Mama was born in 1917. She was the third child of seven children. Her family were farmers in the hill country of Western North Carolina not far from the South Carolina line.
Mama's Daddy's name was Dawson Marcus. I never knew him, as he died before I was born, but all who knew him spoke well of him to me as I was growing up.
They say he was a hard working family man. He farmed when the weather permitted, and in the winter months when it was too cold to plow, he'd cane chairs and fix watches and clocks for extra money. He also would go hunting to help put food on the table. Nothing was ever wasted.
When Mama was nine years old, on a hot day in June 1927, Grandpa and Mama's older brother, Lynn, went on one of those hunting trips. They walked farther away than usual that day, and on the way back they were parched and stopped at a stream to drink. Lynn only took a sip, but Grandpa drank deeply.
About a week or so later they were both sick, but Grandpa, who drank the most from that stream, was sicker than his son. Grandpa's fever raged.
Grandma took care of him and her sick son, but on a backwoods little farm in that summer heat with no electricity and no indoor plumbing, it was difficult to keep everything sanitary, especially since Grandma was pregnant with her seventh child at the time and had six other children underfoot demanding her attention.
Everyone ended up sick.
The doctor came, of course, but the first antibiotic, penicillin, was not discovered until later that year and not used widely until more years had passed, so all they could do was quarantine the house, which they did.
Grandpa died July 10, 1927. He was 34 years old.
They did not fully understand how Typhoid Fever was spread at that time. They didn't know if someone upstream put their outhouse too close to the water, the seemingly clean, clear, cold water in that stream could make you very sick, but they knew Typhoid Fever was deadly and they feared an epidemic.
Around my Mama's 10th birthday in late August that year, when Grandma was eight months pregnant and the children had all survived the fever, the North Carolina Health Department Officials came. They took every stick of furniture out of their house. Every stitch of clothing. Everything they owned except the clothes on their backs and they made a huge bonfire and burned it all...even the schoolbooks. Even the curtains.
Mama said she was too big to cry, but she stood there and cried like a baby anyway. She was clutching the only toy she owned, a little rag doll that her Mama had made for her, as she watched her bed go up in flames.
One of the men doing the burning saw her standing there crying and headed over to her. She thought he was coming to comfort her, but instead, he took her doll out of her hands and threw it in the fire without even giving her a second glance.
Part of my Mama died with that little doll.
Mama said they slept on bare floorboards that night. They didn't even have a blanket for a pallet. No towels. Not even rags. Nothing. They had even burned the rugs.
The next night some neighbors brought them straw from their barns and cloth to make straw mattresses. This is how they slept from then on as their father was dead and they no longer had any income to buy new mattresses.
Mama's youngest sister was born in late September of that year after the trauma of that summer had passed. Her Mama had another mouth to feed, but everyone considered the little fatherless baby a blessing. Happy and healthy. A miracle.
Mama loved her little sister and carried her around like the little baby doll she lost in the fire. Mama said that baby sister was the only good thing that she remembered happening that whole year.
If you look hard enough, you can find a blessing even in the darkest hour of your life.
Mama was a very strong woman. She taught me to be self-reliant. She taught me that you can overcome hardship and if hardship comes again, then you can overcome it again...and again...and again. Mama taught me to never give up.
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