Going Back to Oak Creek

In honor of the trip Joe and I are getting ready to embark upon, I decided to re-visit the story I wrote about going to Oak Creek with mama - the only time I went there with her other than when we all went for her funeral.  I think I had to do some editing for publication in Arizona Highways but this is the original version.  Oak Creek will always be a sacred place for me.

I always knew about Oak Creek, where my mother spent her summers as a child and where she took my daddy just after she married him, before he, in turn took her east to start their life in Georgia.  For me, it has a mysterious, almost mythical allure.  Of course, I knew only what I had heard from Mama and what I had seen in the sepia-tones photos stored in our attic.

In my mind, I saw Oak Creek as being from another time, a time when the west was still wild, a time when a little girl could grow up hunting, fishing and camping – real camping, not Winnebago camping.  For me, a product of the 1950s, a child of the South, Mama’s stories of staying at Oak Creek in the 1930s and ‘40s were as foreign as if she had been raised by wolves. Perhaps she was.  It could happen at Oak Creek.

It wan not until years later that I, as the mother of a daughter myself, yet still a daughter to my own mother, made the trip to the place that was so much a part of me, even though I had never been there.  Three generations of females flew west from Atlanta in the spring of 1998.  Mama, my 13-year-old daughter, Molly, and I all had different agendas.  My mother wanted what might very well be her last visit to her home state, and I longed to know more about her early life.  I wanted to find myself somewhere in her beginnings, to know the “Arizona part” of me.  Molly came only because I wouldn’t let her stay home with her friends, even though she thought she was old enough.

The three of us traversed the circuit of my mother’s childhood, starting with Prescott, where she was born.  Her family’s Victorian house still stands, now listed on the historic register, but in tawdry disrepair.

Next we went to Flagstaff and visited the University of Northern Arizona, where Mama earned her teaching degree.  As we neared Oak Creek, our anticipation became palpable, at least for my mother and me.  Molly was busy experimenting with different makeup looks in the back seat of the rental car, a Walkman firmly affixed to her ears.

Mama had saved the best for last.  We were to stay in a motel on the edge of the enigmatic Oak Creek and would visit Sedona and take a day trip to Jerome, the played-out mining town where she had grown up, living on that portion of the mountain known as Cleopatra Hill.  Throughout the week, as we took in the sights and mused over almost forgotten memories, Mama kept saying, “I just hope we can find where the Oak Creek cabin used to be.  That’s what I want to see most.”  I hoped so, too, mostly for her, but also for me.

The Oak Creek of Mama’s childhood was very different from today’s vacation and retirement mecca of Sedona.  In the old days, it was a place of hardy locals mixed with folks, like my grandparents, who camped and built summer cabins on the edge of the creek, within view of the majestic red rocks.  It seemed the place that defined her most.  She and her daddy had helped to build their cabin on a site so pristine and beautiful, so geographically and aesthetically desirable that few could afford it today.

Mama knew the cabin had been torn down and the land returned to the state at the end of a 99-year lease, but she hoped for some sign that her life there had really happened, perhaps some proof for me.

Descending the winding road from Flagstaff, I thought this had to be the most beautiful place in the world, this land of Oak Creek.  Mama couldn’t seem to take it all in.  She kept craning her neck, looking for the place where the cabin had stood. “Maybe this is it.  No, it doesn’t look right.”  Small access roads, leading toward the creek, all looked the same to me.  For her, it had just been too long and things had changed so much.  No doubt some of Mama’s memories had been distorted by time.  We stopped and asked, but no one could help us.  The old-timers were gone.

The next day we stopped in Clarkdale for lunch and then headed up the mountain that was, and still is, Jerome.  I saw the “J” at the top.  Mama had told me how painting the inscription had been a high-school freshman class rite of passage.  As I peered over the dash at the steep climb up to town, I remembered why Mama never learned to ride a bike as a child, finally mastering it as an adult in the flat marshlands of South Georgia.  Bike-riding in Jerome was dangerous, if not impossible.  After attempting to park the rental car on a downhill slant and close its door without losing my footing, I understood.

Mama’s daddy had been the city attorney in Jerome before moving to Phoenix to become an assistant state attorney general.  I recalled the story of the jailhouse sliding down the mountain and remembered how I had surmised in my egocentric child-mind that my granddaddy probably had some “worthless varmints” incarcerated in the jail as it made its way to its new address.  Learning in later life that my grandparents had already moved when the jailhouse made its way down Cleopatra Hill was a little disappointing, so I chose to remember it the other way.  I also, as a little girl, possessed some primal narcissistic sense that Jerome’s slow descent down the mountain and its ultimate decline in population had to be connected in some way to my grandfather’s ascent up the ladder of success elsewhere.  My family’s moving on had to have been the last straw, an abandonment with which the town just couldn’t cope.

I found Jerome to be interesting, yet felt sad that it had changed so much since my mother’s day.  I was glad that the artists had utilized its charm, but couldn’t get past how difficult it would be to live in Jerome, forever canting one way or another, afraid of losing one’s grip, not only on reality but also on the Earth itself.  I can see why Mama holds on so tightly to life and why Oak Creek became such a compelling resting place for her.

On our last morning, we awoke to a light snowfall.  Although it was pretty and its arrival in mid-April a novelty to us Southern marsh hens, it also hinted at a disappointing final search for the bygone cabin at Oak Creek.  I worried that the drive back to Phoenix would be difficult in the snow.  Molly was having trouble with her lip liner.  Mama asked that we look one last time.

Turning back toward Flagstaff, I feared that Mama would be terribly disappointed if we couldn’t locate the site.  All I could see was snow, and driving in this kind of weather makes me tense.  About a mile up from the motel, Mama pointed to a side road, more like a driveway.  This was one of the places we looked earlier, one of the many that seemed almost right, but not quite.

We pulled over and got out of the car.  I envisioned broken hips from falling in the snow and wondered how difficult it would be to get an ambulance up this slippery road.  My mother carefully made her way over to a fence.  “This has to be it.  I just wish I could get closer.”

As she and I gazed forlornly over the frustrating barrier, trying to see what might have been vestiges of the cabin, Molly unfolded from the back seat and out of her adolescent self long enough to check a spot where the fence had collapsed.  “Why don’t we just try that hole in the fence over there?”

It took just seconds to mull the repercussions of trespassing on state land and then for all of us to transcend the broken-down fence to Mama’s childhood – and my Arizona roots.

As soon as she reached the concrete slab just a few feet from sparkling Oak Creek, Mama knew she was home.  Her faced wreathed in smiles, she cried, “This was the cabin’s foundation!  This was the terrace!”  It even looked right to me.  It looked like the photographs from the attic.  All the tableau needed was for my grandmother and my grandfather and my honeymooning father to join my mother in repose as they had in those pictures taken so long ago.

From there, we walked over to the waterwheel my mother and grandfather had built to generate electricity for the cabin.  That’s when I knew, for sure, we were in the right place. I had heard about that waterwheel my entire life.  It was surreal, actually being there, really touching it.  Mama was surprised it had survived nearly 60 years, as the snow’s melting each spring had continually kept if flooded and in disrepair.  When I saw it still standing, it seemed to me that its real purpose may not have been so much pragmatic as commemorative.  We had found evidence that my mother’s Oak Creek was more than just a place in time.  Oak Creek was basic to the woman she had become, the woman who loved my daddy and who bore my brother and me in a very different place and time.

Just before leaving, Mama pointed out the cliff cave on the other side of the creek that she, at 13, used as a refuge from a mother and father who simply didn’t understand, just as Molly’s parents currently didn’t.  With that comparison, it became clear to me that the beat of my mother’s heart and the essence of what it takes to be a woman reverberated from her, through me, to Molly, and would most likely endure through other generations.

Mama fishing

 Dadding and Daddy

Mama, Dadding, and Daddy

Mammo and Mama

Going back to Oak Creek that snowy spring was the right thing to do for my mother.  She needed to remember all that endowed the girl she once was and the remarkable woman she grew into.  The trip was, most definitely, the right thing for me.  I needed to see how the creek water and the red rocks fed my Southern soul.  It was also the right thing for Molly – although she doesn’t know it yet.

 

Mama, Molly, and me at lunch in Sedona - Spring of 1998

 I can't believe Melissa found the spot on her family trip East.  Georgia and Miles on the cabin foundation at Oak Creek.  January 2012

The Little Man

From 2010

This past Mother’s Day, I decided to re-read some letters my mother wrote to my father during the summer of 1952. Daddy was recalled to active duty by the Army during the Korean War and we were living at Fort Benning, Georgia. At some point, he had been sent to California for a few months and Mama was having to defend the home front all by herself, caring for my brother Sandy, who must have been about five, and two-year-old me. The letters are affirmations of my mother’s devotion to my father and her dedication to post-WWII family life. Here’s an excerpt from one of them:

I made an unauthorized $10 expenditure today. However, it will come out of my usual $30 per week household expense account. I bought the children a wading pool.

Apparently, the summer was hot and the post pool didn't offer enough relief, so Mama had taken matters in her own capable hands. What I can't help but ponder is that the kind of frugality mentioned in the letter would be unfathomable today, as would be even considering having the husband “authorize” the purchase of a wading pool from twenty five hundred miles away (especially without the ability to text).

The letters are, indeed, sweet and evocative of the time; however; in re-reading them, I was struck by the theme that runs through them all, a theme as disconcerting with this latest reading as with former perusals.

And that theme is The Little Man and what a gem he was, the little man being my brother, Sandy. Now, you're probably thinking I'm making too much of the sibling rivalry thing here, but I'm not. Read below for evidence of my assertion:

On Sandy’s teeth pulling:

He had two teeth pulled this afternoon without a whimper. I was so proud of him and everyone made over him which pleased him no end..... Back to Sandy and the way he took this today. I really believe he is beginning to grow up and lose some of those vague fears he has always had.

Okay, maybe he was a suck-up little scaredy cat with delusional tendencies but she was still so proud of him.

Then there’s this about what a perfect little student he was at the age of five:

Did I tell you about Sandy’s report card? The comments were to the effect that Sandy is a quiet, mannerly child who is cooperative and well adjusted.

And athletic and brilliant, although a bit odd and perhaps a voyeur:

Wish you could see Sandy in the water. He’s a funny child. He learns more by watching than any other way. He was watching the life guards fooling around in the water and I looked up and there he was doing the breast stroke and not badly either. Last week he watched some boys for a while and then walked over to the edge of the pool and dived in – no preliminaries, no announcements or anything. I guess he figured it out in his head and then went and did it. Some child!

And did I mention good with money?

Sandy made a purchase today. He’s saved his allowance for 4 weeks plus his silver dollar for an inflated raft. He’s thrilled to death. By the way, he has 2 loose teeth – front bottom. One is awfully loose but he’s trying to save them till you get home so you can help him get them out. Of course, the whole idea is based on the return that the fairy is supposed to give him. I believe he'd swap every tooth in his head for suitable financial remuneration. He’s a money conscious little fellow – do you suppose he’ll be a tycoon?

It’s not that she never mentioned me, but notice how quickly she changed the subject.

We were in the water only about a short time and Marcia got mighty red. I was afraid last night that she would have blisters – but seems to be okay today. You should see Sandy. I took him out in water over his head and taught him to tread water. He did very well and would swim 3 or 4 feet out there.

Okay, the only mention of me was that I was too stupid to get out of the sun, but, at least I wasn't much trouble. See below for another example of my stupidity, but also a rather exceptional tolerance for pain.

That night she pulled the fire extinguisher over on her bare foot and I just knew I’d have to take her up for an x-ray – but apparently after the initial fright there was no damage except for white stuff being sprayed everywhere.

It was only after my mother's death that my brother owned up to being the one who dropped the fire extinguisher on my foot, the injured foot that caused me to be crippled and "different" for my entire life, having the fourth toe on my left foot be shorter than my pinkie toe.

I did, however, excel in one important way.

Wish you had seen Marcia eat tonight. She ate 2 and ½ pieces of chicken, 2 helpings of rice and gravy, English peas, cantaloupe, milk and then went over to the Olson’s and ate a piece of cake, 3 pieces of cheese, 3 carrot sticks, came back here and ate 2 graham crackers, small glass of milk and 3 mints. She probably won’t need to eat again for a week.

A great ending to this sad story would undoubtedly include additional evidence of my abuse and anecdotes about what an entitled ass my brother grew up to be. However, I must tell you that Mama was a wonderful mother to both my brother and me, and The Little Man grew into a big man and a good man, turning out to be all the things Mama predicted he would be when he was just five. I'm not sure one would call him a tycoon, but he did well in all the ways that are important, and he's my brother and I love him.

As for my tiny toe injury, I now believe Sandy told me it was his fault to make me feel better about being such an idiot when I was two. However, what would really make me feel better would be 2 and ½ pieces of chicken, 2 helpings of rice and gravy, English peas, cantaloupe, milk, a piece of cake, 3 pieces of cheese, 3 carrot sticks, 2 graham crackers, small glass of milk, and 3 mints.

Well, maybe not the English peas.

The Little Man and me. 

 Other random memories of growing up with Sandy:

Regan remembers him telling about having a head injury from part of a deck falling on him.  It wasn't a deck; it was from a nail (which I think he just ran into) under the porch of the big house in Waycross.  Mama and I were taking a nap on her bed (in our new house behind the big house) when someone came and told us Sandy was hurt.  He had to get stitches.  I think those were the only stitches either of us ever had from an injury.

Regan says he also told her about shooting out a car window with a BB gun.  Although I don't remember that, something about it sounds familiar.

Sandy and I weren't particularly close growing up.  He had his friends and I had mine.  I was all into art and "making stuff", the same things Mama enjoyed.  Sandy, not so much. I think he and Daddy spent a good bit of time together, although I don't know what they did.  It wasn't sports like so many fathers and sons.  They worked in the yard a lot. I do remember that Sandy wrote in my diary when I was about 12 something about "needing a bra more that I did" and how infuriated I was.  I also remember when he set fire to his bed on Christmas Eve.   I was having to sleep in his room because Aunt Susie was in mine.  He was too excited to sleep so he took the shade off of his lamp and put it under the covers with him so he could read without waking me up.  And they thought he was the bright one?

I do remember my first inkling of how kind Sandy could be. I think I was about 10, which would have made him 13.   I had spent the summer in Phoenix with Mama while Sandy and Daddy stayed home in Savannah.  Our grandfather (Dadding - Perry Ling) was very ill with the cancer that would kill him.  Daddy and Sandy drove out at the end of summer to take us back home (we had ridden a Greyhound there!).  At some point, we went to the Ron's Club (Mammo and Dadding's Country Club) to swim.  We were swimming across the pool and I couldn't keep up with Sandy.  Instead of making fun of me for being younger or a girl or any of the mean things he could have said, he said something about it being understandable since I'd spent all summer helping Mama take care of Dadding while all he did was swim down at the Wymberly dock. At that point, I realized how lucky I was to have a nice big brother.

Regan, Taylor, and Katherine, if you have other stories to add, send them to me and I'll include them.

"Don't move Pat. He got run over by a fire truck." Difficulty and Delight in Soliciting Family History

    It's Thanksgiving morning and I drive the sixty miles to the retirement home where my eighty-four-year-old mother lives.  We, together, then travel another one hundred forty miles to the town where she gave birth to my brother and me.  We go there to share the holiday with my father's sisters and their husbands.  We will retrace our steps this afternoon so that we can sleep in our own beds tonight.

    This assemblage is all that is left of my parents' generation in my small family, and the planning has been fraught with angst and last minute changes of heart.  My mother has been sick and has recently fallen.  She commits, is then ambivalent, finally deciding to attend at the last minute, afraid that she will miss what may be her last visit with the group intact.  My father had three sisters, all still going strong, the baby being a mere eighty-three.  The two who married have husbands who, God willing, will soon attain the age of ninety.  Although small in number and now in stature, they are intrepid souls, each placing one resolute foot before the other as another holiday season rolls around at breakneck speed.  At my callow age, I am the only one who drives with any impunity so it makes sense for me to deliver my mother. 

    I have a hidden agenda.  Although I am happy (and sad) to see my aging relatives, aware that these gatherings have a limited future, I am here for information.  I want the scoop and time is of the essence.

     I have only recently become interested in oral history, in family lore, too late to ask my father.  Having talked my poor mother mute with requests for stories of her childhood, I am moving in for the kill on my only link to my patriarchal side.  My quarry are unsuspecting as they masticate their Chex Mix and drink their Bloody Mary's, their thoughts centered on survival issues like social security, high prices and poor service.

    I point to an old family portrait, hoping to spark a natural segue.  As we all gather in a corner trying to look, I become confused and a bit claustrophobic.  "Who is that?"  "I don't know."  "That's Granddaddy."  "Which Granddaddy?"  Adding to the befuddlement is the family penchant for reusing names.  "That's Susie."  "Which Susie?" "Is that   me?" "No, you weren't even born yet." The people in the portrait gaze stolidly back at me, unmoved by my distress, people who, although still unnamed, look disconcertingly very much like us.

    I haven't yet mentioned my objective for the day, nor have I produced the tape recorder.  We have had some discussion about my digital camera, the consensus being that, with its preview and deletion capabilities, it is a good thing.  That is until I mention that it works best when affiliated with a computer.

    As we gather at the table, I get up the nerve to mention that I am interested in hearing the stories of my aunts' childhoods.  My middle aunt, the one hosting our feast, says, with some vigor,  "I have always said that, if someone wanted to write stories, we have stories!"  But before I can get my tape recorder out from under my chair, the talk turns to which aunt made the salad and is the meat cooked to everyone's taste.  The uncles are contentedly eating, dabbing their mouths, passing the bread. Thinking that it might not be nice or smart to try to control the dinner conversation, I decide to hold off until dessert.

    As we choose between rum cake and pecan pie, I lay the tape recorder on the table.  It looks out of place on the snowy cloth, the black plastic defiling the aura of the autumnal centerpiece.  My mother smiles encouragingly at my aunts, glad that it is they for whom the recorder records and not she.  They utter a collective sigh, as if steeling themselves for something that they just can't seem to escape.  Resorting to form, my middle aunt attempts to get things started, asserting, a bit protectively, that they had a wonderful father and a great childhood even though they were motherless and poor.  My oldest aunt, the one who never married, looks vague and says that she can't remember much.  The baby says that she just isn't good at telling stories.  I ask specific questions, just trying to get the players straight.  I learn that, after the death of their mother, an aunt and her son came to live with them.  The son, their cousin, was like another brother to them and my daddy was very glad to have an additional boy, a compatriot, in the house.  After a few more helpful facts but no real stories, the talk turns to contemporary matters and we finish our meal by lining up to talk on the phone to my brother who is eight hundred miles away.  I put away the tape recorder, pondering when I can schedule a return trip to talk to my father's sisters individually.

    Making our way back to the den for coffee, I can tell that my mother is tired and I think of the long drive ahead.  It's time to take our leave.  In gathering up my paraphernalia, I deposit the scorned tape recorder in the bottom of my bag.  Before adding the digital camera, I show my youngest aunt the picture of my Labrador Retriever that I had taken just before leaving home, a practice shot to make sure the battery was charged and the disk had space for the family pictures that I would take.  As we begin heading toward the door in a sluggish throng, my aunt says,  "I remember that we had animals.  I had a dog named Diddiebycha  (as in Did he bite ya?) and George" (her brother and my father) "had a cat named Black Cat Kitty."  My middle aunt says, "I remember that too.  George also had a big dog named Fritz.  And Earle" (the cousin) "had a bulldog named Pat."  A look of amusement settling around her eyes, she asks my other two aunts,  "Do you remember the time George came home and found Pat in his bed with a note from Earl that said, 'Don't move Pat.  He got run over by a fire truck.'"  They nod, smiling, their faces rapt.

    I perk up at the splendid story, wishing that I could dislodge the recorder from the bottom of my bag, but I'm afraid of breaking the spell.  As they continue, I find that Pat survived being run over by the fire truck and that my daddy endured the indignity of having a dog appropriate his bed. As if this were not enough, as if this story wasn't worth the trip and putting my poor relatives through a stressful and strange holiday get-together, my oldest aunt, the one who earlier couldn't remember, the one who never married, stands up, grasps a chair arm to gain her balance and announces with some surprise and a great deal of enthusiasm, "I had a goat!"

    As we pass through the back door, sharing hugs and promises of future occasions, I am reminded why family is so important and why it is worth the time and energy to make these trips.  I am also reinforced in my, sometimes, misguided attempts to hear the stories of my antecedents and to share those stories with my own children.  Although we have learned about the era of my father's youth in our history books, we know little about what it was like to live in that time in a family torn apart by illness and economic decline in a small town in South Georgia.   We need to learn all that we can about a certain motherless family, which happens to be our family, that was presided over by an overwhelmed father who loved his children and allowed them pets, including an injured bulldog in a boy's bed and a goat for a little girl who would never marry.

    

My grandparents' wedding announcement
 

 My grandmother, Annie Belle McGee Mayo

My grandmother's death announcement
 

Susie, Daddy, Aunt Annabelle, and Uncle Bill

The Girl from Cleopatra Hill

My mother, Perrie Rae Ling, grew up in what was still the wild west, in a mining town clinging to the side of Cleopatra Hill, an undulating accessory to Mingus Mountain, part of the Black Hills range. Mama grew up in a place and time I can only imagine, and they were central to who she was. The place was Jerome Arizona and the time was the early part of the 20th century.Located high on top of Cleopatra Hill (5,200 feet) between Prescott and Flagstaff is the historic copper mining town of Jerome, Arizona. Once known as the wickedest town in the west, Jerome was a copper mining camp, growing from a settlement of tents to a roaring mining community. (Jerome Historical Society)

Now an artist's colony of around 450 people and a tourist addendum for folks visiting the beautiful red rocks region of Sedona, Jerome touts itself as “America’s Most Vertical City” and the “Largest Ghost Town in America.” What happened to Jerome was what happens to most mining towns. The mines eventually went bust. But when Mama and her family moved there in 1918, she was just a baby, and the small city boasted close to 10,000 people from all over the world.Founded in 1876, Jerome was once the fourth largest city in the Arizona Territory. The population peaked at 15,000 in the 1920's. The Depression of the 1930's slowed the mining operation and the claim went to Phelps Dodge, who still holds it today. World War II brought increased demand for copper, but after the war, demand slowed. Dependent on the copper market, Phelps Dodge Mine closed in 1953, and the remaining 50 to 100 hardy souls bravely promoted Jerome as an historic ghost town. In 1967 Jerome was designated a National Historic District by the federal government. (Jerome Historical Society)

In trying to write about what life was like in a place like Jerome in the early 1900’s, I went back and read parts of an interview with my mother I audio-taped at Tybee Island, Georgia on New Year’s Day, 2000. I called the intermittent conversations we had during our holiday stay The Millennium Sessions, in an attempt to give them the heft they deserved. Mama died three years later, her words becoming a gift to my family and me. I can’t iterate adequately my feelings about the importance of getting family stories before they disappear with that irrevocable last breath of the one person who knows them.

In looking back at my notes, I quickly realized my mother tells of life in Jerome much better than I ever could, so I’m including part of my interview. Some of it isn't particularly politically correct by today's standards, but it provides a snapshot of what life was like in that place in that time. My mother's responses are in italics.

You moved to Jerome when you were about one. What do you remember about the early years?Some of the things that I think that I remember I can't understand why because I was so young. One thing, I might have been two, I don't know. My folks had rented this house. It was called the Gibbs House. Of course, everything was on the side of the hill there and somehow I wandered away and somewhere down the road, lower, a Mexican child had got to playing with me and took me home.
And that just wasn't done, I'm sure.No! And the mama took me in and, all that I can remember, I was sitting on a table and eating frijoles, I think, when my mother came to get me.

And, of course, there were no telephones to call.No, I think they sent the child and the mother may have seen me previously. Of course, the house was not real close. You know we were separated. And also, I think that I have told you that, sitting on my steps when I was about three or four, there was a family living underneath us down the side of the hill. I had gotten a toy piano and I was going to learn to play the piano even then, and the two little boys, the family downstairs, got two kits for Christmas, that had hammers and tools. And those two boys came up and I was sitting there with my piano and they beat up my piano. The funny thing was, at that time, my mother had a Negro woman who came in once a while. She was a wonderful pianist. She had been educated and how she got to Jerome, I don't know. Drucilla was her name. And she used to show me how to play on that little piano before the boys tore it up. Those two boys' father, he was an educator and ended up as the superintendent of schools. He was principal of several schools.

How many schools were there in Jerome?Well, you had the primary school that was down here, and the elementary school that was here and you had the Opportunity School...

Which was?For retarded children.

Did they really call it the Opportunity School?At that time, I don't know of anybody who did that. That paid any attention to them. And then down on the upper grades elementary school and then the high school. We had an excellent school system. It was pretty much run by the people that I have been talking about, the educated people. So we got good teachers and by then, J.O. Mullen, the father of the two brat brothers, who, by the way, I used to date in later years, he really ran a tight system.

Other memories of when you were really young. Something about a baby carriage that you didn't put away so your mother threw it away.I don't remember that but I wouldn't be surprised. I was disciplined.

Mostly by your mama?Both of them. My mother would dislike one thing and my father would say to forget it and vice versa. I dearly loved my father. My mother was my mother, and that was all.

But you were your father's girl?I was my father's boy.

Do you remember your parents fighting?Not very much. I don't think they got along real well all the time. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. My father was sick most of his life. He had stomach ulcers and back then they had no way to treat them, and of course, now they do. He finally had surgery a couple of times. He ended up with cancer. So he died when he must have been 71.

What do you remember your mother doing during the day? I know she was a good cook.She was an excellent housekeeper. She played bridge most every afternoon. She was active in an organization that took care of people who had no money or illnesses, usually the Mexicans. They did a lot of social service work. If a mother was sick in the hospital, they would see that the children got fed.

What was your house like growing up? Was it the house that you showed me when we were in Jerome?No, probably not. We lived in a series of houses. You know that Jerome was a mining town, and it basically was operated by the Verde Mine. They had a store that was like a commissary. They didn't call it that, but it was similar to that. People that worked for the mine paid once a month for the groceries and stuff they had bought. A company store. The hospital was a company hospital.

Everybody else could use it?If it wasn't crowded. And my father, being the lawyer in town. Also, my dad, at one time, was justice of the peace, police judge. So, when the mine wasn't too crowded, we could live in the apartment house, which was owned by the mine. The other houses in town were owned by the mine. There was very little private property. So, we moved frequently when someone else needed our place. We even lived in my father's office for about six months. And then about that time, they said, come on back, we've got an apartment for you. We lived in two different apartments, each of them two different times, in and out, in and out. That was really the most pleasant living for some reason. No bedrooms. Murphy beds. One apartment was bigger than the other.
They had a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen, and then a dressing room and bath. And, in the largest apartment, my bed had to be pulled out and opened up in the dining room. My parents' was pulled out in the living room. And then, the other apartment, overall, it was smaller but their room in the dressing room to put my little bed so it didn't have to be pulled out. But that was right in the center of town. It was a nice place to live.

Perrie Rae Ling with Florence Hartwig Ling

Jerome was the place where Mama spent her entire childhood and the place where she returned to teach after college. It wasn't until she was sewing at home one Sunday morning, and the news of Pearl Harbor came over the radio, that my mother began making preparations for what would ultimately be the reason for her to leave Jerome for good.

I think what stays with me most is how ordinary it all was. My mother, in spite of growing up in a place and time that seem so foreign to me, had a childhood very much like mine.

Lucky are we who had happy childhoods.

George Mayo’s Ring

 The last time I saw it was on my finger reaching into a giant bag of Lays potato chips.

Daddy was George Washington Mayo, as opposed to Sandy who was Jr.  Daddy wasn’t much for jewelry.  Mama wore a thin gold wedding band, but not Daddy.  All he wore was a wristwatch – and his ring with a deer engraved on it.  I think he wore it on his little finger.

I remember sitting in his lap and he would point out the deer head engraved in the gold signet ring, a deer I pretended to see.  The engraving was so worn that most of it had disappeared.  Just a few lines were left.  Lines that could have been a deer.

Daddy told me the ring had belonged to his father, also a George Washington Mayo.  I never met that grandfather as he died while Daddy was in the Army during WWII.

I loved that ring.  I don’t know why other than it seemed like a secret.  A deer hidden in a ring only Daddy and I knew about.

That’s why, when he died, I asked Mama if I could have it.  It should have gone to Sandy.  If it had, it would probably still be in the family. Sandy would never have worn that ring while eating potato chips.

But I loved it and I wore if on my own finger.  For about a week.  Until I stuck my stupid hand into that greasy bag of potato chips.

By the time I realized it was gone, it was too late.  I’d only been in charge of it for a short time.

And, even worse news:  I not only don't have the ring, neither do I have a picture of the ring.  Just my memory.

But I do have some information about my grandfather, George Washington Mayo, who owned the ring before Daddy.  And some pictures.

 This is a photo of Sarah Martha (Mattie) McGregor Mayo, who was my great grandmother and the mother of my grandfather.  He husband was also GW but he died at age thirty after fathering 4 or 5  children.  I could only find 4 names ( McGregor, Jean, Carolyn, and George) in the lists I've seen and from what I've heard from family. My grandfather was the youngest and it looks like he was born after his father died.  Mattie, on the left (I think) had a twin sister, Mary Eliza.

              

Yep.  There they are.  Somewhat famous back in the day.

 This is a photo of my grandfather, GW Mayo, on the right.  He was born in 1880, the year after his father died.  His father was the first George Washington Mayo.   His father's name was James J. Mayo (my grandfather's grandfather).  I think the first GW Mayo (my great grandfather) lived and died in Baker County, Georgia. I don't know what he died of. It was too late to be a civil war injury, I think.  My grandfather's brother (on the left in the picture), McGregor Mayo, died in 1946.  I remember Daddy talking about Uncle Mac.  Boy, those Mayo genes are strong.  I can actually see myself in my grandfather's face.

This was the original Aunt Madge and perhaps the missing sibling of my grandfather.  

On the back of her picture, it says she died young (in childbirth). 

My Aunt Madge must have been named after her.

This is my grandfather in front of his livery stable.  
I believe that's what he did until cars came along.  

After that, he worked for the city of Waycross as the Sanitation Director, I think.

 I guess he got used to the idea of cars.

 Not sure what he's doing but he's on the left.
Quite dapper.

 My grandfather with his first born, my father.

Flossie

Some time around the turn of the century (that last century, not this past century), Flora Selma Teresa Hartwig stood somewhere in San Francisco Harbor, champagne bottle in hand, and christened a ship. Her parents had nicknamed her Flossie, her husband called her Florence, my mama called her Mother, I called her Mammo, and my children called her G.G.

Mammo was my grandmother and we didn’t get along particularly well. She came to live with us after my grandfather, whom we called Dadding, died, when I was around 12. She was smart and bossy and we got in each other’s way. She walked with a stoop and kept telling me not to step on the cat. The next year, we added an addition to our house for her to live in – a mother-in-law suite. It was pretty cool and I would have liked to have had it and probably deserved it, being 13 and all. It had a mini kitchen and a nice bathroom and a living room-bedroom combo. It was a lot better than my room and having to share a bathroom with my brother.

From what I can tell, Flossie was a difficult child. She was headstrong and probably too smart to be just a girl in Milwaukee Wisconsin in the late 1800’s. Family lore has it that Flossie was sent to live with her aunt in San Francisco after running down a railroad track after some boy who’d been sent away for some reason probably having to do with Flossie.

I’m pretty sure her parents meant for the deportation to be a punishment, but, according to my mother, life in San Francisco with a young aunt and her well-to-do husband was heaven. Not only did Flossie get to christen a ship, for a while she had access to Uncle Deep Pocket’s bankroll, until, at some point, she went too far and Uncle cried "uncle" and her money was cut off. But, by then, she’d met my grandfather, Perry Ling, who just so happened to be engaged to a minister’s daughter in Los Angeles, where he was finishing Law School at USC.

At that point, Flossie became Florence and Florence found herself living with her husband and mother-in-law in Prescott, Arizona, a place not exactly in the same social stratum as San Francisco. But Florence prevailed and became pregnant with my mother, sipping champagne imported from France during prohibition in order to stave off morning sickness.

My grandfather was offered a job as City Attorney for the mining town of Jerome, Arizona, a place Flossie would have hated and a place you'd think Florence would have abhorred, but, before long, Florence had her card games and her ladies' clubs and her off-handed good works for the brown and yellow and non-English speaking families of the town. And, when she had the time, she mothered my mother, who eventually realized she would be an only child.

Some time after Mama grew up, my grandfather became an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Arizona and he and Florence moved to Phoenix. I remember summers as a young child, staying at Mammo and Dadding's house on West Whitton, especially one summer when Mama and I went by ourselves, riding a bus all the way from South Georgia. That was the summer I learned that grown-ups did other things besides go to work and church. I think of my grandparents as using their home as something akin to an intellectual salon, sort of like a small wild-west-American version of the Left Bank. I remember Saturday nights with friends over for a few drinks, when politics and the ways of the world were argued over and smoke and adult laughter filled the Arizona air.

My Grandparents with friends. The Lings are on the right.

Reconciling the image of Flossie with what I remember about Mammo is difficult, but not as difficult as it was before I too moved from girlhood right past womanhood and straight into Grammyhood. Remembering that Mammo was once a Flossie, and then a Florence, helps to remind me that we all grow and change as we age, but our true selves are right there where they always were. I remember that Mammo loved Johnny Carson and she loved politics; she was always up on current events and she was smart as a whip until the day she died. And now I see that Mammo was a feminist before most people realized that options were an option for women, and she somehow knew she didn't have to give every part of herself away to be a wife and mother.

Was she a good wife? Maybe. Was she a good mother? Sometimes. Did she offer something to my mother and then to me that I can share with my daughters and granddaughters? Absolutely.

What she gave me was a part of herself that somehow latched on to a part of me. I think I have her to thank (and blame) for my irascibility, my liberal world view, and my love of a cocktail before dinner.

So, here's to Flossie, Florence, and Mammo. All three made up a truly memorable woman.

Flossie's parents

Christopher Columbus Beauregard McGee

Daddy would tell Sandy and me just one story about Christopher Columbus Beauregard McGee.  Sometimes he called him Uncle Chris but more often he used his whole name, as he seemed to enjoy the sound of it. So do I.

 In doing some research, I discovered that Uncle Chris was actually his great uncle, his mother's uncle, brother to Daddy's grandfather, who also had a good name:  Francis Henry McGee. I actually found my great grandfather on the internet and I'm adding that info below.

But first, the Christopher Columbus Beauregard McGee story.  Uncle Chris was a bad alcoholic who spent much or his life stowing away on trains going from Waycross down to somewhere in Florida.  Whenever he came back into town, he'd bring a bunch of bananas. 

That's the entire story as far as what I remember Daddy telling us.  I don't think it would have been nearly as memorable if his name hadn't been so unique.  According to what Sandy told Katherine, poor Uncle Chris met his demise falling off one of those train cars when he was, yes,  inebriated.

I often wondered if the story was true, but in locating Francis Henry McGee I did find that he had a little brother named Christopher and they were from Macon.  See below.

 

Old Frank must have done well for himself as he was able to provide this house for his family.  At some point, he gave it to his daughter's family.  I think it was before she (Annie Belle McGee Mayo, my grandmother) died in 1920  during the influenza epidemic when she was pregnant with her fifth child.

This is the same house where we lived when Sandy and I were little.  However, Mama and Daddy had divided it up  into apartments and enclosed some of the porches by then.  The house still stands in Waycross and there are still people living in it, 

 The same house today.

Francis Henry McGee

Birth:	Jun. 21, 1858 Macon Bibb County Georgia, USA
Death:	1914 Ware County Georgia, USA
Father: William McGEE Mother: Eliza [--?--] Spouse: Susie Julia PACE Married: probably in Bibb Co, Georgia NOTE: 1860 Bibb Co, GA Federal Census, Macon PO, Series: M653, Roll: 111, Sheet: 32, Page: 442 McGAHEE, William (h/h) age 30 Ireland (Occ.: Machinist) McGAHEE, Eliza (fem) age 30 Ireland (Keeping House) McGAHEE, Francis H. (male) age 1 Georgia 1870 Bibb Co, GA Federal Census, Macon PO, Subdivision 458, Series: M593, Roll: 136, Sheet: 21, Page: 623 McGEE, William (h/h) age 47 Ireland (Occ.: Patt-- Maker) McGEE, Elizar (fem) age 36 Ireland (Keeping House) McGEE, Francis H. (male) age 12 GA McGEE, William (male) age 9 GA McGEE, Christopher (male) age 7 GA 1880 Bibb Co GA Federal Census, Macon, Series T9-0135, Page Number 195B (Occupation: Machinist) McGEE, Frank (Hus) age 21 yrs GA GA GA McGEE, Susie (Wife) age 20 yrs GA GA GA PACE, Julia G. (f) Age 45 yrs GA TN TN 1900 Sumter Co GA Federal Census, Americus, 4th Ward, GM 789, ED 65, Series: T623, Roll: 221, Sheet: 8B, Page: 219 (Occupation: Master Machinist) McGEE, Frank H. (Hus) age 41, Jun 1858 GA Ireland Ireland McGEE, Susie J. (Wife) age 41, Feb 1859 TN TN TN McGEE, Stella E. (dau) age 17, Feb 1883 GA GA TN McGEE, Annie B. (dau) age 14, Sep 1885 GA GA TN McGEE, Susie G(?) (dau) age 8, Aug 1891 GA GA TN 1910 Ware Co GA Federal Census, Waycross, 6th Ward, ED: 176, Series: T624, Roll: 214, Sheet: 15B, Page: 271 (Occupation: Auto) McGEE, M. F. H. (Hus) age 51, M1, GA Scotland Ireland McGEE, Susie (Wife) age 51, M1 32 yrs, 3 children, 3 living, AL AL AL MAYO, Stella (dau), age 26, M1 4 yrs, 2 children, 2 living MAYO, (?). (son-in-law) age 35, M1, GA GA GA MAYO, Annie B. (dau) age 24, M1, GA GA AL (3 other people I can't read - census faded) PACE, (?) L. (?), Mother, age 76, AL TN TN Family links:  Spouse:   Susie Julia Pace McGee (1859 - 1911)*  Children:   Stella McGee Mayo (1883 - 1954)*   Annie Belle McGee Mayo (1885 - 1920)*

Francis Henry McGee's decanter.  

Taylor has it and points out that his initials are etched on it.