My Southern Heart My Southern Heart -

First day in Heaven…

I’ve been thinking about Heaven since yesterday. My eighty seven year old “second mother” of almost four decades went to be with the Lord yesterday morning in Memphis, Tennessee. She had been really sick for the past two weeks, and we had all prayed so hard for a complete recovery. Our Heavenly Father answered those prayers. He took her home.

I’ve had the most wonderful, peaceful vision of her reunited in Heaven with her loving husband, her son (my husband of 39 years), her parents and grandparents, my parents, my sister and a host of other family and friends. I’m sure, by now, she has talked to Jesus and finds Heaven “glorious” (her word!).

For those who know the Lord, the Bible says “absent from the body, present with the Lord” (II Cor. 5:8), interlocking circles…not one single moment in time when we are not with Him. Sadly, due to the distance (I’m in Oregon) and the time (the funeral is tomorrow), I couldn’t be there this weekend. I will be traveling South in a couple of weeks for some wonderful, unhurried time with family then…

This is Bobbie, my other mother of almost 40 years, and me at my younger son’s wedding four years ago. As the music played at the wedding reception to introduce the wedding party and family, the two of us “danced” in together. She was fun loving…

Bobbie and Frank…this photo was taken many years ago when he was home on leave during the war. She was always a snappy, snazzy dresser. With red hair and green eyes, she loved dressing up and wearing beautiful, vibrant colors.

This photo below was probably taken about 1944. Bobbie and her firstborn, my future husband, taking a walk. I was born on his birthday exactly two years later. Notice her suit. I love the clothes from the 40’s!

A sweet family portrait. This photo was probably taken during the early 50’s. I love Penny’s curls! Actually, my daughter’s youngest daughter looks a lot like Penny here!

I think the photo below was taken at Libertyland in Memphis. They were probably about my age here.

Mama and the pizza…

My Southern Heart, Reflections, The little house on Victor Drive

It was the late 1950’s. We were living in the house on Victor Drive with the sunny windows and the knotty pine dining room with the corner china cabinets. It was a time of early rock and roll, dancing and pizza. Our first introduction to pizza was from George, a big, strong, dark-haired cajun planter from Louisiana. All these years later, and I remember George Broussard like it was yesterday. He was Glenda’s boyfriend and Glenda was Dot’s best friend. So we all spent a lot of time together in that little house on Victor Drive.

George had a booming voice and a great laugh. His conversation was sprinkled with a few cajun words here and there, and he loved to kid Mama. One weekend, he brought a large, filled-to-the-brim pizza over for lunch. We’d never even seen a pizza. I have to admit, at first glance, I had my doubts. All these years later, I’ve had the best Chicago pizza in downtown Chicago…so I’d have to say I know good pizza. I don’t know where George got it, but that was some pizza! Mama took one look at it and had her doubts too. It, obviously, wasn’t Southern vegetables and cornbread. She almost didn’t try it, but she did…and she fell in love with George’s pizza. The best I recall all these years later, I’d say it was a thin-crust, SUPREME pizza and it was, indeed, delicious.

Quite frequently after that, George would arrive with Glenda on his arm and toting another gift for Mama…a pizza supreme. I’m not sure that George ever knew that Mama became a serious pizza fan after that. She tried making it from scratch from time to time, but when she was in a hurry, she’d resort to Chef Boyardee. Not too sure that George would have approved of that…

Pizza closeup with salami and vegetables on an old wooden background.

The paper trail…

Family, Family History/Genealogy, My Southern Heart, Reflections

When I was younger, and the family members with most of the answers were still living, I was too busy to care. I was a young wife with three children to raise, a home to take care of and a nursing career. It never occurred to me to search for “ancestors” or even to ask about them. What a shame – the answers were there.

For the past few weeks, I’ve searched for information about William Merle Jordan – or “Mike” as he was affectionately known. He was my oldest sister’s first love…in all honesty, the love of her life. They met in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the mid-forties. I wish I had asked my sister just how they’d met. I’ve seen pictures of Mike…a handsome young man with striking blue eyes. I see those blue eyes now in his daughter, Sharon. I see a remarkable resemblance to him in Sharon’s son, Michael. My sister did tell me the story about the days not long after they’d met, when Mike worked as a “milk man” in Clarksdale. Quite often, on an early morning, he would leave two quarts of chocolate milk in the old-fashioned glass bottles on the door step of our home as a gift for my sister and the family, a sweet simple gesture and a luxury at that time.

Dot and Mike were married on March 1, 1947. They were young and in love…they were happy. They lived for a time in Clarksdale and then we all moved to Memphis. My parents purchased half a large two-story duplex on Chelsea Avenue. Uncle Lester and Aunt Ethel purchased the other half. Dot and Mike had the attic apartment, which my sister Gerry says Dot decorated like Country Living and that it was so cute.

My sister, Dorothy. She was probably in her late twenties or early thirties here.

My niece, Sharon, was born on September 16, 1948. I was two and a half years old at the time. I must have thought they’d given me a real live baby doll. She had a beautiful olive complexion and big blue eyes just like both of her parents. She also had a shock of thick, dark hair. I love the photos of her with that dark hair sticking straight up! She was a beautiful baby and is still beautiful.

My sister, Dot, holding Sharon and me sitting beside them. Notice my arm on Dot’s knee and Sharon’s little hand on my shoulder. You also couldn’t miss my brown high tops! This photo was taken on the steps of the large duplex on Chelsea.

These were the years following WWII. Times were hard and jobs were scarce. Mike traveled to Texas with his brother Charles to find work. He had lined up a good job as a truck driver which was to have started the first day of February 1949. In the meantime, he was working on a shrimp boat. On Monday morning, January 24, 1949, there was an explosion aboard the Wilda L, a 54-foot shrimping boat, eight miles off the shore of Freeport, Texas. Both the owner of the boat and William Merle “Mike” Jordan were lost to the sea. A search of the waters and through the debris in the hull of the boat failed to locate their bodies.

My sister and Mike’s mother traveled to Freeport, Texas, most likely by train, right after they received word of the explosion. Years later, my sister remembered those dark days, staring out into the deep waters of the Gulf, watching as the Coast Guard searched in vain. She was twenty-one years old at the time with a four-month-old baby girl. Mike was twenty-three.

On the telephone the other day, Sharon and I both cried as she read to me from the last letters that Mike wrote home to her mother from Texas. He had high hopes and dreams of a better life for them. He loved his baby girl and talked of dreaming about her for several nights in a row. He told my sister to “tell Dianne to be a good baby”. I had never thought before about having known Mike, but I did. I had been his baby sister too.

Sharon says that, over the years, it was just too sad, too difficult, for my sister to talk about Mike very much. After a while, she just quit asking. Now, there are so many questions wanting answers. When Dot and I were working on the McGregor and Haney family histories, she was also working on Mike’s family history. Through the archives of Ancestry.Com, I have found some information. Mike’s younger sister, now eighty, was able to fill in some of the blanks, but, still, there are so many more unanswered questions.

We’re not giving up. On my next visit South, we’ll travel to Clarksdale and to the Mississippi State Archives in Jackson, Mississippi. Hopefully, before then, we’ll find some of Mike’s father’s family members. Right now, it’s still a mystery, but the answers are out there. Hopefully, someone will also have photos of Mike’s father.

Sharon does have one small, piece of paper with her Dad’s actual signature on it. Amazingly, it bears a striking resemblance to Sharon’s…

Note: My sister did not remarry until Sharon was in high school, when she married Tom Kemp. He was a wonderful man who loved Dot and her family like his own.

The Mamie Road Mystery…

My Southern Heart, Reflections, The little house on Victor Drive

It had been fifty-five years since we had lived in that little house on Mamie Road. It was bound to have changed – together with the neighborhood which had been in the countryside when we lived there. During my recent visit home to the South, Sharon and I both wanted to visit that house again and see the neighborhood. We knew, of course, it wouldn’t be the same, but we still wanted to see it. We wanted to see where we had lived so many years ago…

She reminded me that, now, it isn’t the safest neighborhood – definitely not one we’d visit after dark. I still wanted to go and so did she.

I can’t remember what I bought at the grocery store for supper this week; but, in the recesses of my deepest memory, I found the street address for that little house – 3972. Strange, isn’t it? As we drove down Mamie Road, however, nothing looked right. Time had brought so many changes and none for the better. There was a used car lot on the corner now and the little grocery store on the other corner where we used to walk to get things for Mama was now a rundown business of some sort. All too sad. There was some sort of compound behind an elaborate fence where one of the houses used to be and there was one too many houses.

We finally realized that when we lived in that little house, there was a treed vacant lot next door to us. That’s why we thought we had such a big yard to play in and that’s why there was room for a large garden. Once we realized that, we knew which house was ours. Sharon had a photo (which unfortunately I forgot to scan) that even had the house numbers on it. I was right after all…it was 3972 Mamie Road.

According to the records at the assesor’s office, the house was built in 1947…which meant we either bought it new or not long after. Thankfully, our little house on Mamie Road looked nothing like the current one below. Ours had white clapboard, a dark roof and black shutters. There was no front porch then – just steps. There was no front chain-length fence with a satellite receiver on it. There was an old-fashioned screened door which we’d, no doubt, get in trouble for slamming as we went in and out. There were tall trees and there was grass instead of a front yard of dirt. There was plenty of green grass to do cartwheels on. I do remember that…

Happy Birthday, Sis…

Family, My Southern Heart, Reflections

Today is my sister’s eightieth birthday. She is celebrating with the friends and family who are blessed to be there…I wish I could. Thankfully, I was able to spend time with her during my recent visit home to the South. We had a wonderful time as always. She gave Sharon and me another lesson on how to make her famous Southern cornbread, roast and gravy. Try as I might, mine will never taste as good.

I was almost three years old when she and her husband married. We were living in Memphis at the time, and the newlyweds were living in Mississippi. Her husband was working for the railroad at the time. They would travel by train every weekend so my sister “could come see her baby sister”.

She has always been there for me and for anyone who needed her. Her heart is made of gold.

Happy birthday, Sis. I love you.

Left to right: my sister, Gerry, a little friend, and my sister, Dorothy. The photo was made about 1935 in Pontotoc County, Mississippi. I love their dresses which Mama made. Notice the smocking on Gerry’s dress and the scalloped collar on Dot’s dress.

My sister, Gerry, at age eighteen.

Throughout the years, we’ve always had a photo of the “four sisters” made at every occasion. This one is one of my favorites and sits on my desk…

This photo was made during my visit home to the South last year. We were enjoying lunch on the square in Oxford, Mississippi.