Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Digression #2 – More About "the Girls"

Who are these participants in the Great Road Trip of 2009?  

They are more than just the designations "my mom, my sister and me" or "the girls."  So, today I thought I’d tell you a bit more about us as a family, beginning, of course, with "my mom."  Her story begins like this:

"This is the house where I was born – on a farm near Tipton, Oklahoma."

 

Eighty-seven years ago this past December, a baby girl was born on a wintry day
in a small Oklahoma farm house near Tipton.  The year was 1921 and it
was just six days until Christmas.  

She was welcomed into the
family of three – a mom, dad and two year old brother.  Her parents
named her Alma Jean Jackson, but she’s always gone by Jean, not liking
her first name at all and having no idea where it came from.  It was
the same with her brother, George Oliver Jackson, who was always known
as Oliver, except to us as little kids, when we called him "Uncle
George."

Her mom, Milly Lois, had been a spinster school teacher
of 30 when she’d married Jean’s dad, Grady Lee Jackson.  She was well
educated, being from a large family of Quakers who’d spread out from
Kansas.  Milly Lois’s own mother, baby Jean’s grandmother, was college
educated, as well, having graduated from the University of Kansas in
1877.

Jean’s dad, Grady Lee, on the other hand, had little formal
education, but a fine mind and energetic ways.  His family were all
farmers from Alabama, some of whom had moved to west Texas to find
better pastures.  He was also a young widower, having lost his first
wife and infant son in childbirth there in Oklahoma where he’d come
seeking work.  He must have been lonely, I’m sure, but then he met
Milly Lois and they married.

Now, with Jean’s birth, their family was complete.  They had a little boy and girl who were the light of their eyes.

 The family moved to New Mexico and lived on a sheep ranch for a few short years, then traded the ranch for 160 acres of good farmland with water on it near the little town of Abernathy, Texas.   The farm is still in our family today, with my cousin Lee Jackson having bought it from my mom several years ago.

My mom’s life story is a very interesting one, but that will have to wait for another day.  For today, let me just share with you some photos of her and Laura & me over the years.

First, here’s our mom when she was in her late teens:

She says she grew to be 5’6" by the time she was 12 and was grown.  She (and her brother, Oliver, and my dad) graduated from high school at 16 and from Texas Tech at 20, obtaining a Bachelor’s in Business Administration.  She taught school a year (my dad was a year younger), and then my mom and dad were married in Erie, Pennsylvania, in August 1943 where he had gone to work as a mechanical engineer in the war effort.

By the time this next photo was taken, our family had grown to six members and we lived in St. Louis, Missouri.  I am the oldest and was about 8 or 9 here, my brother Neil is next and was about 6 or 7.  My "little" brother, Mark, was about 3 1/2 and baby Laura was just 2.

  Neil and I both had dark hair, while Mark and Laura were both blondes.  I always thought of the four of us as being the Bobbsey Twins, from the children’s series by the same name.

Soon after this portrait was taken, we moved down to Abernathy to the farm, which my grandad Jackson gave to my mom and dad, and my dad became a farmer.  So, we all grew up to be Texans!!

It was just three years later that my little brother Mark was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor the first day of second grade.  Laura was just starting first grade and was just as cute as she could be.  Here she is at about 5 years of age.

Mark’s death nine months after he became ill was devastating to our family and forever changed it.  Here is one of the last photos taken of the four of us kids before he died.  The occasion was my 14th birthday and you can see how "dorky" I look as a young, uncoordinated teen.  Of course, I thought my brother Neil was a really big dork!  Laura – well, she looks like she could care less about the whole birthday thing.  (This was our dining room, but note the clothes dryer behind Neil, the wild wallpaper and the old Fridge in the kitchen.)

You can also see how much Mark loved me.  We were very close his entire life and I named my son Mark after him.

 

 Laura was seven years younger, but always wanted to come sleep with me in my room.  Always.  Especially so after Mark died.  She was only seven years old and that’s a hard age to understand death.  I was a teen and didn’t want a little kid hanging out in my room or my bed, so was rather a bit mean to her, probably.  For instance – she’d beg and plead with me to let her come sleep with me, so I’d tell her that if she gave me a good back massage for 30 minutes, she could.  She would, of course, and they were very good ones.  But, the other night on our trip on the road when she and I were sleeping together, I got to thinking about that and feeling really guilty for being so mean to my sweet little sister.

I told her so the next morning and all was forgiven.  She now understands why a teen wouldn’t want some little kid with them every night!

Neil grew up to become a Social Worker, going to LCU, ACU and getting his MSW.  He now lives in Lubbock.  Laura earned her degree from ACU in piano performance and is an excellent pianist.  She married, has three daughters and lives in Abilene.  My mom and dad moved to Tucson, Arizona for 20 years after my dad quit farming and got his master’s in Industrial Engineering at Texas Tech at 48.

Mom & Dad retired to Abilene in 1990, where Mom still lives, just a mile or so from Laura.  Me?  You know more about me than you ever wanted to know, so I’ll skip my many lives!

Back to the story next time.

  To Be Continued . . .