An Old Fashioned Mother

The kids are all back in school and with my most recent botox treatment making many tasks feel impossible these days, I have found myself back in the recliner scouring the Internet for any more tidbits on my ancestors that I have yet to uncover. My favorite thing to search are old newspaper articles. It gets a bit tricky though because there are often so many typos and spelling errors.

There's a great free newspaper archive from Texas Tech University, I've mentioned it before. They changed their website a while back and I couldn't get to the newspaper search, but I was finally able to get it to work a few weeks ago. Today, of course, as soon as I start to type my blog, it has become glitch-y. We will see how far I get before deciding to come back another day....

This time I'm searching the Foard County News for any records on my NALL/FOSTER ancestors.

Today I found where my great grandmother Willie Belle competed in the County Interscholastic Meet and won second place in arithmetic. There of course was a typo and her name was given as Winnie Belle, but I'm 99.99% sure it's her. Claytonville was a very small rural community. Grandma would've just turned 15. The article is from March 1930.

Foard County News 28 March 1930

 I also found where in May of that same year, Grandma, portrayed the Mother, in Walter Ben Hare's 1917 play "An Old Fashioned Mother".  How fitting. I know she was the great matriarch of our NALL family. I was actually able to find an online copy of the play. Just click on the title to take a look at it yourself.

Foard County News 16 May 1930

I'm not certain when this picture of Grandma was taken, but I imagine it was close to 1930. If you were wondering what she looked like back then.

Just to give you an idea of the severity of the typos, below is the Birth Announcement of my grandfather, Willie Belle's first born, Charles Bryant Nall, who was born 13 May 1935. To Willie Belle (Foster) and Benjamin Rufus Nall. There is a town called Benjamin, where my grandfather attended school, so I think that part is right.

Foard County News 06 June 1935

I'll go ahead and wrap this post up. I'll come back and add direct links to the newspaper articles, if the Texas Tech website ever comes back up. It really is a great resource when it's working. The trick is getting past all those typos.

Until next time,
Becky

Yearbook Memories

I wanted to do a quick post with a few snippets from yearbooks past involving my family.

I'll start you off with this page from the 1975 Prairie Grove Yearbook, mentioning my paternal grandfather, Charles Nall, for being on the school board.



This next one is pretty precious to me, because I don't have many pictures of my dad when he was young. Here he is in his 6th grade photo. The first year he was in Prairie Grove.



Here's another one showing my dad and step-dad both being members of the 1975 Letterman's Club

Another one from 1975. Dad was voted 'Best All Around'

1976 Mom was in FTA (Future Teachers of America) and Library Club






1983 my step mom Dawna was in Drama and Basketball

Until next time,
Becky

Mattie Dillahunty -- A Staunch Democrat and Hard Worker!

Today I want to write briefly about my step mother's maternal great grandmother, Mattie Minerva Dillahunty Moore Cravy. I've written a bit about her first husband and children here.

Mattie must have been a strong woman. She endured so much loss in her 94 years on this earth. She buried her parents, siblings, two husbands, and six of her eight children.

When I think back to her story, I think about a post I once read on Facebook about our inner crone.

IN PRAISE OF THE INNER CRONE!

OK, we all know about the "inner child", right? The innocent being who still lives inside of us, who needs and deserves love and care, and whom we sometimes have to channel in order to learn self-compassion?

I'm a big fan of the notion of the inner child. It can be a really healing construct. Once, when I was going through a particularly dark season of self-loathing, I taped a sweet photo of myself (age 2) on my mirror, and taught myself that any harm I did to me, I also did to HER. It made me kinder and more tender to myself. Imagining other people's inner children makes me kinder and more tender to them.

So the Inner Child is a good thing.

These days, though, I spend less time thinking about my Inner Child lately, and more time focused on my INNER CRONE — the old lady who lives inside me, whom I hope to someday be.

Because she's a serious bad-ass.

The really old ladies always are bad-asses. I'm talking about the real survivors. The women who have been through everything already, so nothing scares them anymore. The ones who have already watched the world fight itself nearly to death a dozen times over. The ones who have buried their dreams and their loved ones and lived through it. The ones who have suffered pain and lived through it, and who have had their innocence challenged by ten thousand appalling assaults...and who lived through all of it.

The world is a frightening place. But you simply cannot frighten The True Crone.

Some might consider the word "crone" to be derogatory, but I don't in the least. I honor it. The crone is a classic character from myth and folklore, and she often the bearer of great wisdom and supernatural power. She is sometimes a guardian to the underworld. She has tremendous vision, even if she is blind. She has no fear of death, which means: NO FEAR.

I keep a wall of photos of some of my favorite crones, for inspiration. The photo below is of a Ukrainian Babushka who lives in (get this) Chernobyl. There are a group of such women — all tough elderly peasants — who have all recently moved back to the radioactive area around Chernobyl.

You know why they live there? Because they like it.

They like Chernobyl because that's where they came from. They are natural-born farmers. They hated being refugees.They resented being shunted off their land after the catastrophe. They hated living in the shabby and crime-infiltrated and stress-inducing government housing in the city, and they much prefer the independence of living off the land in the most contaminated nuclear site on earth. They have formed a stupendously resilient retirement community there, in what some would call the world's most terrifying landscape.

Is it safe? Of course not. Or, whatever. After 90 years of hard living, what does "safe" even mean? They drink the water. These women plant vegetables in that radioactive soil and eat them. They butcher the wild pigs that scavenge around the old nuclear power plant, and eat them, too. Their point is: "We are old. What do have to fear from radioactivity? At this age? Who cares?"

All they want is their freedom. So they take care of themselves and each other. They cut and haul their own wood. They make their own vodka. They get together and drink and laugh about the hardships of World War II and the evils of the Stalin years. They laugh about everything, then they go outside and butcher another radioactive boar and make sausage out of him.

I would put these women in a Bad-Ass Contest against any cocky young alleged Bad Ass you've got going, and I guarantee you — the Chernobyl crones would win, hands down.

We live in a society that romanticizes youth. We live in a culture where youth is considered a real accomplishment. You look at a seriously powerful classic crone like the woman in this photo and you see foolish we are — to imagine that the young offer much for us to aspire to, or learn from. No wisdom like the wisdom of survival. No equanimity like the equanimity of somebody who plants a garden right on top of a nuclear disaster and gets on with it.

So these days, when my Inner Child gets all fluttery with the panic of living, I just ask myself: " WWMICD?"

"What Would My Inner Crone Do?"

Ask yourself that same question. See what she tells you.

One thing I can promise you she will never say? She will never say: "WORRY.

She will more likely tell you this: "ENDURE."

Hang in there, all you future awesome crones!

Who better to imagine than one of your ancestors? So for my sister, and stepmom, I hope when you read about Mattie, and if you ever fall on difficult times,  you picture her as your inner crone. As you go through the life, I hope you are able to endure with all the strength of those who have gone before you.

Mattie was born in Sebastian County, AR 9 September 1886/87. She was the 7th child born to Mr. Adolphous Dillahunty and Emily P. Williams. She married James Walter Moore in June of 1902 and they lived in and around Greenwood, Sebastian County, Arkansas, for about 20 years before moving to Webber Falls, Muskogee, OK. Mattie experienced a lot of personal loss in the 1930's burying her husband and several children. She ended up living in Tulare, CA with her sons Adolphus, Leon and Clyde by 1935. After living in California for about 5 years she remarried a man by the name of Mose Pierce Cravy around 1941.

Once again in looking for answers as to who Mattie's first mother and father-in-law might have been, I ran across a few articles, some even includes Mattie's picture! I wasn't able to find the answers I was looking for as far as who Walter Moore's parents were, but I did think the articles below were very interesting.

Tulare Advance Register 07 Nov 1978

Tulare Advance Register 4 Nov 1980

Tulare Advance 6 July 1982

I hope you guys enjoy the articles and if you need to enlarge them, you should be able to click the caption below each article to be taken to the file where there is a ZOOM option.


Until next time,
Becky

Memories From My Childhood (Part Two)

When I was growing up my Dad had the green table in the bottom left corner. I don't remember the chairs. I remember he had wooden folding chairs instead.