Prairie Flowers

My Dad is a member of a find-a-grave internet crowd-sourcing tool, where you can ask for pictures of specific gravesites, and in turn find graves for others. This weekend he and I and the girls drove out to the local cemetery to take pictures of graves for people requesting them on the site. It's a pleasant and relaxing task, walking the rows of gravestones, searching for a specific name, looking at the dates and doing the math, pondering the lives (and deaths) of others.

When I found one of the graves we were looking for, I yelled, and my youngest came running over, tripped and fell, cried for a few seconds, got over it quickly. My Dad told me that when my grandmother died, someone's boy was running around the cemetery during the service, and almost fell in an open grave. He said it was refreshing, to see such youthful energy at a funeral.

His sister Lois is in that same cemetery. She died when she was nine. Here is what he wrote about her in the family history:

Lois died 3 days before her 10th birthday. She received a small scrape on her foot that became infected. She died from what was then called blood poisoning.

It was the winter of 1934-35 and the whole country was in the grip of the Great Depression. The Wood family lived in the woods about 5 miles NW of Idabel OK. There was no money for funeral homes or caskets so her dad (Everett Ellsworth Wood) and her uncle Bud (Jesse B Clardy) made her a coffin of pine boards. Bud bought her a new dress in which to be buried. Walter Wood carried her coffin to Forest Hill Cemetery on the back of his truck. A line of wagons formed the funeral procession following the truck.

Her mother, Ruby Lorene Clardy, refused to continue living in the house so the family moved shortly afterward. When she was in her 70's her mother said she still thought of Lois daily.

Tough family. Tough times.

I've tended her grave several times now. It sits on a hill next to a white clapboard Baptist church in rural Oklahoma, tenacious prairie grasses and wildflowers rooted in the hard clay ground between the graves. I will tend it again this summer, when we take my Mom's ashes to that same hillside, and scatter them to the wind.

Just Married

My Mom and Dad, 19 years old. Just married (Dad wasn't sure until he spied the wedding ring on his finger). It looks to me like Mom is pulling Dad's hand up to somewhere more appropriate, but Dad's theory is that the photographer just made a risque remark.

They sure look happy. Off in their own little world.

After my mom graduated from high school in Idabel, Oklahoma, she hung around town for a couple weeks, helping around the house. One morning she helped her Mom pick blackberries, went to her brother John to borrow 8 dollars, and left town. Took the next bus to Dallas, where she stayed with an aunt, and waited for my Dad to return home from the Korean War. It was a leap of faith into an unknown world.

She died last month, on September 21. She was 78 years old. A life is so much more than just memories, but memories are what remain. She lived a long and courageous life. She will be missed, and always loved.

Ol' Shorty

My Dad told me last week that his grand-dad, Papa, referred to death as "shaking hands with ol' Shorty."  I've been turning this delightful bit of information around in my head ever since, looking at it from different angles.  It is unclear whether ol' Shorty is God, Jesus, or Satan, though my Dad's money is on God.  I'm less certain.

Papa would occasionally go into town in a horse and wagon and get drunk.  When he fell into the wagon and passed out, his horses knew to take him back home.  His wife would lead him out of the wagon, put him to bed, sometimes read to him - old western novels, by the light of a coal lamp - til he fell asleep.

My Dad had some of his memories of growing up in Oklahoma published in a magazine called Oklahoma Edge.  Here's a short bit on Papa:

"Quite often when we left church on Sunday we would go by and get Papa out of jail. One night he came into the church and sat quietly on the back row. Someone from the church called the police and they came and arrested him. I always thought this was hypocritical on the part of the church people. I thought at the time, and still do, that Jesus would not have done that."

You can get the entire two-part series from Oklahoma Edge here - order the March and April 09 back issues.  Or just come back to the blog, I'll be posting excerpts on a regular basis.  It's a great read.  He's a good writer.