Momma

Nearly twenty-three years ago a very special person in my life passed away; Momma. She was only 54 years old, I was 19. She died from complications from brain aneurysm surgery. I have never forgiven God for that. I was very close to my mother. I was her baby of seven kids. Her passing had the most devastating and profound effect on my life. One which I am still recovering from.

I'll never forget three phone calls I received during that short period of time.

The first I received while I was still living in Phoenix. My (then) wife, some friends of ours, and my kids had all went to dinner. The men and women rode back home in separate cars. I had the girls with me (Amanda & Aletha). I arrived home first, but didn't have a key. I kept hearing the phone ring but couldn't answer it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Glynis arrived with the key. As soon as I stepped through the door, the phone rang again. It was my dad. He said Mom had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency brain surgery.

The second, I received early one morning about a week later from my sister Janet. She was staying with Mom while she recovered from surgery. She said that mom was having a hard time walking and talking. I rushed over and found my Mom lying on the couch. I knew immediately that something was wrong. I told my sister to call the ambulance. I sat down and held my Mother in my arms. She could barely move... barely talk. She forced a hand to my face and looked at me lovingly, as she always did, with those motherly eyes and said, "Michael, my baby Michael." Those were the last words she ever spoke.

Grandma's Story #1: Pages 21-End

Grandma Dovie Walker

About a year ago I discovered some old handwritten stories my Grandmother Walker wrote back sometime before the Great Depression. It was a real treasure find for me, especially since I had never gotten the chance to meet her - she passed away just a few years after my father was born. You can read the story behind the story here: Grandma's Story #1.


I decided to compile the first 5 pages into one to make it easier to read. In the future I'll keep with this format, transcribing 5 pages at a time until I have the entire story transcribed..


If you see any errors or have comments about my interpertations or transcriptions please pass them along in the comment section below.


THANKS!


[PAGES 1-5] [PAGES 6-10] [PAGES 11-15] [PAGES 16-20]

[continued from page 20…] that she went to lots of them by slipping off after we went to bed and her brother would keep it a secret from me, but since she ran away and married she is so wild her brothers see where they done wrong by upholding her in her meanness.

So I still see trouble in my old days; my children are almost running me crazy after all I have gone through. They don’t seem to think that it wearies their mother. My youngest girl is 14 now and is an awful quiet girl.

Girls obey your parents and don’t think because your mother wants you to do right that she is mean to you, for your mother has already been over the road that you are going and knows what life is.

Ruby, my youngest girl, likes to read to me and she is lots of company to me since my eyes have gotten so I can’t read to do any good. But James doesn’t like for us to read novels or the papers. He says they are all lies, but that is about all the pleasure I can see is reading.

Boys obey your parents that you may live long on Earth, for the Bible says that. I have raised 6 boys to be almost grown and I haven’t seen but one of them drunk and that was my 4th boy. When he was 20 years old he came in sight of the house and got off of his horse and laid down, for we had always taught them to never drink, and he wouldn’t come on to the house. His boy friend came and told us that Sam was laying up there drunk and wouldn’t come on to the house and now he can’t walk so his father had William, one of the youngest boys, to catch out the horse and put it to the side and haul him to the house. He was poisoned on poison whiskey. He didn’t know anything when he was carried in to the house. I don’t think it could have hurt me much worse to have seen him carried to the grave yard as to seen him like that, but I was good to him and fixed him hot coffee and made him vomit up the poison. But, when he was alright again I begged him never to touch another drop, and if he has, I have never knew it. I haven’t a boy that gambles but I can say one good thing for James, he never drank much, never got drunk or gambled or allowed such about our house.

My girl that is married is my biggest trouble now: if she would only live right. She has two boys and oh how they are raising them up. People of today are not raising their children to go to church and to live right like we raised ours. The last I heard from Mae she was in the hospital to be operated on for appendicitis and I am praying for her that she might live to repent, for she has so many sins. When she was at home last to see me she got mad at me for not wanting her to go to a dance and she called me everything but a mother. It was almost more than I could stand. James had a pistol behind a picture on the wall. I intended to get it and end it all but she beat me to it and called James. Just to think, my girl would stand up and call me everything when I had went through with what I had to try to raise her and give her an education, but a mother never knows what she is raising one for.

Well, here I am now, 50 years old and James 49 years old. We are trying to live the life we ought to have lived in our young days, but one can’t live their lives over. I hope the ones that read this will find a lesson in it that will help them to live right and to help them to be good to each other and always do unto others as they wish others to do unto them, for I know I haven’t many years more to live but I want to try to live and follow the golden rule so, when I leave here, I will have a promise of a better home above.

DOUBLE CLICK TO ENLARGE

Story 1 - Page 21

Story 1 - Page 22

Story 1 - Page 23

Story 1 - Page 24

Story 1 - Page 25

Story 1 - Page 26

Story 1 - Page 27

Story 1 - Page 28

Well, that's it. That concludes Grandma's Story #1. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have. Reading these old stories really takes you back to another time and place. Things were so different back in the 1920's, yet they still had to deal with a lot of the same issues we do today: infidelity, alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty, education, and mixed families. That makes the story timeless, because no matter how technologically advanced we become, one thing will remain inherently true, we are human and these are issues that have transcended the ages and will continue to until we all become zombies or mindless drones.

My plan now is to compile all the transcribed pages into an e-book that anyone can download for free, but mostly for my family to have and cherish. However, before I do that, the story needs a title. Grandma didn't title her stories, so I'm thinking of holding a contest to pick a title for the story. What do you guys think of that?

Up next is Story #2. I'll be posting the first 5 pages soon, so keep your eyes peeled. 

Thank you for all of your kind words and creative feedback, it makes it all worth it.

Michael A. Walker

Defying Procrastination

Find any errors? Any suggestions for the edits or highlighted areas? Would love your help.

Grandma's Story #1: Pages 16-20

Grandma Dovie Walker

About a year ago I discovered some old handwritten stories my Grandmother Walker wrote back sometime before the Great Depression. It was a real treasure find for me, especially since I had never gotten the chance to meet her - she passed away just a few years after my father was born. You can read the story behind the story here: Grandma's Story #1.


I decided to compile the first 5 pages into one to make it easier to read. In the future I'll keep with this format, transcribing 5 pages at a time until I have the entire story transcribed..


If you see any errors or have comments about my interpertations or transcriptions please pass them along in the comment section below.


THANKS!


[PAGES 1-5] [PAGES 6-10] [PAGES 11-15]


I finally got out on the fence and sat down determined not to go to bed until he came home and tell him what was what, and how he was going to have to change or I wasn't going to live with him. I guess it was midnight when he came and I was sitting out on the fence. Then and there I got my second whipping by my second husband, but I guess I needed one that night for being so silly.

Well we had our ups and downs for several years over other women, but I was true to him. He stayed away from home a lot working at Public works while we were raising a family. When our third boy was about 15 years old we lived closer to my father. He had a boy by the name of Ben Hooper staying with him. He always had someone around to be a slave and to cause trouble.

Grandma's Story #1: Pages 11-15

Grandma Dovie Walker

 About a year ago I discovered some old handwritten stories my Grandmother Walker wrote back sometime before the Great Depression. It was a real treasure find for me, especially since I had never gotten the chance to meet her - she passed away just a few years after my father was born. You can read the story behind the story here: Grandma's Story #1.


I decided to compile the first 5 pages into one to make it easier to read. In the future I'll keep with this format, transcribing 5 pages at a time until I have the entire story transcribed..


If you see any errors or have comments about my interpertations or transcriptions please pass them along in the comment section below.


THANKS!


[PAGES 1-5] [PAGES 6-10]

[Continued frompage 10] …but still he wouldn’t let anyone know that.

So I stayed at home with my parents and worked like a hired servant until I was 19 years old, when along came James Henry. I fell in love for the second time but if one could see the future ahead there would be several steps they wouldn’t take - girls don’t be too quick to marry - for I would have been better off to have not married my second time. But I did. For, James and I were marred soon after our first meeting.

Grandma's Story #1: Pages 6-10

Grandma Dovie Walker

About a year ago I discovered some old handwritten stories my Grandmother Walker wrote back sometime before the Great Depression. It was a real treasure find for me, especially since I had never gotten the chance to meet her - she passed away just a few years after my father was born. You can read the story behind the story here: Grandma's Story #1.


I decided to compile the first 5 pages into one to make it easier to read. In the future I'll keep with this format, transcribing 5 pages at a time until I have the entire story transcribed..


If you see any errors or have comments about my interpertations or transcriptions please pass them along in the comment section below.


THANKS!






[PAGES 1-5]


…Irene and I to the field to hoe, but she would lay in the shade while I hoed and if she saw father coming she would go begging me to help her so he wouldn’t know she had been laying in the shade. So I would help her. Some have said that I wouldn’t have done it, but I knowed better to. Anyone would have to save their back from a beating.

In the fall we would go to school. We had a large hill to climb, and on our way back from school she would cry for me to carry her up that hill when she was 9 years old. She was always a fleshy girl and I was small and slender, for I always had to work hard.

I would tell father but he wouldn’t believe me, for she would deny it. So, one morning I told mother I wasn’t going to school anymore if I had to carry Irene up that hill every night, but she made me go and said they would see was telling the truth. She begged father to go down to the foot of the hill and hide and see who was to blame.

A Fight for Honor

Honor doesn’t seem to carry the same weight nowadays as it did in history’s past. Honor was so sacred, so precious, that there were rules set in place when honor was broken, bruised, or challenged, especially when it came to restoring the honor of a woman. Gentlemen would gather in open fields in secluded and isolated places with swords and dueling pistols to settle debts of honor. If honor was grossly maligned, only the act of all out war would be sufficient enough to sate the restoration of one’s honor.

In contrast, honor seems to be sorely lacking in today’s society. We only need to look at our leaders, politicians, and most recently, coaches to see that. These men and woman are supposed to set moral examples and be individuals that ourselves and our children can look up to and strive to be like. Instead, far too often, we are gravely disappointed in their actions, words, and lack of honor. That’s not to say that honor is lost in them all. There are many that do strive and are successful at upholding honor and inspire many others to do the same. Unfortunately, with the advent of instant and worldwide communication, our hearts and minds are constantly being tainted with the foul acts of individuals that not only disgrace the meaning of honor but violate it until it’s beyond repair.

My delve into the topic on honor stems from an event that happened to me more than 15 years ago where I found myself in a situation where the honor of a loved one was desecrated and I was faced with the choice to either stand by and do nothing, or spring into action so that justice and honor could be served. 

Grandma's Story #1: Pages 1-5

Grandma Dovie Walker

About a year ago I discovered some old handwritten stories my Grandmother Walker wrote back sometime before the Great Depression. It was a real treasure find for me, especially since I had never gotten the chance to meet her - she passed away just a few years after my father was born. You can read the story behind the story here: Grandma's Story #1.


I decided to compile the first 5 pages into one to make it easier to read. In the future I'll keep with this format, transcribing 5 pages at a time until I have the entire story transcribed..


If you see any errors or have comments about my interpertations or transcriptions please pass them along in the comment section below.


THANKS!






[PAGES 6-10]

2606 words

Mrs. Earl Walker
Holcomb, MO
Route #1

I’m here to tell you the story of my life, beginning back when I was a small child. There were only 4 of us in my family: my father, mother, my half-sister Irene and me, Cary. It filled me with sorrow to see how father treated mother. He would go away from mother and stay for 3 months at a time. She was only 15 when they married, and father was 19.

Mother was a Christian girl and she was good to father. They were married for a year before I was born. Father took to his spreading spells, and when I was about 3 years old he came home after being gone for several months with a little girl. She was about 1 year old, and he claimed she was my half-sister, Irene.

Mother was compelled to raise her against her will. I couldn't see how mother could stand for this. It wasn't long before I learned to hate Irene. She was such a liar. When she was 8 and I was 10, she made me her slave. I felt like father loved her more than he did me. I had to do as she said or father would whip me with anything he could find. Many times my back would be bruised where he had beaten me with his boot. Mother surely didn't love me; otherwise she wouldn't have stood for it, especially since Irene wasn't her child.