Shirley Willene "Sissy"--My Mommy

     My mommy was born on December 7, 1935 in McAlpin, Florida.  My granny and granddaddy didn't even have a name picked out for her. They had lost several babies to miscarriages and had a still-birth, so they didn't expect this baby to live. In the scramble for a name, they went with the most popular girl's name in the 1930s--Shirley, after Shirley Temple. For her middle name, and the name she went by, they took Granddaddy's name "Willie" and just converted it to a feminine name by adding the "ene"--thus, "Willene." Although my daddy and the neighbors called her "Willene," her family all called her "Sissy."
     Mommy spent her childhood between McAlpin and Hollywood. She used to tell me about how she and her sisters would play at the house up in McAlpin. After they swept the yard, they'd take sticks and draw playhouses in the dirt. Then they'd go and find dog weed and make themselves "babies" so they could play house. She attended elementary school in McAlpin during WWII. If I complained about the lunch she sent to school with me, she would tell me I was lucky. Granny would make big cats' head biscuits, poke a hole in one, fill it with bacon grease or cane syrup, and that was her lunch. I knew she was born and lived in a wooden house, but I imagined a white-washed house with a fence and a green yard. The reality was that she lived in an old cypress Cracker house with just a couple of rooms. Once, she pointed out the type of house she had grown up in, and I said, "Mommy, that's a shack!" "No, Donna Jo, that was home." She often spent summers up in McAlpin, and she told me about working for Uncle Vann in his tobacco field. He would pay her a penny for every four tobacco worms she'd pick off the leaves. She often told me that seeing those worms was one of the reasons she never used tobacco. I never thought about Mommy being a Depression baby, or the hard financial times her family had. She always spoke of her childhood as being happy.

The type of house Mommy was born in

 

Granny and the girls, a picture taken for my granddaddy during WWII

 

 

 

 

                           

     When she was a teenager, the family settled in Hollywood, Florida. Mommy was a typical teen. I was a lucky girl. Both of my parents grew up in South Florida, and they loved going to to beach! I used to look at the photo album she had when she was a teenager, and there were plenty of pictures of her posing in her swimsuit. She also liked sports and used to tell me about playing softball for the McArthur Dairy team. The girls were upset because the words "McArthur Dairy"on their uniforms went right across their bosoms.
     Mommy also told me about going to church as a child. She always liked singing hymns at our home, and she was involved in church teaching Sunday School and singing. Mommy had the gift of discernment, I believe. I know that the Spirit was working in my heart one Sunday morning, and she could see that I was struggling about the decision to accept Christ as my Savior. She took time that week and told me about when she was saved. She thought she had been saved as a little girl, and one Sunday, during the Lord's Supper, she took the cup and looked down at the grape juice. She told me that, to her, it looked just like blood. It was then that she realized that she was still lost; she wasn't covered by the Blood; and it was that day that she accepted Jesus as her Savior. I try not to live my life with regrets, but I do regret not accepting Jesus that Sunday morning because my salvation would have given her such joy.  Mommy made sure that we attended church, Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School. Her faith was real in her life, and others could see her faith in action. One of our neighbors said of her that Willene had broad shoulders that were always there for her to lean and to cry on. I saw Mommy counsel one of the young neighbors many times, and it seemed, to me, that she was ready to help anyone in need. When the whole Jones family would get together, I, being the eldest grandchild, got to sleep on the couch. I would listen the the soft, lilting voices of Mommy, Granny, and my aunts as they talked and cried together. Mommy seemed to be the voice of reason and faith.
     Mommy could be funny too. When Mountain Dew was first sold, my brother and I wanted to try it more than anything! But, Mommy wouldn't let us. Finally, the Coke gods intervened. She decided to treat us to a cold drink. She put in the dime, pushed the button for Co-Cola, and a Mountain Dew bottle popped out instead. Finally! We were getting a taste of Mountain Dew. No. Wrong. She went up to the man who worked at the gas station and pitched a true hissy fit. "Sir, I wanted a Co-Cola and this came out instead." "Ah, but....." "No. My children are not drinking Mountain Dew. I KNOW what Mountain Dew is and" "Wait, Ma'am. It's a soft drink." "No, don't tell me that. I know it is alcohol and I want my Co-Cola." By this time, Billy and I were sunk as far down in our seats as we could get. And there was no explaining to her that Mountain Dew was just Coke--not liquor. I'm so glad that I have never embarrassed my children like that.
     That wasn't the only embarrassing thing. Poor Mommy. She had problem with her fine, thin, straight hair. For Sunday church, she would roll up her hair early  on Saturday morning. Of course, one did not go out in curlers. Sometimes, she'd put a scarf on. Other times, she found, what she thought, was a better cover-up. It was a head-band with fake hair attached that she could comb over the curlers. I called it her "hair-hat." Unfortunately, the hair part looked like bozo-red Zak hair. And it never really covered all those curlers. Apparently, she was a woman of confidence, because she never seemed to notice the looks and titters. I'd just duck my head and pretend she didn't belong to me. That was hard to do because she never let us get out of her sight, or she'd yell out "DONNA JO! BILLY! Y'all get back here!"
     One of the habits that Mommy passed down to me is the love of reading. Mommy read all the time. Newspaper. Bible. Novels. Magazines. Non-fiction books. She encouraged my loved of reading from when I was a baby. She read the same books to me over and over, and, eventually, I began picking words out of the books and newspapers. And I was reading by age two or three. She knew that receiving a book for my birthday or Christmas was the gift I most wanted! She even ran interference for me with the librarian on the Book-Mobile. The librarian wouldn't let me check out anything but children's books, but Mommy went down there and talked her into letting me check out "adult" books (classics or historical novels--not trash!). She would have been so proud that I became an English teacher and also passed along her love of reading to my own children.

 Mommy, Donna Jo, Elisabeth (her granddaughter)