Learning from the Past

      Well, I thought I had ended. Seems not.
Soon, though, I’ll embark on my next voyage. Now the women--from Margaret Lynn Lewis, to Jane Strother Lewis, to Elizabeth Lewis Gilmer, to Sophie Gilmer Bibb, to Martha Dandridge Bibb, to Susanna Dunlap Porter Bibb, to Mattie Gilmer Bibb Edmondson, to Deane Jones Edmondson, to me—we all go our separate ways, but we don’t really separate at all. I could be trapped in this intense montage if some degree of exfoliation didn’t occur as a natural process. If I refused to learn from the amazing parade of unleashed spirits how to live better in the present, or how to better appreciate the past, I could be encased in lifeless cells. I opt for renewal.

       Before I do leave, I’ll retire “the box”. Maybe find a new home for all it has held sacred. This should be a wonderful period of relaxation. For now, I’ll pause, feel the inevitable let-down, and simultaneously, milk the satisfaction over completing this meandering journey. Then, I’ll remember how great it was to get us all together to have this heart to heart. After circling and searching for the routes that mattered, for me, for this moment, and for my family, it’s sweet to be home, Alabama. It’s also great to know the Southern Bypass awaits if I choose a rapid exit. Or re-entry.

End of Road

     After resurrecting these personal and illustrious antecedents, calling them forward, giving each a starring role, I now send them back to their peaceful places, hoping they’re not dizzy from the ride. I also hope the reunion served its purpose in giving each participant a respectful soapbox, a grandstand, and graceful exit, baggage and all. If I have been fair in my presentation, honest in my assessment, thorough in my coverage, and compelling in its delivery, I have exceeded my expectations.
     As an unsolicited bonus, I have a new intimacy with my father, mother, and grandmother, and beyond. The relationships had suffered prior to my in-depth exploration. By connecting the dots, not only did I track the lineage and define the line, but I made a personal discovery and a recovery as well. Each member, each memory, letter, poem, or picture formed a piece of the puzzle that now reveals the truth about my people and what formed them as well. Also, I am going out on a limb to say, in seeing them more clearly, they see me in the same light. A true catharsis has transcended time and allowed a soothed soul’s repose.

Down the Road

This is hard to believe, but my tale is winding down and approaching an exit on the Southern Bypass. It's time for me to introduce the last traveler on this particular journey.

Elizabeth Deane Edmondson (Patterson) (Cooper)

“Missie”

Daughter of George Bibb Edmondson and Deane Jones (Edmondson)
Born St. Margaret’s Hospital  July 20, 1946
Montgomery, Alabama
Married July 20, 1968
Richard Reginald Patterson, Jr.

Divorced July 20, 1990
Children—
Richard Reginald Patterson, III married to Lori Hackleman

Children: Lucy Porter, Sophie Huyen, George William
George Bibb Patterson married to Hope Henry

Children: Kathryn Evelyn, Camden Bibb
Elizabeth Meriwether Patterson Thurman married to S. Michael Thurman

Children: Seaborn Forrest Thurman, Elizabeth Grace

Married October 2, 1998
Donald Leonard Cooper, Jr.

When to Say “When”—
     I’ve hardly ever known when to say when, not even with pepper or parmesan. My segment, the ending one, should be short. My tale unfolded in a round-about way as this slow trek ensued. Most of me, or all I choose to reveal, can be found in-between the lines of the preceding words, passages, and people. The trails have merged onto the fast-paced interchanges of the 21st century and the bypasses skirting issues, times, and towns. My trail will continue to unwind in these modern fast-paced lanes that one day will be as outmoded as those of my earliest ancestors.

     Today, the southern bypass maintains its offering as an alternative passage around and outside Montgomery. It accommodates the rush of life most days. It’s lined with service stations, fast-food chains, medical facilities, etc. and etc. and it’s a great route, if you’re heading south, down 331 toward Panama City, east toward I 20 and Atlanta, or westward ho, just moving on. Most of the travelers in this written pilgrimage missed the modernity of four-lanes, interstates, and fast-tracks of any configuration. They actually wrote letters and documents with pens or pencils or typewriters, and did research solely at the library. I, on the other hand, sat at my computer to compile this chronicle and used the same to check points, identify unknowns, or correspond with vast resources available on line. To ask for editorial comments, I attached files to emails and zipped them to anyone and anywhere I chose. I “tweeted” my progress on Twitter and began a blog--the fast track at my finger-tips. How did the old guys manage?

85 Mays

May 7, 2005

My 59th May 7. Her 85th.

     This May, and the more recent ones, harvested fewer signs of new life than expected for the last month of the season. The hope of spring, or of anything, spoke less audibly in the haze of Mamma’s out-of-rhythm heart.
I was headed to Demopolis to see the live rendition of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the actual courtroom of movie fame. It was to be my first viewing of this traditional yearly performance and I’d gotten tickets months ago, the day they went on sale. I stopped en route from Birmingham in Montgomery to check on Mamma and found her slumped in her chair saying, ‘Missie, I just don’t feel good.” I could see it. Her breathing labored for each quick intake of oxygen and left her exhausted in the effort.

Too weak to walk, she stayed on her sofa while my sister-in-law and I prepared her things and called the ambulance. It arrived promptly with two amicable attendants ready to assist.
The trip to Harper Lee’s town quickly faded into perhaps another future season as my trip re-routed to Jackson’s Hospital. That spring, that May belonged to my mother. Her humor remained as she said to me, “I guess I’m going to kick the bucket,” when the doctors announced pneumonia as a fateful diagnosis and complication in the already present heart arrhythmia.

I'll remember her last few days on earth as a group of the most difficult of any seasons to date. She wanted to hang on for a few more Mays, a few more seasons, for what reason I don’t know. Depression smothered her and blanketed her countenance with remorse over lost beauty, love, youth, and a child. Her mind held tightly to life with acuity, except for allowing her the reality of her own impermanence.

In a moment of melancholic pleasure, I wish to bring Mamma to a safe harbor with sprawling roots of truth and ease. Had she ever known a sanctuary at all? She has been dead for several years, but realistically, she was absent for much longer and I truly, deeply miss her and always have.

Love, If Only for a Day..

The angst continued to grow within Mamma as years passed. It changed colors to coincide with her moods that changed hourly but more predictably with time and repetitiveness. The following letter from my mother to me was written with the intent to congratulate. Her profound melancholy shrouded any real chance for joy.

September 4, 1969

Dearest Sister:

I am so happy for you and Reg.
It was wonderful of you to call me immediately, and like I told you last night, it will take me a few days or a week for it to really soak in that my little (not after gaining 7 pounds) girl is going to be a mother and that I am going to be a grandmother!
There is absolutely nothing in this world like having your first baby. Nobody in this world could have been happier than I was when George was born. He was so dear to me.
The children (William and Charles) seem quite blasé about the whole thing, but I am so excited. It will be wonderful having another member in the family, it seems to be dwindling so…

Much love,

Mamma

     There we were, Reg and I, expecting our first baby, of course not knowing then we would have Richard Reginald Patterson, III.  In April of 1970,  we had our first baby, a baby boy, and it was a magnificent occasion. I knew what Mamma meant. But I would never totally comprehend the words that were encased deeply in her grief and remorse. Truthfully, I didn't  want to understand or share equanimity of our loss.  I held my grief separate from hers, refusing to acknowledge what I had stored in my inner sanctum.

      I hate to leave my mother's segment here, but in the following decades, my life was separated from hers and though I frequently visited Thorn Place through the years,  my heart never returned to that house. Daddy went up in smoke, so to speak. He died in 1978 from emphysema complications and decades of chain smoking.   Mamma remained at the family home until 2005.

This poem encapsulates how my mother lived and loved.

Poem

By Deane Jones Edmondson

How beautiful if only for a day.

Where One Road Ends, Another Begins

Life went on without George, but not with ease and not for long in Nannie's case. By 1967, she was settled, yet always unsettled, on Thorn Place with Mamma, Daddy, my two younger brothers, and me, although I was basically living away as a college student. The political climate added to her discomfort as evidenced in a couple of statements from her letters. I quote her here.

July, 1967

...Everyone is deeply distressed over Gov. Wallace’s illness. I hope one of God’s miracles will heal her (Lurleen Wallace) trouble.
Love to all and more thanks than an antique mind can express...

And more of a concern to her was Lyndon B. Johnson. She made her thoughts very clear in this remark from a letter. I quote, in part--
"If that depraved, diseased Lyndon Johnson had any intelligence, he would know that it took centuries to produce..."

I'll leave it there. More of her words and thoughts and letters are quoted in their entirety in my book, Southern Bypass. Her last words here--

" I nearly made the grade two nights ago. I often feel the hot breath of the Grim Reaper blowing on the back of my neck. Hope he doesn’t let me linger long enough to be a nuisance. The currents of life are too swift and strong for me to fight while we have crooks at the head of our wonderful country."

Nannie lived long enough to see me marry in 1968, but she finally relinquished control to her "grim reaper" who ushered her out in March of 1969. Her many foreshadowing comments about death and her longing to go home finally came to fruition. 


The changes over those few years, 1966-1968,  left an indelible mark in history far beyond and not related to my family.  The country shifted in one of its most significant periods of unparalleled growth and loss.   But in my microcosm, our personal changes left  my mother, father, and two brothers, William, and Charles,  in the same old Thorn Place, but with a new set of circumstances.  When I married in 1968, I  left Montgomery, separating as far as possible from the home I had known.

Endurance on the Bumpy Road

    Ah, the sad events in this journey may be just and equal to the joys, but George's death -the death of a young person, a son, a brother, a friend- I think that jolt might count as a big one. It sure was in 1966. My grandmother speaks again via another letter to Sarah. I was in college at Alabama College, now known as Montevallo, the name of the small town in Alabama where the university has stood for a century.
Letters Continued…

By Mattie Gilmer Bibb Edmondson

To Cousin S.P.M

May Day, 1967

Dear Sarah,
…How sad can life get? Everything reminds me of George and I wonder if Deane (Mamma) can ever adjust to life without him… Missie is busy with tests. She and George were like twins, utterly devoted and congenial. I hope she will not marry too soon in trying to compensate for the companionship she last lost.
…Yard maintenance is a problem in Montgomery now. One neighbor says she pays her yard man $1.40 per hour, keeps him 10 hours on some days. Wish I could run a mower.
Devotedly yours,
Mattie

And another--

May, 1967

Dear Sarah,
…Missie was here for Mother’s Day. She is brave but life can never be the same for her or any of us. We went to dinner on Mother’s Day. I think Will and Charles must have used a dollar's worth of sugar because they liked to tear open the little envelopes to put sugar in tea.
Our Charles will be nine this month. He said to Deane a few days ago, “Mamma, you ought to feel honored because God wanted a fine boy like George.” It seemed to comfort Deane more than anything that had been said to her before. We must endure our heartbreak while life lasts.

This is a beautiful, cool day but the strong breeze reminds me of the disasters in Bham and other parts of Alabama and elsewhere. I must stop rambling before the “butcher cuts me down.”
…U.S. news and World Report keeps me posted on world affairs by printing facts instead of theories. Have just been told of the rioting in Houston. More and more blood will flow.
Devotedly yours,
Mattie

Life Slows Down in the Fast Lane

Continued...

Newspaper Clipping

Montgomery Advertiser

November, 1966

Descendant of Governors Fatally Hurt

"George Bibb Edmondson, Jr., 21 year old descendant of two Alabama governors, died in an automobile crash on South Boulevard early today….He was leaving a wedding party on the Southern Bypass.

Edmondson was a member of the track team as a freshman and sophomore and held several offices in his fraternity…"

     The newspaper’s mention of George’s ancestors incensed me back then as I read what I considered trivia in light of his true significance. In my egocentric and possessive state, I only saw headlines that read, “George Bibb Edmondson, Jr.- His Sister’s Idol, Best Friend, Confidant, Encourager. He Promised to Stay With Her Forever!”

     No consolation was available for such grief. His death jolted the innocence of my youth into permanent oblivion and me into a place of loneliness and melancholy. The loss of George in the family changed each of us more deeply, more permanently, than any other event we would eventually experience. My mother, convinced she was being punished by George’s death, carried the burden of guilt like a talisman until she died. My father retreated further into the abyss of his Civil War with his toddies. The internalized scream echoed in my decisions and relationships long after the death of my brother. I caress his memory loyally, yet after all this time, sometimes, still longingly. My second son, George Bibb Patterson, is affectionately named after his uncle and one grandson is also his namesake.

Hide and Seek

Continued...
     The games adults play aren’t quite as innocent or lovely as the childhood ones, but many are introduced on the playground of youth. The childhood games have rules, written on the box-top kind of rules. Passed-down-in-time rules. Breakable but defined. Maybe adult games are the same, minus the written. The instructions for my mother’s game must have been penned once upon a time by her on a dirt playground and then washed away like pollen somewhere back in Fulton. A secret set of rules gave her the edge as she championed her version of “Hide and Seek” making the endless hunt to no avail for the seeker, with one exception. But the event in 1966 drove my mother farther into hiding even from the one she most revered.

     At this crossroad, I'll set the stage for the next segment, perhaps the most difficult one, by resurrecting another of my grandmother Nannie's letters.  Here is another of her correspondences to Cousin Sarah in Birmingham.

Nov. 17, 1966

Thursday

Dear Sarah,
The old woman is being self-indulgent again—writing to you instead of working on the masses of family clippings. We think we leave this world. Instead, it recedes, so many of our loved ones gone, that one day more or less ceases to scare me.
This is one of those unseasonably warm days, sunny until now (noon) when the shadows softly come and softly go. Porter always told me that a deep freeze was apt to come to Montgomery about middle of November.
Am trying to build enough strength to go to the wedding of Missie’s beloved friend, Kitty Shertzer, who lives across from us. Missie is to be a bridesmaid, both girls are aged 20. Too young.

Always devotedly,

Mattie

My older brother George came home for Thanksgiving at my urging.  He had plans to spend the holiday with a fraternity brother, but I cajoled him into coming home to see my first walk as a bridesmaid. I believe it is fair to say that he and I would have done anything for each other. He changed plans, accepted invitations to the wedding and pre-wedding parties, but never saw me as a bridesmaid, not then, not ever.

Out of Sight Out of Mind

From Southern Bypass, continued...
     For a brief period George Bibb landed a sales job that took him on the road every Wednesday. Life actually eased in his absence and, other than the temporary excitement over pop-beads for me and a pecan log for George, it resumed its normal tension upon his Friday return. In his absence, when the lights were doused and the children had settled into their beds, flourishing secrets drifted from the crevices to begin their nightly brouhaha. A myriad of mysterious sounds floated through the halls punctuating the nights. Occasional whispers swirled from downstairs echoing long into the night.

     When G.B. was home, the night sounds clinked in tin tumblers where ice beat out the rhythm of spicy, saturated words. Mornings overflowed with stale smoke and full ashtrays as signs of the nighttime marauders.

       French glass doors divided the hall and the small kitchen, Deane’s cave, her hideaway. With fervor and diligence she conjured fine meals, night after night. After working all day, kitchen duty could have been shared or delegated, but she opted for the solitude. Alone she could recant the day, sigh over the spaghetti, and have more frequent and potent sips of sauce. Most nights, she served dinner to the children, four in count by that time with the addition of little Charles, twelve years younger than I.  After serving the children, Mamma added ice and a pinch of water to her bourbon and went to the den ostensibly out of ear range to complete the round of nightly drinks and disparaging words with George Bibb.

     My tentative yet frequent offers to help with the dishes were answered by a shattering clamor from the French doors making the panes and me tremble. Lucky for the inanimate objects, they took no personal claim or offense over her ritualistic slam.

A Short Walk to Faraway Places

     Wilma had no children of her own and no husband, but a host of kinfolk lived in the tiny dilapidated house on the “other” side of town by the railroad tracks. A city bus brought her within walking distance to the house five days a week. She stayed from early morning till late afternoon when Mamma returned from work and George Bibb resurfaced to prove the South could rise again. An occasional ride home in the family’s Chevy broke the monotony Wilma encountered from the daily routine and hassle of double bus rides. Her pay was fifteen dollars or less, a week, or less maybe, and she might have been glad for that. Deane and George Bibb were pleased to have dependable help from a kind woman, but Nannie complained that $15.00 exceeded the necessary wage for a “negro”.

     Each morning Deane walked a few blocks in her high heels and knee-length skirts to an office downtown. She was an eye-catcher for sure. Her life in Montgomery cultivated a new dimension as she began to realize the route to the office presented life beyond the confines of tradition and familial expectations, not to mention freedom from the watchful eye of George Bibb and his mother. This new autonomy at The State Abstract Company became both a boon and bondage.

The business card is one from a later date when things had changed quite a bit. The State Abstract Company was at 23 South Perry, downtown Montgomery for it seemed, eons, and it was owned and run by Jack Thorington, a local Montgomery attorney several years older than Mamma. She worked as a clerk, or a secretary for Jack in the early days and continued as a loyal employee and friend for over thirty years. Her tenure, experience, and dedication earned her the reputation as a top-notch abstract guru. When Jack sold the business after he had run his course,  Mamma saw some reward when she was asked to head the new State Abstract Company under new ownership of Mr. Ed, or Ed Azaar. The company moved a few blocks to Washington Street at that time.

Back to the old days and Wilma...

     On a typical Monday morning, after eight years and a couple of raises, Wilma did not come to work. An appointed friend called to break the news that our faithful companion was moving to Detroit and not returning to work. She just disappeared. Her abrupt departure shocked and afflicted the family in various ways-the little ones old enough to have a serious bond tasted their first indisputable rejection. Deane felt obvious disappointment and a sense of loss in not having the one person she had trusted all those years to help her with the children and house. Things would be difficult until someone could take Wilma’s place. Could anyone take Wilma’s place? Did she know how important she was? Was it too hard to say “good-bye”? Or was it a one-sided affair? Her puzzling departure left many unanswered questions and remained a mystery and source of sadness, especially for the children and Deane.