Three Women
Today, as we continue my voyage of discovery into my life and memories, I want to talk about the women in my early life. Three in particular hold places of honor. My mother, my grandmother and her mother. The foundation. My mother grew up in an orphanage, graduated high school, became a registered nurse, and joined the Navy where she met my dad. My grandmother and her mother were born, raised, and died in Texas. The husbands of the latter two passed in my earliest years, so I knew them mostly as single women keeping house and keeping up with their kids, giving us the strong glue of family.
Strength of character is the word most closely associated with all three. They were survivors. My mother was an orphan. My grandmother had outdoor plumbing until the mid-60s, when a septic was finally installed. And her mother cooked on a wood stove. My grandmother and great-grandmother were happy women. They might have lacked worldly possessions but they possessed more love than you can imagine. I guess I always thought of all three of these woman as superior beings. So, it was a real surprise as I aged to learn some people thought of women as lesser beings, unworthy to vote even. And shackled them with petty restrictions too, my mother, for instance, had to cover her head in church, wear a hat, as if women’s hair, one of His creations, was an offense to God.
So, Betty Friedan and the women’s liberation movement, when it came along, seemed totally reasonable. And in marriage, I did my best to change poopy diapers and watch the kids so that my wife had time to herself, and I was happy when she went back to college and finished her degree. We celebrated. And when my daughter came along and was good in math, I did everything I could to encourage her and was really pleased when she got her college degree in math and ended up with mad computer and software skills. So, if you think I’ll have anything to do with efforts to impinge on women’s rights, you’re barking up the wrong tree, and for that you can thank Irene, Annie, and Grannie Cammack.
Part 24, Living in America: An Old Man’s Journey into His Past