In Remembrance

 She was “ Mama” to Tom and his siblings, Eual to friends and neighbors, “Grandma” Chaney to most of her grandchildren and “Mother” Chaney to me.  I am thinking of her today. This is the anniversary of the date she left us, at the age of ninety-five.  I am told she was a stunning woman when she was young.  I have no doubt that she was.  I always considered her to be a dignified, proud and attractive woman, with lovely facial features, dark, creamy complexion and intense, expressive brown eyes.  She must have been beautiful; after all, she gave birth to beautiful daughters and handsome sons.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures of her when she was a young woman, but I can share some of my memories of the person I got to know and care about, and some of the stories I have heard about her parents, who were instrumental in helping to develop the person she became.

She was the daughter of a man, who, according to her, as told to her by her mother, was half Cherokee.  He arrived in town from Eastern Tennessee.  Her mother said a fortune teller had told her once that she would meet and marry a “tall, dark, handsome man, who would come into town riding on a white horse.” When she saw him, she immediately figured he was the one, as he met all of those qualifications. “Aunt Sissy,” as her mother was known by many in town, and her sister were orphans.  Her sister was adopted and raised by a rather wealthy family in Nashville, Tennessee.  She was not adopted, but raised by a family who owned a farm in Cold Water, Kentucky.  They had a houseful of boys to care for, so she cooked, cleaned and washed clothes for them until her marriage.  She was uneducated, and never learned to read or write because they did not send her to elementary school.   I have heard nothing but good things about either of Mother Chaney’s parents.   Papa, as she called him, became a business man in town and helped to take care of his grandchildren’s needs when necessary.  “Aunt Sissy” was an exceptionally kind woman, who served as the community midwife for many years.  She would sometimes spend as much as a week or two weeks with a family, if needed, to help them until the mother was able to take over her normal household chores.  She did that until, due to health, she could no longer function in that capacity. She always welcomed anyone in for a Sunday meal, whether they were expected or unexpected, and as I understand, it was not unusual for unexpected guests to stop by after church to visit and share a meal with them. Everyone loved Aunt Sissy’s cooking, as it was so good.  She passed that ability on to “Mother” Chaney.  They had two daughters and one son. The son died at the age of twelve. My husband Tom, and his siblings enjoy sharing memories of their grandparents whenever they get together.  He and his oldest brother have some great stores to tell, and retell many times over, about many of their youthful escapades, and their grandfather’s reaction to their mischievous deeds. The laughter as they share those memories, is hearty and infectious.  It is obvious in listening to them, or any of the siblings, that they were kind people, much loved by the family and that they played a significant role in the growth and development of their grandchildren.

Mother Chaney was born in Columbus, Kentucky and lived all of her life, except for one year, in the small town located at the tip of Western Kentucky, along the Mississippi River that separates it from Illinois.  She married and had children and worked at the Atomic Plant in Paducah, KY during WW11.  Later, for many years until her retirement, she worked as a cook for the Columbus Elementary School located across the street from where she lived.  She regretted that she did not get to go to high school, and once, with her beautiful brown eyes flashing in remembered anger, told me that, “If Papa had let me get an education I could have been upstairs standing beside a blackboard teaching instead of in the basement kitchen cooking.”  It was a time, and in a place where many felt an education beyond elementary school was unnecessary and a waste of time for daughters.  They were expected to get married and take care of children and the household, which, in their opinion, did not require an education.  She never forgot him telling her that and resented it for a lifetime.  She was an intelligent woman and could have been a great teacher, or succeeded at anything she chose to do, had she been given that opportunity.

Tom and I moved to St. Louis right after we married, so I had limited contact with her in the early years before 1971, mostly at family holiday gatherings.  Tom’s father, died that year and afterwards we would go to Kentucky and pick her up and bring her to St. Louis for one or two week visits at a time, usually during the summer when neither of us were teaching school, but a couple of times in December, during our Christmas school break.  Tom’s father never came to see us.  He never wanted to leave Columbus and as far as I know, never did, but she was more social, not only willing but eager to travel a bit.  We enjoyed those visits when we had her all to ourselves, in our territory, with plenty of time to talk, visit and show her around town.  She also seemed to enjoy those trips, although perhaps not everything we took her to see and do.

I am not sure if it was her nature all along or not, but as she got older, she would openly and spontaneously speak her mind, never trying to impress anyone, but rather just being herself.  I liked and was amused by that quality in her.  A good example of it is what happened once when we took her out to eat. We were seated in a restaurant where the lighting was minimal.  The waitress returned to the table a couple of times to see if we were ready to order and each time we were not.  The third time she came and asked us, Mother Chaney looked up at her and said in a rather loud voice that all around could easily hear, “Order!  Who can order?  It is so dark in here you could be eating BUGS and not know it.”  She was a practical woman and ambiance in the restaurant was not as important to her as being able to see the menu!

Her life had been one of hard work and frugality, which helps to explain another amusing memory during one of her visits.  She was here in December when Christmas lights were up all over the area.  We decided to take her to the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, in Belleville, Illinois.  We wanted her to see their annual huge and quite impressive drive through Christmas light display. It turned out she wasn’t one bit impressed by all of those lights.  Her comment was, “Well, now I know why light bills are so high.”

Another memory was when we took her to see a Cardinal Baseball Game at Busch Stadium #2.  It was a first time for her to go to a professional game, and I suppose her last time.  It didn’t take long before we could see that she was not impressed with that experience either.  She folded her arms across her chest and glared at the vender who held a beer and change out to her to pass along to a customer down the line.  She had no intention of aiding and abetting anyone with the drinking of alcohol of any kind, anywhere, so there!   On another visit, we took her to see the movie, Paper Moon.  As far as we knew, she had never been to a movie in a theater.  We thought that would be a good choice, since one of the stars was the cute little girl, Tatum O’Neal.  Admittedly, we were ignorant of the subject matter!   When we got home she declared that she had a terrible headache, but should have expected it to happen for going to a movie.  I am not sure if it was the fact that she disapproved of the corrupting nature of Ryan O’Neal’s character on his child, or if she felt it was “sinful” to even GO to a movie, and therefore, God had punished her with a headache.  In either case, we never suggested a movie again.

With each visit, we continued to try and find the perfect thing that she might get really excited about.  There were trips to the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Gateway Arch, and to the Municipal Opera in Forest Park to see the musical, Oklahoma, none of which seemed remotely all that special to her.  Finally, we found something that was a hit. We took her on a ride down the Mississippi River on the huge Admiral Riverboat that used to be in St. Louis.   She remembered riverboats passing by Columbus and hearing them play their calliopes when she was a young girl. She loved every moment of that experience, and talked constantly, as we watched the shoreline of St. Louis slowly disappear and later reappear, during our travel the ten or so miles down the river to Jefferson Barracks Bridge and back. As much as she enjoyed that, perhaps the most memorable of all her St. Louis experience happened many years ago, long before any of us knew her, when she was only six years old.  It was then that her father took her to the 1904 World’s Fair in what is now Forest Park.  She had a small pearl handled pocket knife, which had “World’s Fair, St. Louis, MO, 1904” on the handle.  She always carried it in her purse. Her father bought it for her as a souvenir.  I thought it to be a strange and dangerous gift for any child so young, but it was precious to her.  She would proudly take it out and show it as a visual aid, recounting that experience all those many years ago.  There was nothing that we could ever take her to see or do in the big city of St. Louis that could top that one, most special memory.  Alison, our daughter, has that knife now.  It was the only thing she wanted to have to keep in remembrance of her grandmother, mainly because she had heard that story and seen the knife many times and been fascinated by both.

So, while we very much wanted to treat her to what we thought were new and enjoyable experiences, and to make her visits really special, she just mainly wanted to come and see us. She always wanted to know that her children and grandchildren were doing well in life and work and that they lived in a comfortable home with some of the conveniences she had done without for many of her years.  She would have been content just sitting outside on the patio and talking, or inside sharing some of her favorite game shows and soap operas with us, or perhaps just shopping in some of the malls and stores around the city, where she mostly looked rather than bought, generally heading straight for the household kitchen items so she could admire the new utensils and gadgets available.

I loved Mother Chaney. She was a strong, opinionated woman who loved her children and grandchildren.  She lived her life with pride and dignity and made the best of her circumstances.   I now know that she suffered a life altering experience in her younger life, and carried the resulting pain of it in her heart and to her grave. She never felt free to discuss it with her children, although, one by one, they later learned limited details of it.  She grew up in a different time, when opinions of others mattered, no matter what the sacrifice.  I am sorry about that.  I wish we could have talked about the event because I believe that could have been helpful to her and enriched and united the family unit in many special ways. There are so many questions I wish I had asked; so much I could have learned about family and life of folks in and around the community of Columbus, Kentucky in those early days.  Older family members are a wealth of information, just waiting to be tapped.  Too often we don’t fully appreciate them, or what, with a little encouragement, they could share and we could later pass on to future generations.  Much too soon, it seems, it is too late, and they are gone.  I miss Mother Chaney.

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