blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

 Alice Lee Erwin Thurmond Sasser. 1917-2005. Covington, TN

" ....Mrs. Sasser also was a pioneer... a former tax assessor of Tipton County...  first women to be elected to that office in the state... long-term member First United Methodist Church of Covington. .. first woman to serve on the Board of Stewards ..Sunday School teacher many years... . also involved in numerous book clubs and other civic associations.
The joys of Alice Lee's life were her family, her church, her friends, Tipton county and all the children of the world. She never met a young person, of any age, whom she did not love and for whom she did not have time. She touched many lives."

   one of those lives was mine...

 It was the summer of 1945...I was 10 years old...  my father was not the kind of man who could or "would" accept the responsibility of caring for his family...he had someone drive us..mother and  her five small children..from Houston to her  home town, Covington,Tennessee.. my grandmother took us in..520 West Liberty. It was the large, two-story house that my mother had grownup in...but at that time it had been turned into three apartments...2 on the lower level and one upstairs.  The 7 of us  (grandmother, mother and the five children) occupied two rooms and a small kitchen on the upper level)..I think the kitchen had, at one time, been a large closet..the ceiling sloping down on one side. There was a table, of sorts, a bench on the side of the table that had the low, sloping ceiling..(standing was not an option on that side of the room)...and wooden crates (boxes) turned upside down to use to sit on.... one cabinet on a wall and another closed-in area with shelves...Storage space was really not needed for we had nothing...There was an old gas stove for cooking but no running water...we would draw a bucket of water from the bathroom across the large hallway, carry it  to the kitchen to wash dishes in a tin dishpan.. I don't remember how our clothes were washed...maybe in the bathtub..The upstairs bathroom was shared with  tenants who also rented a bedroom and kitchen on the upper floor....an elderly couple....well, not sure how elderly they were...at the time, to me,  anyone over 50 was elderly :).
One of our two bedrooms was "Minnie's room"..She had a bed and dresser, a rocking chair and a card table ...I remember her working puzzles on that table...her only pleasure other than her church. She grew a garden in the back yard and raised chickens for us to eat.She was 70 years old when we moved in with her...what a hardship that must have been...
She was a tiny, frail looking lady but she was anything but frail!!! she lived another 22 years.
The second bedroom that was part of Minnie's apt. was occupied by mother and us five children (ages newborn to 12 yr.) ..there was one bed that the 3 oldest of us slept in..a "roll-away" bed that mother and Nickey (the baby) used for sleeping: a  walk-in type closet that had a cot in it where brother Ed slept.

Picture: the child was my mother..her mother and her grandmother... this is the home mother grew up in and where she and her five children lived for 10 years..

I write about this to show the comparison  between our home and life...and the home and life that was across the street...

Ms Alice Lee lived across the street....

hers was a small modest home...but one filled with "living" ...normal "family" activities.. meals being prepared, laundry being folded, clothes being ironed, her 3 children running in and out, laughter, someone playing on the piano...just the regular routine of "home"...but for me it was a God send.

I spent many hours just sitting watching her do her chores...she talked to me, encouraged me, and comforted me when Bob left for Germany, and she was always...always there for me sharing her life and family.

 a picture taken on one of our trips back to Tn...

Mother did the best that she could under the circumstances and I  certainly admire her as well...but her life at that time and many years to follow was bleak, cheerless, dismal and needy...it's very hard to give any kind of joy to others, even your children, when there is NO joy in our own life.

 Mother   1914 - 1993

 

  

Remembering Mother

 May 31st, 1914..somewhere in Tipton County, Tn......Maizie was born to a poor family who lived in the country and who already had too many children. While still just an infant Minnie and Charles Volz adopted her and one of her brothers, Joe.

 When she was a young teenager her father, whom she adored, left her and her mother to marry a younger woman who happened to be her mothers cousin.

In 1931 at the age of seventeen she met and married Edward Verious Stallings.

He was not a good husband or father...in 1945, shortly after their fifth child was born he hired someone to drive her and the children from Houston, where they were living, back to Covington, Tn...to her mothers. To my knowledge that was the last time she saw him....she and her children were left to live with her mother in a two room area in what had once been her home. The large, two-story house had been purchased by her mothers' brother-in-law and turned into four apartments which Minnie managed in return for a place to live.

She struggled through about eleven years there..for several years she sold tickets at the local movie house. She took a course in some kind of office procedures and later worked in a doctors office.

  In 1956 Bob and I brought her and my three younger siblings to live with us in Mena Ar. After about a year she wanted to go back to Houston to live so Bob took her and the two younger children to Houston where she worked for the same company for 26 years...


After retiring she stayed depressed and became ill ... The summer of 1983 Bob and I drove down to Houston from Chicago and brought her back to live with us....she lived for another 10 years. In 1993 at the age if 79 she died from emphasyma. She had been bed-ridden for nearly a year...near the end her oxygen-deprived mind became impaired..she was fearful and could not sleep.  I became so sleep-deprived that I was forced to put her in a nursing home.  She was less than a mile from our house and I was there with her every day but she felt as though she had been deserted again. She said to me "My mother did not want me, my husband did not want me and now my children do not want me."...In my head I knew that wasn't true..I had not deserted her...but it broke my heart for her to feel that way....and had I known that she would live only three weeks longer I could've held out.

She was a feisty woman...very small in stature...never weighed over 100 lbs. and,  in spite of everything,  had a sense of humor.   She never had a car; never  learned to drive... rode the bus to and from work every day, rain or shine; never had her own home; had very little security... Life was not good to her...but one thing I know...she was not alone her last 10 years;  she was loved and cared for;  she had security.

I love you mother.