Mama Wilson, My Mentor

Mama Wilson (Fannie Malissa)

My grandmother Wilson (Fannie Melissa Grimes) taught me so many things. She was the fourth child in a family of 14 brothers and sisters. She was born on Dec. 2, 1883 and was 83 when she died on Jan. 20, 1966. She married James Arthur Wilson on Feb. 9, 1908 at her home in Curtis community. She spent her entire life in the Curtis community as did many of her brothers and sisters. She was only 20 when her father died of typhoid fever in 1903 at age 47. Her mother lived to be 92 and died when I was in high school. I remember her very well and used to visit her often. Someday I will write what I remember about her.


We lived with Mama and Papa Wilson when I was growing up. She taught me how to sew on her old treadle sewing machine. First I had to learn to sew by hand with a needle and thread. I was always loosing my needle (and I still have this problem). I made doll clothes from scraps Mama would give me. Then one day she allowed me to sew on the sewing machine and I felt I was really grown up (around age 7 or 8). Mama was a good seamstress and sewed for ladies in Opp and Elba. This was during WWII and many things were rationed. Mama would take apart men's suits and make the ladies nice suits from the wool fabric. She helped me cut out dresses from chicken feed sacks and then showed me how to sew them. Often she made her own patterns. I was always so proud of my "home made" dresses and wore them with pride.


Mama Wilson was a tall lady and large frame. She was bigger than Papa Wilson. She always looked so pretty when she got dressed up and wore makeup - on special days. Mostly I remember how hard she worked on the farm, getting up early in the morning. She was the best cook and I would love to have one of her light biscuits and her bread pudding. Everything she cooked was so good. Her food had a cajun flavor - lots of pepper and tomatoes. When i was young, she would cook smoked link sausage (fry them until they were well done) and make red eye gravy and serve them with hot biscuits and whipped cream! I remember her little blue ceramic crock pot (bowl) she always made the whipped cream in, using a rotary beater.


We wanted a goat real bad to pull our little wagon. Daddy gave in and we got a billy goat from a neighbor. (Later learned they gave it to us because he was so mean.) He kept getting out of the pen and we would have to chase him and put him back inside. One day Mama Wilson was outside in the yard, bending over doing something and our Billy goat spotted her and ran to her and butted her with his horns. That was the end of our Billy. He moved on someplace else.


I didn't see Mama Wilson very often after I left home for college at age 17. She was close to 69 years old by this time, and seemed very old to me. Most of my memories of her are when she was much younger. I remember when she always baked sweet potatoes and opossum for her brothers and other neighbors to enjoy once a year in the fall. She lost her sense of smell and taste when she aged. I remember when she rubbed Watkin's vanilla flavoring on my brother and cousin when they were little boys and got stung by honey bees at one of our bee hives. She thought she was using Watkins linament. I guess they both had alcohol in them and soothed the skin where they were stung.


I always smile when I think about Mama Wilson. She had the sweetest smile and twinkling eyes. And I loved her so much.

James Lawrence Wilson - my dad when he was 3

I love this photo of our dad when he was a little boy, 3 years old. It must have been taken in the spring or summer since he is barefoot and there are leaves on the bush behind him. Notice the clean-swept yard. And it was probably Sunday since he has on a "dressy" white shirt.


James Lawrence Wilson was born November 23, 1914. His parents were James Arthur Wilson and Fannie Melissa Grimes. He was 4 years old when his sister, Mattie Lena was born. She was named for her Aunt Mattie Wilson Danley (Papa Wilson's sister) and Aunt Lena (Uncle Frank Wilson's wife). I guess daddy was named for Papa Wilson (James) but I don't know anybody in the family that was named Lawrence. Maybe they just liked that name. In olden days children were usually named after someone.


My daddy could do anything he set his mind to do. He was a first class "shade tree" mechanic. He continued to work on cars until he died at age 67 from cancer. He was a farmer, carpenter, mechanic, and pretty good cook after our mother died at age 48 in 1963. He married again to Frances Mock Watson from Opp in the summer of 1967.


Daddy could make delicious peanut brittle, using an old iron skillet. He was pretty good at making jelly, jam, and preserves. And of course frying fish outdoors in a big fryer. I don't remember him ever cooking when I was living at home. I do remember that he would buy a burlap (croker) sack of fresh oysters and shuck them for us to eat with crackers. We would sit outside under the big pecan tree and he would open the oysters with his pocket knife and place them on a board near the ground. Chris, Sue and I would "lap them up". I couldn't swallow one of those slimy things now, even if I was starving!


On Sunday mornings I remember trudging to Pond Creekin the "back 40" with him, before daylight sometimes, to check his "trot lines" to see if he had caught any mudcats. And usually he would have several of those ugly, dark slimy fish with whiskers. We would bring them back home and he would skin them and we'd have them for breakfast. All of this took place before time to get dressed to go to Sunday School at 10 a.m. Other times we would get salt fish from a truck that would stop by selling them. You had to soak them first to remove some of the pickling salt before you fried them. I would love to have some salt fish again and my favorite, even to this day, the strong, dark meat mullet from the gulf or bay. Maybe it's time to go to Ft Walton, FL and eat some good mullet (which Jim does NOT like).


Other Sat. or Sun. mornings, he would shoot the squirrels in the pecan trees (stealing our pecans) and skin them and Mama Wilson would fry them (like chicken) and make gravy and biscuits to eat with them. I remember that we would eat anything that our daddy ate. I don't remember mother eating squirrels and oysters.


Other things we ate were quail, rabbits, opossums (a yearly ritual for Mama Wilson to cook for her brothers) and I don't remember what else. Once I grew up and left home, I never had these "delicious meals" again.


When I grew up and got married and moved away, it was always so special to come home and eat "good food". Daddy planted things late in the summer to have at Thanksgiving, i.e., peas and tomatoes. He always planted too much so he could share with his neighbors, even picking the vegetables for them and taking them to friends and neighbors.


I miss his pear and fig preserves which he cooked until they were dark and almost candied and his peanut brittle made with cane syrup. And his watermelons and sweet corn. And corn bread made from extra fine cornmeal, water and salt and cooked in pones in a black skillet with lots of hot oil, until there was a crust around the bread and soft inside. Sometimes we would eat the cornbread with buttermilk for supper at night.

Remembering a great lady

Mrs. Jimmie Lou Cowen was laid to rest yesterday, Feb. 29, at New Ebenezer (Curtis) cemetery between Elba and Opp, AL, in the area where she was born and spent all of her 89 years. Our family and her family grew up together. Her oldest daughter Janice and I were the same age and the oldest child in each family. Her 10 children and the 7 children in my family are like one big family. She had 6 girls and 4 boys and all are living except one daughter Corinne who died of cancer a few years ago. Miss Jimmie Lou never got over her death. Her husband, Enoch Cowen died in 1984. They were married 54 years.


The funeral was held at New Ebenezer Baptist church where she was a member all her life and the current pastor and a past pastor talked about the life she led and so many personal things that they wanted to share. One was that they never heard say anything bad about anybody, ever.

Picture here with her are son Jeff and his wife Sharon and Mary, who is sitting next to her mother.


Miss Jimmie Lou's house was always open for people to stop by to visit and eat some of her delicious teacakes or 7 layer chocolate cake which she always had on hand to share. She was a great cook.


When we moved to our farm in 1996, it was like coming home again after being away for 42 years and living by her again. She and my mother had been best friends and mother had died in 1963 and I like to think that I filled the void when I came back. Miss Jimmie Lou and I saw each other almost every day and talked on the phone. When I had my knee replaced in 1997, she would cook food and bring to us and then when I had to go to the hospital for therapy, she took me there for about 4 weeks, until I could drive again. We would always call each other before going to town (8 miles one way) and see if we needed anything, and usually we did.


She shared news of her children and grandchildren and showed me pictures of the new babies, etc. She had 27 grandchildren and 41 great grandchildren and 5 great great grandchildren, including twins born to Ed's son Eddie and his wife about 3 weeks ago.


When I was growing up, I remember that on Sat. afternoons she would become the beauty operator and rolled hair for some of the ladies (Dot Donaldson and Maggie Donaldson). At other times she would give home permanents to ladies in the community. She sewed and made her daughters dresses and clothes for others sometimes. She had a big freezer and it was always full of things she kept there to cook delicious meals for her children when they would come to visit. The things I remember most were her tea cakes and 7 layer chocolate cakes. I have her recipe for making the thin chocolate icing she made for her cakes. I could never duplicate her dumplings.


I helped the WMU ladies at the church put together a family cookbook a few years ago and it contains many of Miss Jimmie Lou's recipes. Her dishes were always sought out at the pot luck dinners at church and reunions. I especially remember her delicious chicken and dressing. In the picture below, only Sara Donaldson and Dot Daniels are still living. Dot is around 89.

Miss Jimmie Lou was a beautiful lady and loved pretty clothes. Until just the past few weeks, she went to the beauty shop every Wed. to get her hair shampooed and styled. She wanted to look nice; and she did.


She is pictured here on the right, along with Lucille Foley.

I will miss her telephone calls, asking about my sisters who live far away. Or to tell me that one of her children would be coming for a visit (that lived away from this area). She used to bake things to send to her son Charles in Tennessee. She looked after her 4 boys, and they were attentive to their mother. In later years the girls all took turns looking after their mother and the last few months took turns staying with her.


Curtis community will not be the same anymore with Miss Jimmie Lou gone. She has joined others who were still living when we retired and came back to Elba area. These include Dot Donaldson, Jessie Lee Donaldson, Lena Grimes, Bernice Grimes, and others.

Papa Wilson - James Arthur Wilson

L to R: Mama and Papa Wilson, Mother holding Chris, Daddy and Nell

We lived with Mama and Papa Wilson until about 1945. Papa Wilson's family lived in Bulloch, near Brantley in Crenshaw Co. They came to Curtis in the early 1900's when his mother Sophie died and his father Henry brought Papa, his twin brother and sister, Mattie and Frank, and bought a house and some land from Crawford Rowell. When Papa Wilson was young he worked for the railroad that hauled the pine trees to sawmills. He purchased a gold railroad watch which was a prize possession. He passed it on to our dad and he kept it in a box in the dresser drawer. After his death, his 2nd wife Frances, gave it to our only brother, Perry, to keep it in the Wilson family. Maybe Brad's son Bradley Wilson will inherit it someday.

Papa met my Mama Wilson (Fannie Melissa Grimes) and they were married. His father Henry gave him the house after he remarried and he moved to Opp, where Frank was a pharmacist and Mattie married Perry Danley who had a furniture store.

Papa and Mama Wilson (Jim and Fannie)

Papa had cataracts and was almost blind in his later years. He suffered with asthma and had great difficulty sleeping. He liked to carve with his pocket knife; he called it whittling. He worked hard on the farm, helping my dad.

Papa Wilson had to go to the nursing home when I was living in Texas. I did not get to go to his funeral. I can't remember what caused his death.

Mama Smith - Bessie Jewel Mayberry

I loved Mama Smith. She was so sweet to me and I loved to visit her.
I used to go spend a week with her every summer when I was growing up. She had long hair that she braided and coiled up in a bun, with hairpins holding it in place. I remember that she would let me unbraid her hair, comb and brush it and braid it back. In later years she cut her hair and had curls.

Mama Smith had a little iron skillet that she would let me use to cook with. When she made cakes and corn bread, she always let me bake a small skillet of whatever she was baking. I remember that she made good tea cakes and the best chocolate and coconut cakes.

She had a large wooden chest in the dining room that they used to store out of season clothing. She would let me look inside the chest (lifting the big lid up so I could look inside). I would "dress up" in my aunt's clothing, pretending I was grown up. She would cover the chest with a white table cloth and used it as a sideboard when she had big family dinners. I wonder whatever happened to that big chest. I guess she didn't need it anymore when the girls all left home.

Mama Smith loved to play dominoes and she spent endless hours playing board games with us. One I remember was Uncle Wiggly. She was never too busy to stop and play games with us.

She always seemed to be taking care of an elderly relative. I remember Aunt Pink (we were afraid of her; she was Papa Smith's older sister and had no children) and Aunt Lu - I don't really know where she fit in but she had nobody to take care of her and she lived with Mama and Papa

Smith when she was too old to live alone.

In later years, Mama Smith had arthritis so bad that she was in a lot of pain and could hardly use her fingers. After Papa Smith died in 1956, she lived with her daughter Barbara for awhile and later moved into the new Elba Nursing Home after Barbara and Roy got married. She lived there several years before she died from pneumonia in 1977.

She had a big birthday party when she turned 90 and all of her children were there except my mother Ruth who was deceased (1963). We were living in Texas when she celebrated her 90th birthday  in 1975 at the Elba Nursing Home. We sent her some flowers for her 90th birthday party. 


Two years later I flew from Dallas, TX to Mobile, AL and my sister Susan and I drove to Elba to attend her funeral. It was New Year's day and I've never been so cold in my life as I was that day. It was sleeting when we went to Liberty cemetery out in the country. The flowers froze instead of wilting!

Memories of My Papa Smith

My grandfather Smith, Oswald Cole Smith, was nicknamed "Bunch". He signed his name O.C. Smith. I knew him as "Papa Smith" and I was his first grandchild. I have so many good memories of him. He died in 1956, the year our son James was born. He had a heart attack one Sunday while visiting my parents in the country. My daddy took him to Opp hospital and he was there for several weeks before he died of kidney failure. I spent some time with him in the hospital and we had long talks.


My first memories of visiting Mama and Papa Smith was when they lived in a big rambling unpainted house near the Elba Cemetery. I liked to visit them and spend the night. He always read the Bible at night and everybody had to gather around him while he read. He would always pray long prayers and I would get so tired and sleepy before he finished. Nobody ever said anything during this time; just sat and listened. When he prayed he always got up from his chair and knelt down on the floor to pray. He was a very devout Christian man and later when I was researching our family history of the Smiths, I learned that his ancestors were Quakers . He had so many qualities of the Quakers, including living a simple life. He didn't have a car but traveled by mule and wagon. He was a very neat person, self taught and very intelligent. He had beautiful hand writing. When we lived in Germany, he used to write letters to us.


A cousin gave me an old Smith family history book around 1975. It contained information about my Papa Smith's ancestors who were Quakers in Rockingham County, NC area. My sister Christine and I started doing research on our family, using the old book as a beginning. It was so fascinating to read the accounts of the Smiths of long ago. Our ancestor's name was John Smith who came to NC by the way of Pennsylvania. He was awarded a tract of land in NC for his bravery in the French and Indian War. We located this tract of land and eventually found his gravesite in an old abandoned cemetery underneath Duke Power Electric lines in a field. Also buried there was his son Samuel who was a Patriot in the American Revolutionary War, guarding tories and collecting provisions (according to his Rev. War Pension application).


Chris and I applied for membership in the Daughters of the Amer. Revolution and used Samuel Smith as our patriot. Later we had a DAR grave marking to put a DAR marker on Samuel's gravesite.


I wonder if Papa Smith ever knew of his Quaker background. Probably not. This branch of the John Smith family of Rockingham County, NC, have been Methodists for generations. Other branches of John Smith's descendants did follow the Quaker religion and lived at New Garden Meeting House (Quaker), just outside Greensboro, NC.


Papa Smith's father , William Cole Smith, moved his family to Coffee County from Lee County in the late 1800s. William Cole Smith had a large family. . One of Papa Smith's brothers, Joshua Drayden, had Smith Brothers Store near the railroad depot in New Town. And he had a sister Daisie Winston who lived near Dorsey's. I knew them better than any of the other siblings.


Papa Smith loved fox hunting and always had several hounds penned up and he fed them well. He had a hunting horn (from an ox I think) that he could blow and make a lot of sounds. I could never blow that horn.


He farmed, planting corn and cotton mostly, and used a mule and plow. I remember helping my Mama Smith make the big cotton sacks for people to use to pick cotton. I always wondered why he didn't have a tractor like my dad used.


Papa Smith, in his later years, would sell Bibles and religious books. He kept them in a big suitcase and would set up a table on the sidewalk in Elba, usually outside Stokes Haire's drug store. They were good friends from church. For Christmas he always gave us religious story books. I still have the Bible he gave me when I graduated from high school in 1952. It has such thin paper and gold edging. He ordered it especially for me, with my name imprinted in gold on the cover.


Papa Smith was a very friendly person, never meeting a stranger, and always looking for good qualities in people. I don't ever remember him getting upset with anybody. He walked to the Elba Methodist church on Sunday's when he lived near the cemetery (about 2.5 - 3 miles). A few times I walked with him and it was a l-o-n-g way for a small girl. He would help me up and let me pull the big rope to ring the bell at Elba United Methodist Church, where we are now members. (We still have the bell in the tower and a big rope attached to it and it is rung every Sunday morning before church starts.)


My grandmother had arthritis so bad in her later years that she was unable to do much with her hands. Once, following a gall bladder operation, I went to spend the night with them. I was in high school by then. They heated their house with a fireplace and I remember how cold it was the night I stayed; no heat in my bedroom. Early the next morning my grandfather got up and built a fire in the kitchen stove and cooked breakfast in the cold kitchen. He woke me up and I got dressed and went to the cold kitchen. He had made delicious biscuits, and scrambled eggs with meat (I thought it was sausage). The breakfast was so good, until he asked if I wanted another helping of brains and eggs. I jumped up from the table, ran outside, and lost my breakfast in the back yard! I didn't know I was eating the hog's brains. Yuk!


The photo here is Papa Smith, Mama Smith and all of their children except my mother who was at home with my younger sister Christine. I am 4 years old here in 1938 and sitting in my Aunt Nellie Faye's lap. Also missing is his son Henry by his first wife who died when Henry was a baby.


I remember that Papa Smith came to my 6th birthday party by Greyhound bus. He had been in Opp that Saturday selling Bibles and stopped by our house on the way home and brought me a big rubber ball. A few years ago I read in the Elba Clipper, in the 50 years ago column, a write up about my 6th birthday party and he was a special guest.



Picture here, left to right front row: Nellie Faye (holding Nell, 4 years old), Ida, Joe Bill; 2nd row: O.C. and Bessie Smith and their oldest daughter Barbara. On the back row are the youngest two, Pete and Polly (Martha). Only Aunt Ida (89) and Uncle Pete (80) are still living.

Special Olympics Bowling tournament today

The Special Olympics Oath is "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

In 1968 we moved from Atlanta, GA to Paris, TX and the next year that Special Olympics began in Texas. The first Summer Games was hosted at Paul Tyson Stadium in Waco, June 6-7, 1969 with 350 athletes competing in 10 track and field events.

In 1974, Special Olympics moved the Summer Games to the University of Texas at Austin. James attended these games, along with some other winners from Lamar Co., TX. They and their coaches traveled to Austin in a loaned motor home and had a ball.

James was advancing in the 100 yd dash, leading his group, until he spotted the Univ of Texas coach Daryl Royal on the sidelines and he stopped running to go over and shake his hand and say to him "I've always wanted to meet you." I heard that Coach Royal got him back into the race and I think he still came in 3rd. He was so happy to meet the UT coach that it didn't matter to him if he won any ribbons or not.

In 1977 we moved to Minneapolis and James participated in Special Olypmics there, winning a first place locally in the 50 yd dash and went to the district finals in Fargo, ND. He went with a bus load of participants and when he came home and got off the bus, the took the bronze medal from around his neck and gave it to me and said "Here, take this and keep it for me. It is so heavy." He graduated from high school while we were living in MN. and I thought that would be the end of his participation. But not so....

Several years went by and for a time Mentally Handicapped adults were not encouraged to enter in special olympics where we were living. It wasn't until we moved to Alabama that he was able to participate again. Bowling was added in 1975 and has become the fastest growing sport in Special Olympics. Also James participates in the spring/summer special olympics also. It's getting harder and harder for him to enter in the 50 yd dash as he has much difficulty running anymore. Last year he almost didn't complete the race, but kept going until he got to the end, and collapsed on the ground. He was so exhausted that I brought him home to rest. Later he talked about how much fun he had! We'll just have to wait and see if he is able to race this year, and if not, he will be there cheering his friends on to the finish line.

Pictured here is James arriving home from the center he attends every day, wearing one of his Special Olympics shirts.

Thanks to Eunice Kennedy Shriver for helping to start this fantastic Special Olympics program in 1968.

James, Louise Ezell and Marcus, a friend

Special Olympics is now held in the spring each year at Henderson Park in Enterprise.