Post #60 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
by Bettyann Schmidt
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” ~~ Old Buddha Saying
I had great teachers already in place in my family when I was born. I’ve always credited my paternal grandmother as my best teacher, and also my Dad and Aunt Dot. I was too young at first to realize what I was being taught. It was more by osmosis than lesson plans. They were just teachers by nature, even though they didn’t know it.
Grandma’s two daughters, Aunt Dot and Aunt Clara had different views on life. They each had a rule they lived by and both of them taught me their rule.
Aunt Clara said, “Always lead with your heart, not with your head.”
Aunt Dot said the opposite: “Lead with your head, not with your heart.”
I was confused, and I really didn’t understand what their rules meant. I was not yet old enough to lead with anything. Life led me where it wanted. I had no choice in the matter.
Still, though, they kept repeating the rules to me year after year.
It wasn’t until I married, at age 20, that I realized I’d indeed chosen the version of “the rule” that was easiest. I’d let my heart lead, and I was in a mess of trouble.
Aunt Dot knew what she was talking about.
I also learned about the same time that “the rule,” Aunt Dot’s version, had been taught by her mother. My Grandma had learned the hard way how life can treat you if you don’t use your head, especially when you’re a young girl with stars in your eyes. She’d suffered a horrendous marriage and raised five children on her own.
Aunt Dot never reminded me I’d chosen the wrong rule to follow. She didn’t have to. It was plain for all to see. I ended up paying a dear price for my bad judgment. I don’t think I was a ready student.
So does that mean I failed that first teacher’s lesson? Not all together, because it became more meaningful to me after that. I could use it from that point on and pass it on to my own children and grandchildren. Use to teach others.
Other people may be there to help us, teach us, guide us along our path, but the lesson to be learned is always ours. ~~ Author Unknown
An Influential Woman in a Rundown Neighborhood
You don’t have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they’ve taught me. ~~ Scott Adams
When we moved to Tennessee in August 1968, the first person I met made a lasting difference in my life and met a dire need. I can only still think that I must have done something right in my life to deserve such blessing.
On the trip here, we were forced into a layover, in a small town close to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, when our vehicle broke down. We left Cincinnati pulling a trailer of a few necessary pieces of furniture. Evidently, the load on the rear end of the car was too much.
It was unbearably hot the day we spent inside the sweltering office of the garage, me with two toddlers, aged three and four, and a brand new three-month old. The worst part was that it took a huge chunk out of the money we started out with. By the time we made it to Nashville, what was left over for rent was pitiful.
The first place we could afford was an old duplex in “Rayon City,” in Old Hickory. The duplexes and inexpensive homes were built for workers at the DuPont plant, i.e., “Rayon City.” Old Hickory sat on the shores of Old Hickory Lake, so named for President Andrew Jackson, whose original home, “The Hermitage,” was built nearby.
The rental was three large rooms built in the early style of a living room at the front, a dining room in the middle, the bathroom, and then the kitchen in the rear. Completely unfurnished. The front yard was mostly dirt with sparse tufts of grass and one large tree.
Arial view of Rayon City small wooden houses and duplexes built for Dupont Plant workers. This is the neighborhood we first lived in when we came to Tennessee.
Old Hickory Inn, the small restaurant just down the block from our duplex.
The bridge over the Cumberland River leading to Old Hickory, Tennessee.
I remember walking through my new home, trying not to cry. It was impossible not to miss the pretty apartment we’d left in our old state.
Before I could get too deeply depressed, our new neighbor who lived in the other side of the duplex showed up at our door. She introduced herself as “Ida.” And she was very southern.
What struck me first upon meeting Ida was her dialect. The first word she used that convinced me of her deep southern roots was “younguns.”
As in, “I see you got younguns. I got four myself.”
Finally I understood she meant children. And, sure enough, behind her stood four such younguns, dwindling in height like a stepladder, smallest in the front. She introduced them one by one.
“This here is Larry; he’s my oldest,” and the boy who looked about the age of ten nodded his head in greeting. Then one-by-one she named the other three, and each child smiled or nodded in turn.
Then Ida turned misty eyes and a meek smile to the baby in my arms. She asked if she could hold her, and I hesitated only seconds before handing Danielle over to her. This was a stranger for a fact, but there was something about this woman’s face, the creases of hardship, sad eyes that lingered on my baby’s face, the behaved children who stood silently behind her. I trusted her instinctively.
She cuddled my baby tenderly and allowed her children to gather round her as she sat on one end of the sofa, where each child gently touched Danielle’s leg or arm, her hand and fingers. I was mesmerized by this scene. My whole life from that point on I’ve wished I had a picture of it. Something was happening here. Something important. Spiritual. What was it?
Had I never met a family like this before? Obviously not. I reminded myself, this was the South. Was everyone like this, or was there a story wrapped in this mother and her children?
Finally Ida looked up at me and said, “Do you have a job? Do you need a babysitter for your younguns?”
I told her I had to find a job because we needed the money. I explained that my husband would be working on “Music Row” as an arranger but it might take a while, so I’d be looking for a job quickly.
In addition to babysitting, she would clean our house and do the laundry and we didn’t need to pay her until we had the money. I was stunned. How did this happen, that we’d found exactly what we needed right off the bat?
I didn’t feel as depressed all of a sudden. Things would work out. We’d only stay there until we could afford a better place. I knew I’d get a good job regardless of what came of the music business.
Talking with Ida over the next few days, I discovered how she’d lost a baby at term, three months earlier. Around the same time my baby was born alive, in May 1968. Coincidence? Maybe.
I also learned Ida was a woman of great faith. Through hard trials, she firmly held to the belief that good would come. Her interest and love for Danielle became apparent then. She admitted she felt like she’d been given a new baby to care for, and her heart began to heal of its loss.
Ida made good on her offer. I’d come home every day from work as a corporate secretary to a clean house, folded and stacked laundry, and fed and well cared for children. I paid her a good salary but not near what she was worth. I would have had to be CEO of the company to pay her that much.
Winter of 1970, I fell prey to the flu and was too sick to get out of bed. I had sick pay, so the money didn’t evaporate. Ida would pick up my check and I’d endorse it over to her. She kept my children at her place. Their father also had the flu, so Ida took care of both of us.
One snowy night, over icy roads, Ida got me to the nearest hospital when “something” told her I needed immediate help. The ER doctor diagnosed pneumonia of both lungs and severe dehydration and said I might not have survived the night if I’d stayed at home. I was in the hospital ten days, but I never had to worry about my children.
We did move eventually, to one place and another over the course of the marriage, and on occasion Ida would keep the kids when I went out of town with my husband’s band. But the time finally came when I got a divorce, bought a house in another county, and the children were older and didn’t need a sitter. Mine and Ida’s ways parted, and today I so regret that. She died of a heart attack during that time.
What this woman taught me remains with me forever.
Keep faith inside your heart that something good will come when you need it.
Reach out to other people in their need, and your own need might be met.
You never know when you meet someone new how rich your life will become, or what bond might be created.
Identify Your Lessons and Teachers
Who are the teachers who’ve changed your life? When were you ready to be taught? What did you have to go through in your life to get to the place where you were receptive to a new teacher?
How did the teacher appear?
What did you learn?
Was your teacher a person? Teachers take different forms in life.
These are questions we all need to ask ourselves when we write about our lives, because our lives are what they are mostly because of the teachers who’ve shown up when we were ready.
Part 2 on this topic, in two weeks, is the story of another woman who almost miraculously appeared to teach me something about myself that I would need for the next stage of my life. Was I ready?
Please share your insights on this subject, about your own teachers, in the comments below. We love to read what your thoughts are.
Bettyann Schmidt
Be sure to join me on my blog:
Journey2f.blogspot.com
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