October 19,2004 Omaha, Nebraska<\/p>\n
Been in Omaha working since, well a long time ago, hitting the road again this weekend and will post what’s happened since August in the next few days but I wanted to share this with you all. It was writen by Marjorie Wooley, Sister Reddie Harper’s daughter for her 90’th birthday.Remember I photographed and wrote about Sister Reddie back in early July.<\/p>\n
When Marjorie sent this to me she said: I am attaching a little piece that I wrote for her birthday. Since you met her, you can relate to what I say. Most people don’t believe things that I could tell them about her.and it’s so very true!!!
\nPeople never ask me how it was to be raised by Mother, they just say something like, \u201cBoy it must have been something to be raised by your mother!\u201d Well, \u201cSomething\u201d is not the word.I decided to find the word and it took about a millisecond. The word is \u201cABUNDANCE.\u201dWe had everything in abundance. (Except money.) We didn\u2019t have any money, but we had an abundance of food, and abundance of people, and an abundance of activities.I actually thought bologna sandwiches and potato chips were foods that only the well-to-do ate, because we never had them. We never had much of anything that came out a store. We only had biscuits, cornbread, chicken, pork chops, steak and gravy, rice, peas, corn, butter beans, banana pudding, lemon icebox pie, and strawberries and with real whipped cream. Sometimes all in the same meal!Mother never just killed a chicken for Sunday dinner. When she killed chickens, we had the whole yard full of flopping chickens with their necks broken. She usually had a lot of help, but if she didn\u2019t, she just scaled, plucked and clean them quicker than any chicken cleaning machine.I don\u2019t mean to say that Daddy didn\u2019t contribute to the abundance, but mother made it happen. He didn\u2019t exactly move as fast as she did.I don\u2019t actually remember sitting down to a family meal with just the six of us. We always had so many people there that we often ate in shifts. The really nice thing was that the children got to eat first. Mother had a lot of disdain for adults that ate before the children.We had an abundance of people there all the time. I don\u2019t remember having a particular bed to sleep when I was young. I generally slept wherever there was room. Often on the cedar chest, or on the floor on a pallet of very thick heavy quits. (She had an abundance of heavy quilts too.) We had so many people there, that she converted two chicken houses into bunkhouses. I don\u2019t remember having to sleep in the chicken house, but I do remember that James quite often had to sleep out there with the boys, when the house was too full.People actually took their vacations at our house. Strangers were always welcome. I don\u2019t know the times I came in from school to a room full of people that I had never seen. The people who came to visit, would always return with new people. We had an abundance of activity. The people who came for vacations were not exactly setting on the front porch in the swing. They cooked, sewed, and shelled peas. They also sang, prayed and went swimming in the creek. And the kids got to dig for buried treasure.I don\u2019t know how many people have visited and eaten there, but it is not a childhood exaggeration to say there have been hundreds.She managed this on almost no cash. I don\u2019t every remember going into a grocery store, pushing a cart, and picking things up from the shelf. Daddy brought home a few things like flour, sugar coffee, and maybe pork and beans from Ms. Terronova store in Lake Charles, on Saturdays. Another thing that comes to mind when I think about my childhood is how safe I felt. I always say that I lived on Miracle Mile. I had Mother on one end and Aunt Corene Tyler on the other end, so I didn\u2019t have to worry about anything. I was sure they weren\u2019t afraid of anything or anybody. They were on first name basis with God, and the Devil certainly wasn\u2019t going to tangle with either of them.All of the people who came left many memories. I am using these notes not to remember what to say, but to keep me from trying to mention all of the stories that come to mind.LaJuan and Rodney, I remember your mother\u2019s hot chocolate, and Aunt Corene\u2019s teacakes,Linda, Judy and Joyce, I remember your mother singing in her yard, and Ms. Hanchey\u2019s mayhaw jelly cakes. I know you got to call her Big Mama, but I always called her Mrs. Hanchey.Melba, Your grandmother introduced me to the best steak and gravy I every tasted. She would say to me \u201cSha, go out there and pick me a handfull of those peppers.\u201d and she would chop the whole handfull and put them in the gravy. She also made the most delicious ice cream from canned milk. I remember the Labby family coming up with your family and barbequing on the creek. It was through your grandparents that I fell in love with Cajun food long before it became popular.Jean Evelyn, when you came, Mother always wanted everything to be special. She made sure I got out the best napkins and silverware. And..she also wanted me to make sure that I did not leave any lemon seeds in the lemon icebox pie.My one regret today it that Daddy, Johnny, Thomas and Reba can\u2019t be here with us. I will end with a few lines from this little poem.Just Because you are my Mother.Just because you are my Mother,I know how it feels to have my skin scrubbed clean, My hair French braided \u2026tight, andTo sleep warm on the coldest winter night.Mother, I know that my childhood was so incredible and unique that most children could not have dreamed of all the things I thought were totally normal, JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE MY MOHTER!<\/p>\n
Written for Reiddie Harper on her 90th birthday. August 22, 2003, by Marjorie Wooley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
October 19,2004 Omaha, Nebraska Been in Omaha working since, well a long time ago, hitting the road again this weekend and will post what’s happened since August in the next few days but I wanted to share this with you all. It was writen by Marjorie Wooley, Sister Reddie Harper’s daughter for her 90’th birthday.Remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2994,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/2994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmichaelkennedy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}