Mama
Several people have asked me about my Mama, so I decided to write a bit about her.
Mama was born Muriel Levina Groves on November 24th 1923. She was the 6th of 7 children, Jesse JR., Pauline and Ruth, living at that time and 2 girls deceased before they reached age 3. Mama’s father was I am told a farmer most of the time, taking work in town when needed.
When Mama was 2 her life took a hard turn, her Mother died delivering her 7th child. A boy they named Raymond. The state decided all the children but Jesse must go to the orphanage. What happened there I do not know, other than that Raymond died one week later. I have been told they were there for 2 years, until Pauline was 12 and deemed old enough to mother her younger sisters. Once they were home again, it seems grandfather was having a hard time coping, he had begun to drink. The children made do as best they could. Grandpa brought in some women to care for them and each one left for reasons I do not know, one I am told was caught “being mean” to Mama and was told to leave.
I have also been told my Mama went to school until the 3rd grade, and then dropped out to help the family, continuing her education via correspondence course until grade 6. Perhaps this is why she helped me focus on learning so much while we were together.
In approximately 1929 the family suffered another blow. Jesse Jr. was killed in some kind of train accident. I have found not proof of what happened, and the tale is too bizarre for me to put much trust in the version I was told as a youngster. I will just say railroad tracks still give me the creeps.
This blow seemed from what I have been told to drive grandfather further over the edge. He became an alcoholic. They children had an even harder time getting the food money from him. How they made it through I do not know.
It must be said here, the story is Mama was wild. She was by all accounts a difficult person to live with, and to love. She was according to what I have heard spoiled, and proud.
She married young, the first marriage was annulled I am told, though I have only heard the account once and only from one person.
She married the second time and had 2 children, my older brother and sister. She left that husband, children in tow and began managing a bar somewhere in Missouri.
In or about 1961 she met my Papa, a serviceman in the U.S. Air Force. They married in 1962 and went to Germany. In 1963 Mama got pregnant, and baby Kathryn was delivered stillborn. I until a few weeks before Papa’s death never knew why. Papa said the cord wrapped around her neck. He tried to sue the doctor but was unsuccessful. Approximately a year later, the same doctor delivered me.
When I was about 7 months old we all came to the states, the family was stationed in Mississippi. About the time I turned 1 year old; Mama left Papa and returned to Missouri. Papa said one of his buddies told her that Papa was shipping out to ‘Nam, and she did not want to deal with it, so she left. Papa went to Guam, not ‘Nam, but Mama stayed gone and they divorced.
I have no real memories of how difficult Mama made if for my older brother and sister, though from all accounts, she was hard on them. My cousins support this. She was a single woman, when that was a new thing, trying to raise 2 teenagers and a toddler. Perhaps being hard on them gave them the drive they needed to be as successful as they are in their lives now. I do not know.
The Mama I knew seemed totally different from the person I am told she was by others. She was loving and gentle with me most of the time. We read together, went everywhere together.
Things were not perfect, once we left Missouri for Florida things went south. There was never enough money it seemed. I was too young to realize it, but we moved every 6 months or so. She fought a lot with her sister, Pauline with whom we had moved. Eventually Mama and I went out on our own.
Once we were alone, she put even more emphasis on school, going over my reading and writing and math with me each night. Learning was never easy for me, but she never grumbled, and only wanted me to do my best.
We had been in Florida about 3 years when she had her stroke. The once proud, hard working woman I had always depended on was gone. She was replaced by a totally dependent person, who was always seemingly sad.
Her hands were paralyzed and she could not walk, though the nurses said she could recover if she worked at it, she never seemed too. She seemed to just give up. She lasted that way for almost 5 years, dying on March 14th 1979, at the age of 55.
I have not told the entire tale of my Mama here, there are many details I have left out, the rehashing of her total life, its good and bad times, serves no purpose. I have worked to put my own bad times behind me, as everyone should.
Suffice it to say, I loved Mama, warts and all, and she loved me for who I was, even when I was silly beyond words. How she dealt with others is not for me to say, but I know she made all of her children better than she felt she was.