Easter Dinner - Family History - posted by Mom

Instead of turkey, it is ham that is the family Easter dinner, instituted by Grandma Tommie, along with her famous potato salad and green beans. I arose and cooked that meal today and thought about her. I had been thinking about her in church on Maundy Thursday when we sang "The Old Rugged Cross" - one of her favorite hymns. So I got up about 5:30 and had a ham in the oven by 6:30 and picked green beans and thought about family traditions. Today I wish more family could have been here, but Carla came after the glorious church service, and brought a friend, and me and Donald and Ashley ate that good meal! And I often think about the trouble that it is to cook, when you can go to the store and buy all things ready-made, but how cooking it with my own hands is an expression of love in my life.
It's not because I think I'm not always going to be here, but just because I want you all to have some perspective on your own lives that I want to tell the family story, even if it dribbles out in bits and pieces. Life is harsh. It's hard and gritty in some way not matter who you are or where you come from. It's just because we think we are privileged and have so many choices that we think it is possible to live a perfect life.
We can't. That's where grace enters your life. You look back at your family history and you know that perfection is not attainable. We just bumble along and do the best we can, cross ourselves and thank God when our mistakes produce consequences we can somehow live with and move on.
Where you come from: I grew up not really poor but nearly. My family grasped at money, maybe not nickels and dimes, but certainly quarters and dollars. Now my philosophy is : "If it's a problem only about money, it's not a real problem." Since I first wrote this I have experienced a real problem and now I know this to be the real truth.
Your ancestors: Just a couple of generations back, your ancestors did hard physical labor on hard scrabble farms that never really produced a good living. Each generation that could get out left it behind and chose a different form of hard grind.
On your mother's side: hillbillies from the hills of Tennessee and the South Carolina-Georgia border. Descendants of indentured servants from Europe? - England maybe? Indian blood mix was claimed. Your mother's grandfather, William Redmon Fowler, worked in the hosiery mills in Clinton, TN and then retired to Chattanooga. He was good with machines and invented things. He was a good gardener and canned homemade vegetable soup. He and Annie Mae Fowler lived in Clinton, where Tommie was the youngest child. She had an older sister, Marion, and an older brother, Raymond, whom she idolized. Tommie had polio when she was 2 years old.
That's all for today- Easter is a good time for just watching the sunset and that is what I plan to do!

Sunday March 9, 2008 Family History Lesson

OK, today Donald said another appropriate identification for us might be "The Bluets" (as in Blew-Its). Thats mean, don't you think? Today is Sunday and I went to church and then Carla brought over some good chicken and rice. I tried to take a nap this afternoon because I was out late last night at a concert with Denny and Paula. It was good Celtic music and the best thing was a crew of little girls doing Irish step dancing every time they played a jig -they were so beautiful!

So - a little family history. I will start with my generation and work my way back. I met Donald at church - Oakmont Methodist where we grew up. He was dating a friend, but she went off to college when I was a senior in high school and Donald kept coming to Sunday night church and going out with the youth to get food afterwards. On one of those nights we both realized we were interested in each other. He asked me for a date and we went to the Birmingham International Fair on our first date, Feb. 23, 1963. My family lived in some apartments in Homewood on Central Ave. then, and he walked me upstairs and we stood in the hallway and talked for a really long time and we kissed. I was making plans to go to Montevallo and he was making plans to go to Auburn, but somehow he ended up at Montevallo also. We went all the way through college dating each other and planned to get married in September of our senior year, but he backed out and we waited then until Christmas of the next year - 1967, after we had both graduated and I was in grad school at UAB and he was in med tech school at Carraway. He came over to my apartment (18th St. and 10th ave So) on the Friday before Christmas Eve was on Sunday and said "Let's get married this week-end" so we went and got our VD tests and the license that day. On Sat I went with his mother and bought a dress and we got married that Sunday night! You all probably know this but I just thought I'd write it down. Questions? Oh, please!

This afternoon the hawks are flying around, the Yellow-rumped warblers are in the trees and all the usual suspects are at the feeders including the squirrel we have named Orville Ifill. Spring is so close but it is still cold. My heart is sad this afternoon, because I miss someone, but there is some joy in every day!