Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mountain Mama

I’ve always admired the women of the Old Testament. They seemed to be women of substance, who knew how to survive and protect their children no matter what life threw at them. Their attitudes were more “Bring it on.” than “Wait and worry.”

Mamie Murphy is that kind of woman. She was only fourteen years old when Frank took her as his bride. Frank had left Coker Creek looking for work, as did many people during the Great Depression. He hired on at Mamie’s daddy’s Texas farm, and fell in love with the little spitfire named Mamie.

Just like in the Bible, Frank worked for his love’s daddy to earn his bride. Unlike in the Bible, he didn’t have to first marry her sister to get Mamie. Now, Mamie’s daddy didn’t know that Frank planned to take his oldest daughter from him, but Mamie’s mom and sisters saw that he was worthy and helped them elope. It was to be three years before she saw her family again.

Leaving her mother, father and four younger sisters, Mamie traveled more than twelve hundred miles with her new husband. This journey to a new life took her from her familiar surroundings in the flatlands of Texas to the wild wonders of the Cherokee National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains. By the time she reached her fifteenth birthday, she had her first child, a daughter she named Jean.

Times were hard everywhere, and Coker Creek was no exception. In 1934, the timber industry was the only viable industry in the area. Frank’s family worked in the lumber industry, and in 1935 opened several businesses to service the industry: a sawmill, a general store and post office. When electricity became available to the area, Mamie traveled the mountains signing people up for electricity. When she had enough customers to make it worth the while of the utility company to run the lines, they added a Laundromat. The family also farmed vegetables and raised chickens for eggs. They even took a stint at raising hogs. Mamie says that families used to trade products from their farms. One family may have a milk cow, and the next may have a crop of potatoes. They would trade for what they needed.

Mamie, with a baby on her hip – and three more in her future -- farmed, clerked, planted, picked and plucked. She also acted as postmistress of Coker Creek for fifty years.

Just about the time Mamie and Frank got their children reared, Frank died. Mamie kept on running her home, farm, store and the post office. When, while a still-young widow, her store burned down with a new shipment of merchandise, she took to her bed for two hours and then got up to do what had to be done to reopen the post office. She says she’s always too busy to get depressed.

Whenever discussing a life-changing event like a death in the family, my Cajun grandma would preface the discussion with a question, “Do you want to laugh or do you want to cry?” We would then frame our stories in terms that would evoke the desired emotion. No matter what we discuss, Mamie manages to spin the story in a positive direction with her ever -present gift of good humor and the constant twinkle in her blue eyes. Mamie clearly prefers to laugh.

Mamie is almost ninety years old now. When we met, she told me that after running the post office for fifty years, she figured that if she was going to do anything else with her life, she better get to it. Mamie is still raising crops and chickens for eggs. She does all her own housework, even though she says it takes her a while to straighten up in the mornings. And she has a revolving door of guests to whom she serves her wonderful home-grown, home-cooked vegetables.

As a matter of fact, she’s looking forward to the second week-end in October, her busiest time of year for entertaining out-of-state guests. Her oldest son Frank, Jr. is very active in the Coker Creek Ruritan Club. The second week-end in October is when they put on their annual fundraiser, the Autumn Gold Festival. Mamie will be putting several families up at her house for the week-end.