# Ancestor Challenge 2019, Week
Prompt: I Would Like to Meet
SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS YOUNG
The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde
I would love to meet my maternal great-grandmother Rebecca Jarrett McDonald Johnston Miller House, who rode up the Arkansas River on a raft at age 14, married three times, and lived a long life. I imagine Rebecca on her 75thbirthday:
I am in the adolescence of old age, says Rebecca Jarrett McDonald Johnston Miller House on the dawn of her seventy-fifth birthday. She considers the milestone with an innate optimism: The difference between other stages of adolescence and this one is a little more fatigue.
Age is relative, she decides. You are as young as you feel. Considering this new stage of life, she realizes that it was not so long ago that she hid her true age. Surely, telling the truth about my age means I have reached a milestone. Now, I can simply say that I am seventy-five years young!
Her children and their families surprise her with a party. She doesn’t really know how they manage to catch her off guard year after year. One would think I would finally catch on, she thinks, with a deep inner joy that is intensified by not catching on. Instead, it is surprising to see familiar faces, beaming with love and joy, crowded onto her daughter’s wraparound farmhouse porch. Grandchildren of all ages leap onto the lawn with open arms, shouting, “Happy Birthday, Little Grandma!” She is forever surprised, and she always cries.
Returning to her home that evening, Rebecca peeks into the mirror over her dresser to check her cheeks for the remains of dried tears. Drawing the pins from the black felt hat still perched squarely on her head, she pauses to admire her reflection, then places the hat on the tall dresser, one hand returning to guide stray strands of snow-white hair smoothly back from her face. The reflection in the mirror has long been an attraction. She has enjoyed being uncommonly attractive. Looking at her reflection intently, she is struck by guilt; she should be mindful of pride. Isn’t it time to stop gazing at my reflection like Narcissus?
Rebecca finds it uncomfortable to look at her familiar hazel eyes in the face of an old woman. Who is that wrinkled old woman, so tiny, so frail? She examines her lined parchment skin for some sign of the lovely thirteen-year-old Becky McDonald. Where is that flirty, feisty adventuress who journeyed with her family from Alabama to Fort Smith up the Arkansas River on a raft?
Remembering that fateful trip always made her sad. No one in the family had realized the extent of her mother’s illness; if they had, they would not have left Alabama. They were not prepared for Martha’s death or for a loss of such magnitude. Rebecca could not have imagined the tumultuous changes that awaited her. It was not the way her life was supposed to turn out.
When the war ended, the world just wasn’t the same. The South had been devastated, the economy was shattered, and the people were depressed. The idea of moving west to find new land, away from the disappointment of defeat, had stirred hope in McDonald’s hearts. How quickly the hope had turned to heartbreak after Martha Bankston Brooks McDonald’s death. She had slipped away in her sleep, leaving the family to continue life without her.
Rebecca does not like to think of the darkness of those days. She is surprised that they seem to surface on this, her birthday. Her memories of adolescence had grown dim with time. Images of herself as a young girl flood her mind now, her childhood ending abruptly with Mama’s death. She could not have imagined a life so altered—a life that included separation from her siblings.
She realizes now that she must have been too dazed to argue when her father, Elijah, found lodging with a widower, Will Johnston, and his sister, Martha Elizabeth, called Mattie. She strongly objected to Laura and Baby Caleb staying with a neighbor. She had not been so disoriented from shock and grief. Her soul could only utter a sigh too deep for words. Six-year-old Laura and two-year-old Caleb could not comprehend separation from the rest of the family. But Rebecca understood.
From that moment forward, Rebecca grasped with amazing clarity that her childhood was over. Knowing what had to be done, she had reached for her mother’s black letterbox, untied the blue ribbon, and removed pen and writing paper to undertake the first responsibility of her new adulthood with bold sweeps of black ink in the perfect script:
Dear Granny and Granddaddy,
Our beautiful Mama has passed away. Mama became very sick and slipped away near Fort Smith. We are very sad, but please do not worry about us. You have lost your daughter.
We hurt for you, we cry for you, we pray for you, with our deepest love,
Rebecca, Laura, Caleb, and Daddy
Writing that letter was a turning point in her life. Her family continued to call her Becky, but in her heart and mind, she became Mama’s “Rebecca.”
On her seventy-fifth birthday, Rebecca recalls hot, stinging tears, an ache in her heart, and the darkness of night that did not depart with the dawn. It is easy to understand why she felt so happy when Will Johnston’s eyes followed her, hoping to catch a smile. Will could stop her tears, dull the pain, and make the darkness disappear. Of course, she could say yes when he proposed marriage. It did not matter that she was fifteen and one-half years old; he brought the sunshine back into her life.
The marriage had meant that she could give her grief-stricken Daddy, Laura, and Caleb a home once again. She thought the marriage would bring a comfortable future for all of them. Will was forty-nine years old, older than her father, with a heart so good and kind. He brought her flowers from the woods and trinkets from town, washed dishes when she was tired, and held her tight at night, safe from harm.
Shortly after her marriage to Will, Rebecca was very surprised when Daddy came to visit right in the middle of the day. He had pulled a chair up close, took her hand, and told her he was so proud of her. He asked her permission to marry Will’s sister, Mattie.
In July of 1874, The Rev. Samuel Peninger performed the marriage ceremony of her parents. The Scotsmen in the community played bagpipes at the wedding, and the feast that followed; country dancing, Scots-Irish clogging, laughter, and joyous tears ushered in a new era for both families.
Rebecca was happy in their new world at last. Positive changes resulted. She and her stepmother talked endlessly of their pregnancies and birthing, and they helped each other when it was time for birthing to take place. Mattie and Elijah blessed her with three new brothers—James, Frank, and William Oscar—who brought delight to her eyes as they grew from toddlers playing in the dirt to grown men working on the earth.
Rebecca looks at a picture of her four children, whom Will had cradled close to his heart. If only Will could have lived to see them grow, he would have been so proud. If Will had lived, she thinks, why, we would have celebrated our fifty-ninth anniversary in January.
Will died without warning one month after their eleventh wedding anniversary. Bang—the door to happiness had slammed shut again. Rebecca sighs at the memory of being a widow with four very small children; no one was there to help her when the babies cried with fever or for their daddy.
It must have been fate when she met William Anderson Miller, she decides. She was still young when she met Bill. He had lost his wife and five of their twelve children from a mosquito-related fever while living near the Ouachita River. Bill had told her he was captivated by her youth and vitality. They had married quietly in December 1886, combining the two households into one on her farm near Greenwood in Sebastian County. Together, they had two more children: Fannie Reatha and Coy Clifton. The marriage was evidently not built to hold a very large household of children, however. Facing insurmountable difficulties as a blended family, Rebecca and Bill divorced quietly in 1897.
Rebecca remembers the pain and shame of such a bold step. In retrospect, she reminisces, “it had to be done. There was no alternative. I was still a young woman of thirty-eight years, in the adolescence of midlife. I discovered I could meet life’s challenges with faith, laughter, and hard work.”
Laughter and the Lord had been her medicine. She had been blessed with the exuberance of youth; her newfound energy was invested in caring for the farm and the children remaining at home. She and the boys cleared larger plots of cropland, removing smaller trees and bushes for firewood. They were then free to plant more corn, yams, beans, sunflowers, and even vines that produced pumpkins, squash, gourds, and peanuts. The crops were planted for their own consumption. They were combined with roots and leaves from edible wild plants, meat, and fish that the boys brought home from hunting trips. They had a milk cow and some sows and raised prize chickens. The eggs were Rebecca’s cash crop. On Saturday mornings, the wagon was loaded with eggs, hitched to the horse, and driven into town. The eggs were exchanged for cash or sundries at the general store, and her head was held high.
She has enjoyed her life. Moving to Montgomery County in 1915 was a good idea, too. Her small house was painted a cheery white; bright red geraniums added a festive note to the wraparound porch. The interior was nice. The wood floors were covered with rugs she made herself. The furniture was old and fine. The pump over the sink brought in fresh, cold spring water from the mountains. She especially enjoyed hitching up the wagon for marketing trips to nearby Sims, where she could visit with neighbors. It was a peaceful life.
Suddenly, startled by a noise on the porch and a knock at the front door, Rebecca realizes that she is still staring into the mirror. Sam calls her name. While she’d spent the day at Reatha’s, a neighbor had taken care of him. Poor Sam; I have been negligent. She thanks the neighbor for taking good care of her third husband, Samuel House, who has been senile for the past three years.
After feeding him, bathing him, and putting him to bed, she takes her usual seat on the porch. She enjoys the nocturnal symphony of whispering pine trees and critters. And she likes to smoke a cigar from time to time. She cannot help laughing aloud at the image of herself smoking. A star streaks through the night sky. If only Sam could enjoy the night music more, she wishes on the falling star. Our thirty-third wedding anniversary will be in October; he will never know.
She thinks of those happy days when she and Sam fell in love. They were married in 1900. It was a joyous way to begin a new century. On their twenty-fifth anniversary, Sam liked to tell people, “We have been happily married for twenty years. Out of twenty-five, that isn’t too bad.” She told folks, “We have been divorced and remarried a thousand times.” They were together because they genuinely liked each other.
She wonders at the sparkling, star-studded sky, remembering the day’s surprise party. It had indeed been a good day.
Yes, I have good memories, she contemplates. I am blessed with children and grandchildren. I have reached a great age. God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams. There can be no doubt that I am a woman of independent means, a woman of substance who can drive an automobile and vote!
Rebecca is grateful to be married to Sam, despite his illness, and to be this age, especially considering the alternative. I’ve lived twice as long as Mama and twenty years longer than Daddy; Granny has been gone since ’88, and Granddaddy has been gone for thirty-three years. Doscia, Frank, and Jenny are with the Lord, too, and I have survived. I have survived!
God looms large in all the chapters of her life. She sees herself as a woman of sorrows acquainted with grief. I understand suffering, but there is a positive side to suffering. God is present while suffering, allowing us to see God; indeed, He turns all things to good for those who love Him. Why seventy-five years young is simply another new beginning.
REBECCA’S EARLY YEARS
By The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde
Pike County, Alabama, was unusually hot on 24 August 1858. Rebecca Jarrett McDonald was born blissfully unaware of the heat or the tumultuous times that would follow her birth.
Elijah and Martha McDonald rejoiced at the birth of Rebecca, convinced she hung the moon. Rebecca sucked in the August heat and exhaled with a howl. Elijah marveled as his daughter’s newborn flesh turned from blue to rosy pink; he later confided to Rebecca that it was his happiest moment in life. The proud parents congratulated themselves on producing the prettiest baby in Pike County.
Elijah, a Scotsman by descent, was fiercely proud of Rebecca, boasting often to friends and family that she walked and talked earlier than any child he had known. Martha, a descendant of a well-known colonial family, had often reminded Rebecca of the goodly heritage of her name; she was named in honor of beloved grandmothers, but she preferred the nickname “Becky.”
Becky became a big sister to baby William in 1859. Their young lives began with promise until the War Between the States intervened. It must have been frightening for the children to eavesdrop on passionate arguments about the impending war.
In 1861, Elijah penned a promise to join thousands of proud men fighting with a passion for the Southern cause. Four years later, tasting bitter defeat, Elijah was one of the thousands straggling home.
The family struggled to make sense of war, defeat, death, and devastation. During the war years, baby William became ill and died. The young family cried out to God in grief and joy that Elijah was alive. Perhaps in a rush to bring life back to earth, Laura Belle was born nine months later, followed by Caleb Sappington McDonald in 1870.
Family tradition says Elijah wanted to move to a quiet place, away from the memories of war, disease, and death. His wife, Martha, was very ill; some say she was depressed and became ill. They may have been en route to Texas or Indian Territory when Martha died near Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Rebecca was thirteen years old at the time, according to family histories. Assuming the birthdate on her death certificate is correct, the move to Arkansas would have occurred in 1872. Rebecca married William Tillman Johnston on 11 January 1874 at the age of fifteen, four months, and eighteen days in Greenwood, Sebastian County, Arkansas.
Memories of Rebecca
Thanks to Reatha Miller Looney, Rose Miller Vold, Betty Miller Francis, JoAnn Miller Eid, June McDonald, Retha Frisbie, Linda McDonald Miller, and Barbara Joan Tisher LeRoy for correspondence with memories of Rebecca.
Retha Miller Looney, Rebecca’s daughter, wrote to me in 1974:
My mother was thirteen when she and her parents came up the Arkansas River on a raft from Montgomery County, Alabama, to Fort Smith, Arkansas. My grandmother died on the way, and she is buried at Liberty Cemetery in Greenwood, Arkansas. My mother was taken in by the Johnston family when they first came to Greenwood. She married widower William Johnston, and they had four children: Jennie D. Johnston Wright, Doscia B. Johnston McCord, Frank Tillman Johnston, and James “Jimmy” Johnston, who were my half-brothers and sisters. William Johnston died when the children were very small. Two years later, Mother married my father, widower William Anderson Miller. I was their first child, and your grandfather, Coy, was their second child. After my father died, she married a third time to Samuel House. After Sam House died, she came to live with me in Mena, Arkansas, until she died in 1938. She was buried at Liberty Cemetery in Greenwood, Arkansas, next to her first husband under the name House.
Linda McDonald Miller, Rebecca McDonald’s second-great-niece, shared the following insight: “Each story I have been told about Becky relates a very jolly person!” Nieces June McDonald and Retha Frisbie offer another glimpse into the life of Aunt Becky. Retha would have been about fourteen to sixteen years of age, and the time 1927–1929, when the following took place:
Retha Frisbie recalls going to visit Aunt Becky when she was a teenager. Her dad took her to Mena for a revival meeting, and she asked if June McDonald could come along (Oscar and Mary’s daughter). “My grandfather took both girls to Mena to stay with Aunt Becky during the meeting,” Retha recalls. “She was a tiny woman but jolly and teasing all the time. She let June, and I do just about anything we wanted to do. Aunt Becky had a really good-looking male schoolteacher boarding with her at the time, so June decided she’d make him a really special dinner. She went out to the chicken coop, killed a chicken, and the two spent all day preparing a fancy dinner unbeknownst to the school teacher, who called shortly before the dinner hour to let Aunt Becky know that he wouldn’t be coming home for dinner that night. Aunt Becky had the most fun teasing June about that for a long time.”
A granddaughter, Betty Miller Francis, recalls fond memories of visiting her “Grandma House” in Arkansas:
I remember going to visit Grandma House (Rebecca) on vacation. It was before my mother (Ruby King) died when I was eight years old. We took a train to Board Camp. Uncle Jim (Judge Jim Looney) picked us up at the train depot around 5:00 P.M.in a touring car. The car was open on both sides with pull-downs to protect us from the rain. We drove way out into the country, into the woods, to their house. Her husband, Sam House, must have had dementia, although I did not realize it until I was an adult. She had to care for him like he was a child.
Grandma House had a good sense of humor. She told crazy ghost stories. One of the stories I remember clearly. Back in the old days of horse and buggy, people rode along when they heard the panthers howling; the panthers were chasing them! They started going faster and faster and faster and faster—the panther was gaining ground! FASTER AND FASTER… FASTER AND FASTER!… THE PANTHER WAS CATCHING UP… AND THEY THREW THE BABY OUT TO THE PANTHER!
It scared the hell out of me!
I remember the very next day, we went out in the field to hoe cotton, heard a howl, dropped our hoes, and ran to the house as fast as we could. Now that I think about it, it was probably a wildcat and not a panther. Do you think so?
I also remember being surprised that the adults ate their meals first. After the adults finished, the children sat down to eat. That was just backward from our house. After dinner, Grandma House would sit on the porch and smoke a cigar. I remember that as well.
When I go up in the mountains and smell pine in the fresh air, I am reminded of my visits to Grandma House. Once, she showed us how to chew the ends of pine twigs to create a “toothbrush.” She was a wonderful, loving grandma.
The role of education loomed large in adult discussions in Arkansas. Everybody talked about going to university. I supposed that to mean the university in Little Rock. Education was an important dream for the future of the Miller children.
Grandma House was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Everybody was Methodist Episcopal. So was my grandpa, William Miller, Scots-Irish by descent. Many of the Miller brothers were ministers and farmers, but of course, they were dead before we came along.
I remember that we went to someone’s house, possibly the home of Ruby Little (Retha Looney’s stepdaughter). They had a stillborn baby. They could not afford to embalm the baby, so it laid on a table by the window for a Wake. That baby on the table affected me greatly; I can still see that baby in my mind. Aunt Retha Looney married Uncle Jim Looney. He had been married and had two daughters, Mildred Looney Dowden and Ruby Little. Gertrude was Aunt Retha’s daughter in her first marriage. Jim and Retha Miller Looney were parents of two daughters: Eloise Embry and Helen Tisher. I also remember going to see Aunt Doscia in Dallas. Oh! How I loved her. She was so good to my sisters, Rose (Miller Vold) and JoAnn (Miller Eid). She would make pallets for us to sleep on.
Rebecca Jarrett McDonald (Johnston Miller House) was survived by three of her six children. Jimmy Johnston, Coy Miller, and Retha Miller Looney lived decades beyond their mother. She was preceded in death by Doscia Johnston (Mrs. Fred McCord), Frank Tillman Johnston, and Jennie D. Johnston Blair Wright.
Rose (Mrs., E.G., Vold), Betty (Mrs. George Francis), and JoAnn (Mrs. Otto Eid) were the daughters of Coy Clifton Miller and his wife, Ruby Anna King Miller. Ruby died in 1932. After her death, the three girls moved from Ennis, Texas, to live with “Aunt Retha” and “Uncle Jim” Looney in Mena, Arkansas, for a year. The girls moved from Arkansas to Iowa and lived with their maternal grandparents. They did not get to see Grandma House again. She died in 1938.
“Grandma House” died long before my father, Ervin “Paul” Vold, captured the heart of her granddaughter, Rose Miller. I got to know her through delightful stories of her adventurous raft ride on the Arkansas River and her smoking a cigar or pipe and by looking at photos of the tiny woman with a giant-sized sense of humor who lived a very long life.
Family legends ascribe Rebecca’s longevity to spirit, spunk, and Southern courage. She aged with grace. I loved hearing the humorous, touching tales told to me by aunts, cousins, and a very old man in Rocky, Sims, Arkansas, in April of 2001. The man, purportedly a hundred years old, said: “Miss Becky? Why I do remember her. Yes, I certainly do. She was such a tiny lady driving such a big horse and buggy. She hitched up that horse and buggy and brought her eggs to Sims every Saturday. You could set the clock by Miss Becky’s buggy. She was just about the sweetest woman you could ever meet. She was a real fine lady.”
My favorite Grandma House legend came from my mother, Rose Vold:
Grandma House was a strong Southern woman. She lived through two major wars, the Depression, and tremendous change. She witnessed the discovery of electricity, the invention of gasoline-powered engines, automobiles, airplanes, and the empowerment and employment of women in politics and the workforce. Her strength of character and attitude helped her live to eighty years old. I will outlive her; I will live to two hundred!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.