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.