My Great Grandmother's Bonnet

Several years ago, giving the graduation address at a local college, after the usual amenities I said to the thousands there, “this graduating class is blessed to graduate on Mother's Day. Sir Winston Churchill, in preparing one of his biographies, reading over a list of his teachers which some assistant had prepared for him, wrote hist mother's name at the top of the list. He said, 'my mother was my first and greatest teacher.' Right now, before I go any further, I want to honor the mothers of these graduates.” The graduates immediately rose and everyone told me that they began to clap and wave to their mothers in the audience. Along with their graduation, which I stressed is the one thing that cannot be taken from them, they knew they were there because of their mother.

On our farm, there was a large camel back trunk. As I child, I finally got it open one day, someone had put in the trunk a round-up of items belonging to my great grandparents, among which were some political posters of Theodore Roosevelt. One thing that got my attention was my great grandmother's bonnet. Someone had put a note with the bonnet stating that this one was new when she died. I had claimed possession of this trunk, but some time during my long absence from the farm, while I was away in military service, farm hands in and out of the property, the trunk disappeared. She would have worn this bonnet and others like it, homemade like their long dresses and aprons, post civil war. It had been easy to trace her ancestry to England because her family had arrived much later than my great grandfather's family...the Lucas family, who had owned a large part of one eastern North Carolina county.

While in the military, stationed for awhile on the staff of an Army hospital in Alabama, active in a local Baptist church. I was responsible for the Mother's Day program at the Baptist Association's men's annual brotherhood meeting. About the time I arrived for the meeting, I had a received a message that the speaker had been injured and was in the hospital. I went around to several outstanding men in the meeting, one a former senator, one a former school superintendent, a doctor, a lawyer, a produce-dealer and I said to each, “you must help me out with the program. I want you to speak for a few minutes about your mother.”

I would recommend this program for any church, any civic club. I have been to many church gatherings of every type, on every continent of the world, this ranks #1 as the best service I ever attended. Each of these men has a remarkable story about his mother, her cooking skills, her child-training skills, her influence on their community, her putting up with a rotten husband. One of the best stories, “my mother always went around in our large, cold country house, putting her hand to our feet to see if we were warm.” One said, “she forgot that I was married and my wife was in bed with me. My wife said to me the next day, 'I loved your mother before, but after I found how careful she was, and attentive to her children. I love her even more.”

There will be many tears, and this will be a problematic program for your group, but I found that each man there wanted to talk about his mother. I always started out my talks before groups on Mother's Day by telling the story of the young husband who asked his bride, “when are you going to learn to make biscuits like my mother?” Her reply, “when you learn to make dough like my father.”

Pity the individual without memories, many children do not have pleasant memories of parents...dope addicts, philanders, drunks, abusive, but most, in spite of poverty, frugality, lack of preparedness for parenthood, have good memories of parents and home. When I was a child, I could not understand why on homecoming Sunday at our country church, old people who I did not know would enter the church and as soon as the singing started, there was so much crying and tears.

This is what it was all about, homecoming, they had come back to their home church, where they were raised as children, and their minds were flooded with memories of their parents, the old building, the old hymns of faith. My parents owned a very large farm, the highway which goes through the land is named for my father. On the highway, probably two miles from our home, was an old homestead...an old house in a grove of trees, unoccupied my entire life. On one Saturday of the year, the yards and path to that house was lined with fine automobiles. Under the trees, tables were set up, covered with white clothes, filled with food. Descendents of that family, who had been reared in that home gathered at this very uncolorful place. There was no color or attraction there for anyone else, but a certain attraction to the descendants of that family, most of whom were long dead. They did not want their children to forget.

There have been about 4000 books written about the life of Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps one of his greatest expressions, “all that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Lincoln's mother raised a family in a log cabin. His mother, like many mothers, never had a manicure, had few, if any, store-bought clothes, and probably her name was never in the newspaper except for her obituary.

I am one of the few fortunate people who remember both of my grandmothers, both prepared meals on wood-burning cook stoves, never saw a supermarket filled with food items. I think of my great grandmother who probably never went to a beauty shop, riding in a buggy wearing her bonnet. Her bonnet which covered most of her head, face and shoulders. About 4 miles from our house, on other family land, land bequeathed to a Christian college. Out in the woods, there was an old structure, over 100 years of age. This too had been preserved because of its heritage. My uncle took me to this structure one day and told me this was where the slaves and the hands on the farm worshiped. Glass was too expensive to have windows, just hinged shutter-like doors. Inside were rough, hand-made benches, you would not consider them pews, there were no backs. He said they mostly used them to lean on since they spent most of their time on their knees.

One old black man has maintained an outhouse for the building, and one Sunday of the year, would cut back the bushes so they could have their annual homecoming observance, remembering their ancestors. Beautiful automobiles would be parked up and down the highways, well-dressed attendees. They did not want the world, nor their long dead ancestors to forget that they could remember...and so it is with every mother's day. Not too busy to forget your greatest friend.

Mother's Day

This is a poem I learned in the fourth grade. Like poetry I learned from the first grade onward, it has stayed in my mind and now I wish to share it with you.

Somebody’s Mother

The woman was old and ragged and gray
And bent with the chill of the winters day
The streets were wet with the recent snow
And the woman’s feet were aged and slow
She stood at the crossing and waited long
Alone uncared for amid the throng
Of human beings who passed her by
Not one heeded the glance of her anxious eye
So meek, so tender, afraid to stir
Lest the carriage wheels or the horses feet
Would crowd her down in the slippery street

Along the street with laugher and shouts
Glad in the freedom of school letting out
Came the children like a flock of geese
Hailing the snow pile high and deep
Past the old woman so old and gray
Hastened the children on their way
At last came one of the merry troop
The gayest lad in all the group
He paused beside her and whispered low
I’ll help your cross if you wish to go

Her aged hand on his young strong arm
She placed it without hurt or harm
He guided her trembling feet along
Proud that his own were firm and strong

Then back again to his friends he went
His young heart happy and well content
She’s somebody’s mother boys, you know
She’s old and slow
And I hope some fella, will lend a hand
To help my mother you understand
If ever she’s old and gray
And her own dear boy is far away

And somebody’s mother bowed low her head
In her home that night, in her prayer she said
“God be kind to that noble boy”
“Who’s some mother’s son, of pride and joy”

Just as Mary, the mother of Jesus, her sister Mary, and Mary the wife of Cleophas, were at the foot of the cross when our blessed Lord gave up His life. Next to the heart of Jesus, there is no greater love in a heart then the love of a mother. God went to the limits of understanding to show us a mother’s heart, even the lower animals.

In the African bush, you see the mother elephant protecting her young, the mother lion protecting her young, the mother birds, protecting her young and even in your backyard, the mother hen protecting her young. The mother cat carrying her kitten in her mouth, protecting her young. The human animal, God’s chief creation, in recent centuries, is the only mother animal which will abort her unborn or kill her young after birth.

Not so much with girls, but it is a unusual son who does not show affection for his mother. How often we have seen a tough athlete, always speak of his mother. The last words in a military hospital by a young man dying for his country are always words about his mother.

Some years ago, one of the half-way houses in town, sent a young man to me hoping I could find some work for him to do. He was about eighteen years of age, and I was busy clearing some under brush etc, from some acreage I owned, where I needed to install a parking lot for a building which I owned. I had several young men helping me but I put him to work with a bush ax and sling blade. I think it impressed him that an old blind man, owner of much real estate, would still do that type work. He was very much afraid I would cut myself and was constantly advising me to “Be careful.” It is a young man of despicable character who does not show concern for an old veteran regardless of where the younger man comes.

Later, I let him assist at some work at one of my houses, and as always is my practice, I brought them in the house for cold drinks and food. When the others had gone out I asked him to stay behind because I had a curiosity as well as a concern for this young man’s past, present and future. I always ask the same question, “What are you doing here.” He said, that he had left home several years ago and had been living in a nomadic existence and had finally wound up here in this beach community. I said, “Do you have a mother?” He said, “Yes, but she remarried and we could not get along particularly with her new husband.” I said, “Do you have brother’s and sister’s?” He said, “No, I was the only one before my father, who had battered both of us, had left and was killed. It was tough, and she had gone from man to man trying to survive and I was just pulled along.”

I had a telephone in the kitchen and said, “ Call your mother.” He said, “It has been almost 5 years.” I’m an old blind man, few people talk back to me, I was holding the phone I said, “CALL YOUR MOTHER.” And he did call his mother and she answered the phone. They talked for a little while and then I said give the phone to me. I told her who I was, that her son was standing in my kitchen, that he was working for me, that it did not matter to me or to God what had happened in the past. My concern was her knowing that he was in good health, that he still loved her because I could see it in his face and in his eyes and that I knew in the depths of my being, that she loved him and was concerned about him. I said, “I’m giving you my phone number, you call me if you want to talk to me further and I will make sure he stays in contact with you.”

I then gave him a little lecture and told him he could travel the world over, but his mother was the best friend he would ever have. I said, and I do not make it a practice to preach to people I do not know, “next to Jesus Christ who I hope you will get to know, I want you to promise me to stay in contact with your mother. What is past is past, Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift from God.” After paying him for his work, I gave him some clothes out of my closet and told him to stay in contact with me.

I have never heard from him again, I have never heard from his mother again, but like ships passing in the night, or the many people you pass on the streets, you just ask God of redemption and reconciliation, to take charge. The only thing that He asks of us, is to trust Him, He will do the rest.

There are many things I remember about my own wonderful mother. I remember her aprons, how many things she could carry in her apron. She could stop by the vegetable garden, pick enough beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc, for a meal that she could carry in her apron. She could take a “setting hen” off her nest put all her babies that had just hatched in her apron and install them in a coup. She was always putting on a clean apron and always had a clean apron for a member of the family helping her prepare a meal.

When one of us came home from college, she had an inexplicable memory of our favorite food. She had a magical thermometer in her stethoscopic hands where in she could diagnose most sickness. In that large house with heat only in sitting room, she could ease into our bedrooms, check the temperature of our feet, and determine if we needed more cover. She had that remarkable ability to walk into a neighbors sick room and make them feel better. From the time I was a small child, I could tell that her presence in the church caused everyone to smile. She was the oldest of seven sisters and they always spoke of her with absolute devotion, so did her cousins, so did her friends. I never knew her to challenge my father about any of his decisions, her words to us always, “Your daddy will decide.”

Boys who are reared by an exceptional mother have more trouble living with a non-exceptional wife. One of my friends, told me, that he asked his wife, “When will you be able to make biscuits like my mother.” She said, ”As soon as you can make dough like my father.”

When we are young, and we see the manikin type women in publications, and even our own school teachers with carefully groomed hair, make-up, well chosen clothes, we get the idea, particularly on the farm, that our mother is a very plain, unsophisticated, un-kept “field-hand servant” for the farm home. It is surprising how well educated our parents become, when we go to college. We learn that their hard work, daily routines, do not lend to a prissy, social lifestyle. But the life of drudgery becomes one of inspiration as we look back on the aspiration they endured for us. My mother said her children were like a led pencil God had given her and He would read what she had written. She felt that she and my father’s greatest accountability in their discipleship, on this earth, was the children they had trained for His glory.

All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
Abraham Lincoln