were alive and active in our world. When we referred to my grandmother, we called her “Mema” or “Mama.” One thing was certain, Mema loved her family. Family was the center of this lady’s world.

Mema would keep in close contact with everybody. She would mention distant nephews and great-nephews on her husband’s side of the family. My Granddaddy was born into a family of about thirteen other children. When he came along, I can only assume he was given two letters as a name because his parents had run out of names! Mema was the epitome of the virtuous woman. Mema would save newspaper clips of her next-to youngest grandson and his wife when they first began their college ministry service. Mema saved every rubber band off of The Ada Evening News in a kitchen drawer. Mema saved banana stickers and put them on a special daily box. Mema saved the teeth she pulled from her grandchildrens’ mouths as children.

As a career early on in life, Mema and Granddaddy owned a typewriting business. While Granddaddy would be called out to area schools and businesses, Mema would manage the store. My grandparents were proud partnerships of independent America. My grandparents actively participated in community activities and the First Baptist Church.

Mema was the only child in her family. In fact, Mema’s birthplace is in far Western Oklahoma. We visited Mema’s birthplace one time long before her death. The town was small and reminded me of a hick-town where nothing progressed quickly. There was a Braum’s we ate ice cream in. Other than that, nothing stuck out as a tourist attraction for a bored teenager on the road for hours.

Mema and Granddaddy were survivors of the Great Depression. As I remember hearing stories about the Great Depression, people lost everything financially.  People jumped to their deaths. People lost homes, security, and stability. The Great Depression built my grandparents character. Already moral people, my grandparents held onto – maybe “clung” to is a better term – the smallest things in life we take advantage of in modernism. In their pre-modern world. My grandparents shared a sixty-three plus year marriage. My grandparents passed away seven years apart on the same day. My grandparents understood that material possessions would not always be around the way family would. This is a lesson each one of us can use at some point in our lives. I know I sure can!

Mema lost her beautiful wedding dress in a house fire. When two of Granddaddy’s brothers and their families decided to relocate to Ada to build a pew making company and insurance agency, Mema and Granddaddy believed their American dream would prosper in this new town.

When Mema wrote her journal entries, this became her outlet of expression. Mema was a very private, humble lady who did not share her thoughts too often. This characteristic made Mema unique. Mema would sit in her recliner and read her Bible. Mema sewed clothes and cooked delicious meals. Mema tended to her vegetable and flower gardens in the mornings.

Mema believed her descendants should receive a good education. This is also a belief of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In Mema’s time, young women received little to no formal education. Women were taught the basics and  that was that. Women were then taught how to become good homemakers for husbands and families. Their pre-feminist role centered around the home and raising children and grandchildren. This was a role these women thrived in and became comfortable with. These women became strong in their efforts of raising family and a husband, keeping the home in order, and teaching their children to believe in the American dream. In her "The Solitude of the Self," our Grandmother of Equal Rights, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, created the education of women as a goal. Believe me, I am going to write about this - along with her three other goals - more in depth at a later time. This subject is never tiresome to me nor do I run out of literary characters to provide examples with. Here, I provide the valuable lesson that Mema believed that her descendants should want to receive a good education whether it was learning a new trade from the vo-tech, ministry, or college. Anything was fine with Mema. Mema knew that education for her loved ones would provide each of us with happiness, maturity, and development (more of Stanton's hopes for women!) for her descendants. Mema was not one to give up on dreams, and this has been passed down to each of us as we seek resources available each day to sharpen our skills that provide the skills for making our dreams happen.

As a woman living in modern times, I find women like Mema to be strong individuals. These women lived in a time when there were no breakthrough experiments in the field of medicine, psychology, obstetricians, and counseling. Women like Jane Clemens and probably some of my female descendants  had to watch their own children suffer from Scarlet fever, Polio, and other prognosis that modern doctors are probably still trying to figure out. Since therapy was not available to these grief-stricken mothers, their survival depended on the self. These women turned to their Bibles, writing, and continuing on with their lives.

When I had my hysterectomy in 2010, I would love to have had Mema by my side. My husband was nice and loving but he was no Mema. Mema would have known the right words to say, the place she would sit at, and every name of the nurses who took care of me. Mema knew how to bring joy and love to her grandchildren. If she and Grandma (my paternal grandmother) had been alive to sit with me during this difficult time, I would have had so many questions to ask each of them. Above everything else, I would be happy. I would be happy that the two women who held me as a baby would be in the room with me.

As an adult, I carry their love and spirits with me. When I enter a department store that has questionable looking clothes for modern women, I do think about my grandmothers and the way they dressed. I would want my grandmothers to be proud of the way I dress if they were alive in modernism. I don’t think my grandmothers would be proud if their youngest granddaughter (same make-up on two sides of the family; two sets of older boys and two younger granddaughters) wore clothes that would look like the world’s oldest profession. I prefer to wear classy clothes that projects womanhood.

Today I dedicate my writing to Mema. If she was alive today, she would be able to meet new grand-daughter-in-laws and great-grandchildren. This is the role Mema loved the most. Mema would have her wall filled with new pictures sent to her with so much love. I can only imagine what Mema would say or think. I do know Mema would be one proud lady. I don’t believe any present could ever come close to the birth of a grandchild.

I was very blessed to be born the day before Mema’s birth. Maybe the month of December could have been changed to one that is more comfortable during the spring or summer. I am beginning to learn and understand that discomfort in a woman’s life builds a woman’s moral character and follows the twenty-four virtues traced from Greek philosopher and ethical theorist Aristotle. This will be saved for a future writing. Now is not the appropriate time.

Happy birthday, Mema, in heaven!

Amanda Samantha Miranda Abigail Leigh was the nickname Mema gave me as a child. My husband took this picture on my birthday yesterday. I wish Mema a wonderful birthday today in heaven. May she be surrounded by loved ones and enjoy this day to the fullest! She is greatly missed in our modern world.