Beyond Existing - Beyond the Small Talk
Has life's struggles left you feeling like you were going through your days "just existing?" In this podcast you will hear stories/testimonies from myself and others who have dealt with the struggles life has to offer and getting to that place in which life is being lived "beyond existing." I appreciate all of those who have been willing to "put themselves out there" to open up and share personal information for the betterment of others.
Beyond Existing - Beyond the Small Talk
"We were dirt poor but so was everyone else" Christine opens up about life in rural NC in the mid-1940's and 50's, tragic loss of siblings, and the struggles of a mother with mental illness
What happens when you're one of twelve siblings growing up in a rural community without modern conveniences? Christine, our guest, paints a vivid tapestry of her childhood, filled with challenges, heartache, and the warmth of a close-knit community, the Statesville Brickyard community. As she recounts her experiences, from the tragic losses of several siblings to the small joys of getting electricity for the first time, Christine's story becomes a powerful testament to the resilience and faith that have guided her through life's trials.
Christine's journey doesn't shy away from the difficulties of large family dynamics, particularly when compounded by the challenges faced by her deaf siblings. We touch on the haunting premonitions of her mother and the heartbreaking abuse Christine endured, yet marvel at her ability to turn her experiences into empathy and understanding in her teaching career. Her narrative is a reminder of how her faith offers refuge and healing.
From a challenging upbringing to a life filled with love, Christine's story is more than just survival; it's about transformation and overcoming depression through faith. We explore the host's journey from rock bottom to recovery, and how these shared stories are the bedrock of this podcast. This episode promises not just to inspire but to provide a beacon of hope for anyone wrestling with similar struggles, underscoring the transformative power of resilience and faith.
Hi and welcome to another episode of Beyond Existing. I want to welcome a guest that I've known for quite some time. She is a strong woman with an even stronger faith. I've asked her to share her story with you today. Welcome, christine. Thank you To the podcast. Christine and I have taught together for many, many years, and teaching is just not the same without her. I miss her so much and just through the years, she has told so many stories and I just wanted the public just to hear them, because they're such tremendous stories of overcoming, triumphing, keeping your faith. Now, christine, you grew up. Tell us how you grew up. I grew up pretty poor.
Speaker 3:Country yeah, pretty poor up. Tell us how you grew up. I grew up pretty poor country. Yeah, pretty poor.
Speaker 2:Uh, number eight out of the family of 12 and um never knew I was poor. Really, right, you know?
Speaker 3:yep, so you were born december 23rd 1945 my sister told me it was so cold outside that the diapers froze on the line and I still think the doctor and my daddy hit the moonshine because I didn't have a birth certificate. But I was born at home. I was born at the brickyard community and then, when I was about seven, we moved up on Hickory Highway close to the old weighing scales and we were raised way down in the woods about a mile or more, on the Catawba River really, which was a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So can you tell the audience what was it like living in the Statesville Brickyard community?
Speaker 3:audience. What was it like living in the state's full brickyard community? Well, at that time that was, uh, that was a good place because you had the company store, you had the local church and it was a community. You didn't go outside of your community unless you happened to go to town on a saturday or whatnot. You had everything you needed right there and we had the community church. The black culture would sit at the back and, of course, the whites would sit at the front, but the community was so that the blacks were like a part of my family. I was in their house as much as I was in mine. A lot, you know. And, um, the store had everything you needed. Daddy worked at the brickyard.
Speaker 2:It was nice now, did your family have a car?
Speaker 3:no, we never had a car, we never had electricity, we did not have have hot running water. We always had an outside toilet, even when we moved up on the Hickory Highway. Like I say, we were dirt poor, I guess you could say, but we lived on a semi-farm. Daddy always killed a hog, daddy always fished, we always had hams and bacon and stuff in the smokehouse.
Speaker 2:Mama milked the cow, so we were still well taken care of, you know, uh-huh yep, I remember when one time we were teaching together and it was the funniest story. Do you remember the story of you were telling me how you were telling the class about not having electricity? And then you remember the day that they brought electricity to your house? I do. And one of the kids asked Miss Miller, how did you know what to do? Do you remember that?
Speaker 3:They asked me so many questions Like did you have spoons and forks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you said how did I know what to do? Well, and you walked over the light switch and you just turned it on.
Speaker 3:Oh dear, that was a happy time. One of my older sisters had gotten married and it didn't work out and they had a house full of furniture. So Daddy took over the payments on that house full of furniture and one thing was a Westinghouse TV and I am telling you we were in heaven. I can still see that TV sitting there. We didn't have an antenna but we ran the cord up and we hung a coat hanger wrapped in tin foil on the wall. Now that right there was electricity to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, so your daddy was a sharecropper. But he worked at the brickyard too, so he did both Okay, all right, and you were poor, but you never felt poor because everybody else was in the same. They were poor too. Yeah, condition, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:so y'all were like true community shared with each other and yeah, I mean we lived together blacks, whites, whatever you know and we did share. Yeah, I've got some wonderful memories of some of those families. I was always amazed that this one family I went to they put their curling iron on the fire and they would curl their hair was that hot curling.
Speaker 2:I was just amazed at that oh, wow because, yeah, wow, right, so you said there were 12 children and you were the eighth. Okay, now I know there was tragedy. Do you mind sharing a little bit about what happened to the baby?
Speaker 3:The first was that mama lost the baby. He was three months old and I never did find out why he died. And then my sister, peggy. She was in the fourth grade and we were in the bed on one Sunday morning and she said now, whoever's the quietest? I think we were going to go to church. We had friends of the church that would come and get us, and Mom and Daddy didn't go, but they would take us to church.
Speaker 3:And so, uh, peggy was dressed, she had a little wool skirt on and we didn't have a stove, we had an open fireplace. So she said whoever's the quietest, I'm gonna come and get you up first. And of course we had a little brother, johnny, and he we petted him because we were the girls, you know. So she got Johnny up and, although I didn't see it, it was her stooping by the fire, tying his shoelaces, and the back of her skirt caught on fire. And so when she realized it, I guess she went running out the door, which nowadays we train our kids to stop, drop and roll.
Speaker 3:Well, mama and Daddy were in the bed. So mama got up and went running after peggy and beat the fire off of her and everything. Mama burned her hands, real bad, and we didn't have a car so we had to depend on go to the end of our road, which I thought was a mile, and ask somebody to come and take us to a hospital or something. So they did. And then the next thing I know there's this black car coming down the road and Peggy had died. And I just always remember that black car coming down the road. So she passed. I was in the first grade and she was in the fourth grade and then, when I was in the eighth grade, I had a little brother who drowned. He was five years old. He would have gone to the deaf school that year because they have to go several years at a time to learn the sign language and all that.
Speaker 2:Now you had several.
Speaker 3:You had two or three, four siblings that were dead anyway. Um, he and my other little brother, johnny, they had been playing in the woods and they, jerry wayne, had the little red wagon and he had his cowboy gun, he had, daddy's, those oshkosh bandanas and you know, and a tree had fallen and that was their foxhole and but jerry fell in that foxhole and it had water in it and, uh, we didn't have the car. It maybe if we'd had a car, you know, we could have got him to the hospital, or if daddy had known the resuscitation, you know, but we can't live on. What ifs that happened, you know, but that was just really rough, oh gosh.
Speaker 2:Now you share a story about the dirt road that y'all lived on and how it always felt kind of eerie to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we would come down the road, and then there was one spot in the road that went around a curve and it was woods on both sides and it was always frigid in that curve, and so we would run as fast as we could to get through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where Jerry Wayne.
Speaker 3:No, you'd come on down the road, and one night mama was sending us up to james hollis, who was the man who owned the farm where we lived. I don't know why she was sending us, but I know we didn't want to go because, you know, mama was another story. Yeah and uh, this, this ball of fire. It rolls out of the woods, and so Linda and I, we were together, and my sister tells the same story. So the people, they doubt it, but it wasn't. And so if we tried to go around this side, that ball would roll, and if we tried to go around this way, that ball would roll. And it's where Jerry drowned. However, I don't remember if the ball of fire was before he drowned or after he drowned. However, I don't remember if the ball of fire was before he drowned or after he drowned.
Speaker 2:That's unbelievable. Now, gary Walter was another, the baby. He was the one who passed. He was three months old. Yes, okay.
Speaker 3:Goodness, now, before Peggy passed, mom comes flying out of the house one day and we had the back porch and on one side of the back porch was a well and we were probably I was drawing water or something and Mama throws her hands up over her face and she says you know what's wrong? And she said that she had seen the living room with flowers all along the wall and a coffin so it's like she had a premonition.
Speaker 3:Yes, but mama did that a lot, she saw things and that was peggy, that was peggy's fear.
Speaker 2:So your mama would have premonitions a lot, a lot.
Speaker 3:Did they often come true I don't know, because she would tell you about growing up when she would see jack-o'-lanterns and these things would try to lead her to a ditch where it wasn't safe, or or this white thing was flying through the air. She just told all these things you know, and she told them for true. So I don't know. I think that I think that people older than me really did see omens and premonitions more than we do. We just don't take time to Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't take time in the whole spiritual realm to even think about Right yeah, and you know me.
Speaker 3:I don't want to mess with anything like that, because I don't know how to say this, but like I've always felt, like it's a sin that I don't need to be doing, yeah to delve into the mystic and right, or to even acknowledge those. Yeah and in the ouija boards and all that stuff, because I'll never forget reading amityville horror. I got that things out of my house and I have never read a book like that again right, so can you tell people what it's like?
Speaker 2:you said there were 12 children, and I would hear you and Tana, who was another she was a co-worker she was the 10th of 10, so that's why her dad chose Tana for her name, but I remember y'all explaining to me what it's like growing up in a big family like you're not just like one big family, you're kind of it's kind of like groups of siblings right, okay, I can tell mine was three families.
Speaker 3:So my oldest, dorothy, baxter bug. They grew up and left home as fast as they could. Bug we call her bug, but she's the only one who graduated, she's the one that got married and did work out. So they grew up and left. Okay, then you had the deaf children. You had James Robert and Desi Peggy had burned Desi and James Robert and then Jerry Wayne.
Speaker 3:So I had those two who were at the deaf school all the time. And then you had me, johnny and Linda the three of us at home at that time. So that was us. Then Mama had Jerry Wayne and then she had Debbie, who was a change. Well, you know, you call them a change of life baby. When you're going through menopause, it's easy to get pregnant. Yeah, so she had debbie.
Speaker 3:So those two were deaf too. They turned out deaf for some reason. So, uh, now me I did. After, maybe after the eighth grade, I didn't stay home much anymore because mama didn't like me. I hate to tell you, yeah, she just did not like me. So our family, now my deaf brothers and sisters, would come home in the summertime, and they were different because at the deaf school I think they had to compete for their space and their items because I'm sure that other children would try to take their things and stuff like that. So when they would come home in the summertime they were very aggressive. You know, I'll never forget my sister. She just scratched my leg and the blood came out because I used her bobby pins. But it's just so different.
Speaker 2:But you know, all in all, Elisaisa, I can't bet you never grabbed a bobby pin again.
Speaker 3:I didn't do hers again, but they were more aggressive and I guess they had to be. You had to stop and think about it while they're like that, very frustrating, right, yeah, but I will tell you this that, because of mama being like she was which was, I'm sure, bipolar, some missing hormones or something, it was really bad my family did not hate each other. Yeah, you know, I love Johnny and Linda and Debbie Mine. I loved them. And my older sister was like my mama. I loved her. So we didn't hate each other like some families do. Yeah, yeah, because we knew we'd been through so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, do you mind sharing a little bit about your mama? What Well, mama?
Speaker 3:Yeah, mama Elisa, I don't know. I started staying with my relatives like high school age and before that I saved my sister and her husband. Her husband was a police officer, so they really took care of me. But like one weekend I came home from Concord where I stayed with Betty and Richard, my first cousins, and babysat their little girl, donna Duck, and went to school, and that was in Concord at WRO Dell.
Speaker 3:Well, I came home and the whole kitchen floor was wet and I go oh my gosh, what happened in here, mama, and she goes. I almost killed that little bitch, but she had choked Debbie and Debbie wasn wasn't breathing. So mama took a bucket of water and threw it on her and then, uh, to get jerry wayne out when they started walking. Oh my god, elisa, she would beat them to make them walk and do stuff like that. It was so bad so it was bad. So I know at one point in time they took Mama to Broughton for some reason and they wanted to commit Mama, but Daddy wouldn't do it. And so when you grow up, you love the one that takes care of you and loves you. You know, and you never realize. Well, you know they played a part in this too, something. I mean, keep having these children, and she abused them. But this is your responsibility too, and I never realized that.
Speaker 3:I think I told you one night I had lost the cuff link. We had gone to see the goat man. My married sister took us. Anyway, when Mama found out I lost that cuff link, she was beating me with a piece of stove wood in the poker. Well, daddy was sitting at the kitchen table because he didn't get off until 10 o'clock at night and he was eating supper. And so, as I'm lying there on the floor, my head rolled that way. And I see, at night and he was eating supper. And so, as I'm lying there on the floor, my head rolled that way and I see daddy, and he's eating. And right then, the moment of reality I'm going you're not doing anything. How could you do this?
Speaker 2:he's not trying to stop it or anything, watching you get beat with a fire poker.
Speaker 3:I guess he was just so immune to it. I don't know, I don't know. You know?
Speaker 2:I mean, they're your parents right, yeah, because before that you just spoke so well of him and I love daddy, but I realize yeah when you're growing. When you were younger and he was a good daddy, yeah, but so could you see her abuse, like the more kids she had, did it get worse.
Speaker 3:Well, she would tie a brick around little Jerry's neck and say she was going to take him to the river and drown him. And I'm going to tell you something when we even lived at the brickyard, she would put us on top of the trunk with a shotgun pointed at us. I don't know why she never learned to shoot it, but I can still see her up on the hickory highway and, um, she'd be saying she was going to go drown a little jerry and she had us all lined up and I'm sitting there praying, dear god, please let her die. Please let her die. That's not good. I mean, a child should never think that.
Speaker 3:And I didn't hate her. At least I still don't hate her till this day. Yeah, I just kind of feel sorry for her, because now my children, they get mad every time you talk about it, because they don't like to know that their mother was mistreated. They didn't like her anyway. But, um, I don't know mama's just. And you know I'll stop and say, oh my gosh, if I'd have been pregnant and nothing, just pregnant all the time. Yeah, working at the house, would I've been like that? I don't know, you gotta put yourself in other people's shoes because I don't know?
Speaker 2:because you love babies and you love kids. I don't think you would have been that way.
Speaker 3:Oh, I would have never done that with my kids. As a matter of fact, that was a big thing, because mama would call and she'd talk about I need to whip Stacy or this or that, and I just told her. I said, if you think? I'm ever going to treat my kids like you treated me never never.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now you also said there was another side to your mom, where she would just go and she would preach the Bible.
Speaker 3:She did Mama, even though in her later years she drank like a fish, but she would put you down if you would drink and she preached the Bible but she didn't go to church, and it would be oh girl, you're going to give an account for your sins. Right now there's a mark going on me because of you, and when you get 12 years old, all those marks are going to be on you a sin. You will go to hell and beg for a drop of water to be put on your tongue. And that well, elisa, I was a kid and I wasn't 12 years old yet. And that's when I found the Lord, because I used to go into the woods and I would sit there on a stump or a log or whatever and cry and cry and cry. Please, god, let me die before I'm 12 years old, because I don't want all those marks going on me. And that's when I got peace and I just felt like he's always been there for me and that's what I needed.
Speaker 2:Going outside and finding God. That's kind of how it works for me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when I feel like I still feel like that. You told me that that moment that she beat you with a fire poker and you went out to the woods that you grew up in, that moment I did. So what about, like today, we would have the family children's service that would come out and investigate. Did any of that ever happen?
Speaker 3:They did and I was probably too young to know a lot. But we lived up on the Hickory Highway and they would come. But Mama was like a Jekyll and Hyde.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:You know they would. So she knew how to play the game. Yeah, she knew, because, see, you can't be the kid with the piece of stove wood and pull their hair out and stuff. And then I was in the eighth grade and then me go to school and Mr Smith or somebody said Christine, where'd you get all those bruises? I go, mama beat me with a piece of stove wood, uh-huh Well, and I'm pretty sure they sent them out quite often because mama would say how bad we were, we wouldn't help her do nothing. But but I think they knew, elisa, I think they knew. And then you could go like there was a story at the end of our road, mr Bertie Stewart and Dave, and they knew what was going on. A lot of people knew what was going on.
Speaker 3:but you just mess in other people's family life you know, not in those days, right.
Speaker 2:So you made the statement that when we were talking beforehand about you felt you always felt God's protection over you. Can you explain a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:I always, I'll never forget, when I still lived at the brickyard Now, this had to be before. I was seven years old. I had this dream and it was such a vivid dream. But there was this big wall of fire and my family was over here. But I couldn't get through that fire to get to my family. And there's still something about that dream that bothers me. I don't know if it's separation or what it was, but he's just always been. He does not answer my prayers all the time, you know that. But they say it's whatever's the best for us.
Speaker 3:It changes things around and we go another direction, and I do believe that yeah, because his ways are not his ways, that's right so I'll stick to that and I still trust him he'll take care of me and I've never, like Jerry and I are married years we never worried about finances and stuff, you know, because I was never without a nickel to spend, but I just feel like God always took care of me yeah, so how did your family situation change after that day that you felt like you grew up?
Speaker 3:Well, like I told you, I didn't stay home much anymore, Like, okay, I would try. This was high school and, oh my gosh, I wanted to play basketball for Mr Roseman so bad.
Speaker 3:But, Mama would go to the end of the road and get on the phone and she would call at the time it was Celeste Hinkle, because it went to a high school tell them that I was this whore and I was sleeping with all the basketball boys and the football boys and all this kind of stuff. So it was just all the time. So then, Carolyn Jones, she says, Christine, I'll go and we don't live far from you, so we'll just bring you home every time. Well, I'll go and we don't live far from you, so we'll just bring you home every time. Well, she might be out there with a rock or something going to throw a break a windshield. You couldn't, I couldn't do anything, I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 3:So I lived with Dorothy and then I lived with my sister, my older sister. Then I lived because she had David, a little boy. So I helped babysit and clean her house and stuff. And then I went to Kernersville with the first cousin and tended to her two little girls, Mary and Martha. And then I went to Concord and tended to Richard and Betty's little girl, Donna Duck. And so you see, that's why I don't know my baby sister, Debbie, because I wasn't there, why I don't know, my baby sister, daddy, because I wasn't there. So then when I would come home, just like the phone calls to the high school and whatnot.
Speaker 3:I know I would do my ironing and mama throw it out. It it just wasn't good, it just was awful. Or putting that, putting that uh pearlled knife to your throat, or standing outside to your toes or frostbit waiting on daddy to get home, or sleeping in an old, cold car, I mean all of those things there. I think that's why God's been so good to me. Do you know that I really feel like that.
Speaker 3:That me growing up like that. God has shown me another way, like being married. That's the happiest years of my life, and with my grandbabies. I just think that's a gift he gave me yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the fact that you went through all this and you're able to share with other people and you're able to identify with other people, like how did it impact growing up like this? Like how do you think it impacted your teaching? Because we taught some really hard, hard kids together.
Speaker 3:I think that's where I was meant to be, because I could understand those kids when they tell me stuff and no matter what, elisa, I used to sit and listen to Tripp cry.
Speaker 2:That's Christine's grandson. Yeah, my grandson.
Speaker 3:Because of the lifestyle of his mama and daddy. But anyway, no matter what, those children want their real mama and daddy and I don't care if they beat these kids, I don't care what they've done to these kids. These kids want their mama and daddy and they want them together. They don't care about all that stuff and that's where I was meant to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said something real interesting to me that makes so much sense, and it was about love. Do you remember the statement?
Speaker 3:I don't know, I say so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, because you were, because I grew up in a very loving family, and so it's hard for me to wrap my head around what all he went through and you told me I was never told I love you, I was never given a hug, I was never anything.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, I was just. I'll never forget. When I was 16, Mama was making birthday cakes for the children who had passed, but she never once made me a birthday cake. It was just like, and you know, I don't know if I felt love or not. I didn't.
Speaker 2:I was just so that's it you told me. How do you know it? How do you miss something you never even had?
Speaker 3:Exactly, so when I started living with other people who were not my family, I was shown more love than I had ever been shown in my family. But, elisa, in the meantime of me staying with this cousin and that cousin and this cousin babysitting those kids, that was not a piece of cake, because you knew that if you didn't walk the line and obey their rules, they'd just send you back home. Well, what did I have to go back home to?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, yeah, so you kind of learned to play their game.
Speaker 3:You had to, you had to, and this took me many years, many years. Quit pleasing everybody. You can't please everybody, you've got to be who you are, yeah, and that took a long time, even through married years. You know you want to please your husband and you've got your children, but you come to a point where I'm okay, I like me, I'm a pretty damn good person, yeah. You come to that, yeah, and so I do feel like I was and I would never abuse a child never.
Speaker 2:So you quit school when you were in the 11th grade.
Speaker 3:Yep, I was working at the sock mill in Catawba but I couldn't live at home and I was renting a room at that time from the Pierces. Patsy Pierced them and they lived down toward the brickyard and mama was calling the basketball and all that crap. So I just said too much. Well, my sister came in from Nebraska, bug the other nutty one, sorry about that she's still alive. No.
Speaker 2:No, okay.
Speaker 3:And she was she's about like Mama, oh, okay. But she said, Chris, won't you go back with us and you can keep Tammy and go back to school? Wow, I was ecstatic. I wanted to go back to school, at least, I hated quitting school. So we went to Nebraska. I went back to school, started the 11th grade all over again and it was nice. I liked that school and I finished those two years, went one year to college because I got a scholarship.
Speaker 3:But in the meantime my sister, her and her husband, I mean it was constant. It was constant chaos. He owned a big farm, pinto beans and all that stuff. Well, I never knew if I was going to get to go to school. I didn't know why. I didn't have my driver's license because I couldn't get a birth certificate, so I'd have to drive her big old car to school, scared to death. The officer was going to stop me, which he did stop me one time, but he didn't ask me for my license and just scared, nervous all the time.
Speaker 3:Well, then she and her husband split up and we moved to an apartment in Medicare. Then she dated all these guys and all this kind of stuff, and then Walt came back and he moved into the apartment with us. Well, she got PO'd again. Well, she got PO'd again. She came to North Carolina and she told Mama and everybody that I was sleeping with Walt and just all kinds of awful stuff. Elisa, oh my gosh. But in the meantime, when she left that day, I worked at Military Cafe and Ruth Brackman owned that restaurant and she was so good to me so she brought her car over and she said Christine Packard thinks you're going to live with me. I loved her, uh-huh. So that's who I stayed with.
Speaker 3:From then on I stayed with Ruth and Bug. She's just like Mama, she's awful. Was she that way to her kids? She was not nice to Tammy. Tammy passed away last year and Tammy says I was born with two crazy parents. That's the way They'd tear up a house or she'd drive through Scott's Bluff swinging cow manure everywhere. It was just a fight.
Speaker 3:But for her to lie like that and do stuff like that, then I had another sister, linda, at the beach. She kind of fell into that. So you know, elisa, you don't hate each other. But you learn in your family who you can trust and you can't trust everybody. You can trust God. You can't trust everybody. You can trust God, you can't trust everybody. My sister, dorothy, and I told you I miss her much.
Speaker 3:My oldest sister, I could her, I loved her, but rather other than Desi's deaf and Debbie's deaf and James Robert. He passed away but he was deaf. And then I have a brother that lives up at the lake, johnny. He's not dead but I loved him. But mama was really mean to him too, because she almost killed him with a butcher knife after Jerry died and she always called him a murderer and I, it was bad, yeah, it was bad. And then I have this sister. She goes.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, it's like she lived in a totally different world than I lived in. Well, we won't talk about that. Well, no, we're not doing that. Living in denial, yeah. But now mama and linda were very close and I always do respect linda because she took mama when mama got older and she and her husband. They helped mama and they took care of her at myrtle beach and I was. I was thankful for that because linda could tell mama what to do and what's what and mama wouldn't get mad at her. But boy, don't let me do that. Yeah, so I appreciated that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So how'd your mother become in her older years?
Speaker 3:She got a little nicer One time we were in the car. Linda come out with the F word yeah, mama goes. Oh my goodness, something about the language in your mouth, Linda goes well. I don't see why that bothers you, because you're the one that taught me how to say it. Mama was like this hypocrite yeah.
Speaker 2:But she didn't say it.
Speaker 3:But she was still bad, Elisa. But she didn't see it. But she was still bad, elisa, and she would, if you would go over and visit Mama, would sneak outside the house and sneak around and then she'd come in cussing and raising cane to cuss. I heard you saying this, you know, it was just bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was bad all the time. Did she ever apologize? Never.
Speaker 3:Never, never, never. You know, shanda gets really aggravated, but just like one night my kids were there.
Speaker 2:Do you feel?
Speaker 3:like writing to Shanda. My daughter and I was cooking spaghetti for Mom and Daddy and we were going to have dinner. I said, mom, if you will, will you go in there and turn the bathtub on? We'll get the kids in there and get their bath before dinner. Mom comes back and says how do you turn the bathtub on? You just lift up Lisa. And I got aggravated because, mama, you just lift up on it. But it was like she didn't. I don't know, the brain cells or something didn't work you know how could you not?
Speaker 3:know how I mean by this time they did have a bathroom and all that Run water. Yeah, they did.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I just had that, my daughter. You cannot. At least, what I want to say is this you cannot blame or hate people whose brain does not work like yours. You know what I'm saying? It's sort of like the Bible says if you know it's a sin and you do it, it's a sin. Know it's a sin and you do it, it's a sin. But if you don't know that that's a sin and you do it then, you're not held accountable, do you see, and it's kind of like that.
Speaker 3:If you, I mean she would tell you no matter what, oh, I never did that. Oh, I never did that. But now my baby sister, debbie the deaf one, I don't think she's ever got over it, really. Mama choked her all the time and beat her. She graduated from Gallaudet College and she lives here now, but uh-uh, I don't think she's ever. And then she feels sad because she's the baby and she says y'all are all going to die sooner than me and I'm going to be left here with you know, just by myself. Yeah, but I don't think Debbie ever.
Speaker 3:And deaf people are different, you know, I don't think she ever understood why Mama did that. And I think why Mama did that to her is because Mama was jealous of the relationship that Debbie had with Daddy, because for Daddy that was his baby girl and he wouldn't let anything happen to her. And I think that's what it was, plus the fact I think a little bit of Mama was jealous of me and Daddy Because I worked in the garden, I hauled in watermelons and I did all that, but she was really ugly about it yeah.
Speaker 2:So anybody that had a close relationship with your dad she just resented.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So how did you decide you were going to be different when you became a mother?
Speaker 3:I didn't decide. You know, I never understood how, when you grow up and you see stuff as being so bad and you realize when I grow up, I am never, I will never be in a mess like this again and that's what I used to say all the time when mama be beating me and stuff like that, or beating my little brothers and sisters. Never, when I grow up, it'll never be this way and I meant it at least. Yeah, never.
Speaker 3:Now did I? Just through determination? Yeah, well, and I never understood it, because I've even had kids in school and on the bus they'll say Miss Millip, when I grow up I'm never going to do drugs. Miss Millip, when I grow up, I'm never going to do this. And Lisa, the first thing you find out they are doing exactly like their parents. But whatever I had was in me and I guess god gave it to me because that was in me. I didn't learn anything. Now don't, don't think that I didn't my kids and don't think that they wouldn't tell you yeah, mama abused us and now, it's just out of jest, yeah, yeah but, I didn't like getting spankings, yeah I didn't either, but I knew my mama loved me.
Speaker 2:Daddy didn't spank a whole lot. Mama was the one that did the spankings at our house. So how did you keep your faith through all of that?
Speaker 3:I've just always had it. I mean, I've just never questioned it. You know, your faith is something. Well, god is something and I believe in God. Mm-hmm, you know, sometimes, elisa, I question the Bible. Sometimes, yeah, the Bible tells you it's okay to question, because that's how you learn to search and search for more he who has? Ears and I still I don't know. I'm just going to wait until I get to heaven, then I'll find out all this stuff.
Speaker 2:All right. So growing up, did y'all go to church? We went to the holiness. Oh wait, yeah, you told me you went to the Holy, but we went. Your parents didn't go, maybe every once in a while.
Speaker 3:I don't ever remember Daddy going to church, but and then neighbors would come and get us and they took us to New Bethany, they took us to Bible school, you know, and that's all we knew. But Mama didn't, and then the rest of my family, they did not go to church and let me say a minute. Dorothy didn't go to church. I think baxter went to church. Buggy went to church. They didn't go to church and then my deaf the deaf kids.
Speaker 3:Now, debbie goes to church. She goes to that front street thing down there. They got interpreters. Bessie, she did go to church, but she don't anymore. So church wasn't a major part of it. And the church at the Brickyard. Today it would be called Pentecostal, but in those days it was called the Holiness Church. I guess your prayer life kept you going Well.
Speaker 2:I just talked to God.
Speaker 3:all the time he's like, he's right beside me and he's my friend and sometimes I laugh at him and I think sometimes he laughs at me too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not a good prayer, I can tell you, and I do not, like, I don't want to be called on the church to do a prayer yeah the public prayer I did not, I'll go with that thing, go into the closet and pray, if that's what you want to do, because I talked to him, just like I'm sitting here talking to you, you know, just like the other day in that truck, and I felt so bad and I would say, god, I just want to cry. What can we do, you know? And then I decided to leave Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what's your favorite verse or book in the Bible? The?
Speaker 3:23rd Psalm.
Speaker 2:I got a lot. I like them all. Yeah, so what about that sticks out the most? Why that one?
Speaker 3:Well, that he leads us, I like them all, yeah, so what about that sticks out the most? Why that one? Well, that he leads us, I like that. And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. You know when I was younger at least, I feared death and I don't. Now it's the getting over Sort of. I mean, you look a little bit forward to it, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, I know you get so tired of I mean I'm only in my 50s, but you just get so out to the age now. I'm so tired of losing people.
Speaker 3:Are you? That's the way Stacy is, y'all are probably around about the same age and he says, mama, I'm losing so many of my classmates. You know, and I think what it does, it brings reality home to him to realize your life is getting shorter and shorter. You need to start. You know, my life was kind of into, it was into stages that I went through getting married, having my babies. Then in my 40s well, 30s, 35 I began to realize, you know, I'm not going to live forever. I need to, like, quit smoking, and, and I I did that and then started teaching to gear myself toward my end of life years. And so now I'm not wealthy but I don't have to worry about, you know, with my pension from school and my social security I do okay.
Speaker 3:And I got my kids.
Speaker 2:Yes, yep, and.
Speaker 3:I got, my church I got my kids.
Speaker 2:There's one other note that I took and you addressed self-pity. Can't do that. No, you said you never had pity on yourself. No, what all you went through. You cannot do that. I can't imagine the darkness, that hole you would probably go into.
Speaker 3:I've been there. I have been into a depression so bad before that I didn't feel like I was good for my kids or good for Jerry or anything else. I just would rather end it all I've been there. So I went to the doctor. He just gives you this drugs, something. It just made you drunk. When you woke up the next morning you were still depressed. So I said we're gonna help this. So I'm not ever letting myself get there ever. Yeah, at least that people don't think straight when they get.
Speaker 2:Nope, but it's life changing when you do finally get out of that hole. It is. It changes your life completely.
Speaker 3:Did you get there with your mother and everybody in your family?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why I started this podcast. Good, don't ever get there again. That's why I'm doing this for people to share their stories of how they got out of that hole, to help others out and you know, you just have to.
Speaker 3:I was praying, I said okay, god, I quit, you got it. And this peace came over me. It was just like okay and nothing happened to. Lisa, but he heard me and you know he listened to me.
Speaker 2:He wrapped you in his love and protection and he's got you. Hey, I want to thank you for sharing your story today and uh I know that you have impacted others and I want to do this again.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know. I was thinking maybe we could just like this time, just talk about Bible stuff or whatever, because I know during planning we would get in these our work days, we would just get into these awesome conversations just about religion and just our different viewpoints. So I think that would be fun, that would be good, but yeah, but thank you, christine, you are welcome.
