My grandmother, Mattie McKinley Emerson Johnson Parker, was the strongest woman I ever knew, stronger even than a Steel Magnolia. She was my Mother’s Mother, and I called her Granny Parker.
She was born in 1896 to a poor but hard-working family in the North Georgia mountains. Life was hard, and she grew up picking cotton and working on the farm. She had four siblings who died at birth and a sister who died at age thirteen. When she was 19, she married my grandfather, Clayton, and they moved to Maxeys, GA. They began farming as sharecroppers. Their first child, Cornelia, died soon after birth. My Mom was their second.
When my Mom was around two, my grandfather was stricken with polio. He lost the use of the lower part of his body. I remember relatives telling stories about him crawling to the woodpile on his elbows to split firewood while my grandmother worked the fields. In addition, since they were in the midst of the Great Depression, my grandmother also had a full-time job arranged through the WPA. With that and the sale of their cotton, they squeaked by. They were part of a close-knit community of folks fighting the same battles to get by.
My grandfather died in 1936. His funeral was in an area Baptist church, where black members sat in the balcony and whites sat below in the main sanctuary section. My grandmother informed the preacher that, for my grandfather’s service, all who attended would be seated together, regardless of color. I was told there was some initial resistance, but in the end, everyone sat together, and from then on, that was how members sat for services.
After funerals and burials, in those days, mourners returned to the family home afterward. When the family came to my grandmother’s, the blacks who had attended my grandfather’s funeral came inside, paid their respects, then went out and worked in her fields for her for the rest of the day.
She raised my Mom pretty much by herself, and did an excellent job, as my Mother was valedictorian of her class and became a successful executive, a glass ceiling breaker. My granny lived with us from the time I was born. To say she was a bit infatuated with her first grandchild would be a significant understatement. She taught me how to read when I was three or so by patiently reading the same books to me, over and over, until I essentially memorized them. My Mother worked in Atlanta, so my days were spent with Granny Parker Monday through Friday.
She dipped Red Square snuff, and you’d have to be careful not to pick up the wrong glass because a spit cup is a most disgusting thing. Manners and cleanliness were not at all optional with her. We would try her, but her resolve was solid. I can only imagine how much character my brother and I helped her develop, trying to keep us under control. She loved to quilt, and I have a few that she sewed.
Mattie Parker was as solid in her faith as anyone who ever drew breath. She believed in the Bible, read it daily, and lived it. She had a spiritual element that was beyond her faith. She often envisioned things before they happened. She knew when her siblings passed, even though they lived a distance away and had no reason to expect their deaths. She also conjured warts. Many Saturdays, folks would drop by, they would adjourn to her bedroom, and a few minutes later, they would leave without the warts they had when they arrived. She never shared with me how it worked, but it did.
When I was around ten, she climbed on a chair to retrieve something from a high cabinet and fell, breaking her hip. This trauma seemed to trigger Alzheimer-type symptoms, and even though she recovered from the broken hip, she began declining and was never the same again. After a few years, she declined to the point that a nursing home was the only viable option.
When I was 24, I took a job in New Albany, Indiana. I was staying in a hotel in Louisville, a Residence Inn until I found a house. Since it was temporary, I hadn’t felt the need to let my family know how to reach me.
I had asked two Atlanta friends, Tracy Sterling and Carol Lynch, to come up and look for a place for me since I was always working. They were set to arrive at around 11:30 on a Monday night, and I was picking them up at the Delta terminal.
