Memorial Day

[Yes, it’s a small photo … but when you click it, you’ll be linked to the full sized one.  And that’s how you’ll be able to see the special things that hold memories of my loved ones.]

Where would I start?  Perhaps with the small beaded buckskin bag that belonged to Cynthia Jane Fletcher Hoggard, my grandmother’s grandmother.  She was Choctaw.  The bottle of Dom Perignon was a drown-your-sorrows  libation shared with my dear friend, Judson Roberts, after news of my mother’s murder.  A small pewter slipper belonged to Lucy Fagan DuBois’ daughter, my grandmother.  The eagle crest is left over from my marriage to a U.S. Army officer (but not a gentleman).

A small Texas landscape painted by Dorthie Waters Williams, with whom I developed a greater appeciation of the rhododendron’s blooming in the Irish countryside.  Tiny paintings of bugs and mushrooms are remnants of better days with my late mother — and a carved piece of antler that represents better days with my [late] brother.

Little shelves hold a Chinese chop of my name, sent out of Communist China by Dr. T.S. Tse and Joan as a thanks for our hospitality to them in Hawaii.  Linseed oil mix of my father’s, left from his days of hand oiling carvings he had done.  His harmonica.  (His photo in the frame below the shelves.)

The family Bible.  Sea oats from a beach combing day on Padre Island long years ago.  Mesquite beans from a family cemetery.  A shell-covered box purchased on the Strand in Galveston when Mary Genevieve DuBois Matthews (my grandmother) was a young girl.  Still holds some of her trinkets.  And under it, the cedar box that my father emptied his pockets into each evening — it still holds his pocket knife and sundry small momentos.

The Mexican retablo from Santa Fe was purchased during my brief time as a practicing Catholic.  It hangs beside a photo that we believe to be “Granny Betsy” — Elizabeth James Caldwell (1799 SC – 1873 GA).  “Home is Where the Army Sends You” — the story of my marriage.

So many memories.

Maggie
15 January 1993 – 24 March 2010
Our friend

Tomorrow [February 12, 2010] they will bury my old friend — or maybe his ashes will be scattered somewhere in Cherokee Nation.  Perhaps they may even be returned here to Georgia to the old Cherokee homelands.

I wanted very much to be at the funeral services  near Tahlequah.  Getting there would have meant driving through several states under a blanket of new snow.  It seemed too much to tackle, yet — I remember that I drove through one of the worst blizzards in 100 years to get to Hastings the first day I met him!  He was not surprised to find that I had made it to the hotel in Tahlequah some four  hours after leaving Tulsa.  Somehow he knew that I would get through the storm!

The next day we spent a wonderful snowy day at the Cherokee Heritage center, talking about my research project and drinking an ocean of coffee.  His golden voice was mesmerizing.  His smile, infectious.  His deep laugh — charming.  His knowledge of Cherokee lore, fascinating.

The Tulsa World newspaper said that former Deputy Chief of Cherokee Nation was “a fisher of men who lived history”.  The Keetoowah Cherokees mourned the loss of a “traditionalist”.  The Native American Times in Tahlequah notes that he “was awarded [the title of] National Treasure years ago for his craftsmanship, but he also was a national treasure to the Cherokee people for his cultural contributions, encouragement and statesmanship”.

To me, he was a singer, a spiritualist, a storyteller, and an artist.  He was also a speed demon behind the wheel of his official Cherokee Nation vehicle, literally flying down the backroads of Oklahoma.  Trying to keep up with him on the open road, one could feel the brush of angel wings!

So many times through the years, I would call him to chat.  First thing, I would ask, “What are you doing, Hastings?”  Most often he would cheerfully report, “Just fishing!”  So, the photo above is how I’d like to remember him.  Just fishing.

It’s hard to believe that Hastings is gone so soon.
Gone fishing.

Hastings … say ‘hello’ to Mr. Eli NoFire when you get there! He’ll be waiting to sing a round of “Amazing Grace” with you.  I will be listening.

Ollie and Dorothy Caldwell

They are both gone now, but how can we forget them!?  I have never been in a more loving home, full of joy and laughter.

I trekked across the country for my first visit with Ollie and Dorothy some years ago, arriving in Arkansas just before dinner time.  Directions  to the Caldwell Ranch were confusing to me and I passed the house by several times.  Finally, I saw someone standing in a driveway and stopped to ask if he knew where the ranch was — he said with a big grin, “You have arrived.  This is it.”  And he pointed ‘over yonder’ to a gate with the sign above it!

Such wonderful memories of time with these two family sages.  Showing Ollie that I was not a city gal by driving his tractor all over the field to help feed the Pet Cows.  Picking okra from the big garden.  Backing the tractor into the barn crooked, and then locking old Tex in the barn with it — how Ollie laughed at my parking job!  Watching Ollie stammer and fiddle while trying to tell me that old Mr. Horry, the Black Angus bull that I adored, had been sold to the hamburger factory!

Dorothy’s Charlie Pride Pie and the picnics she always made when we went up to the cemetery in the hills.  Her strength and good cheer in the face of adversity.  Her persistence and tenacity in maintaining a household and caring for her family after being somewhat crippled with a stroke.  Such a role model.  Such good memories.

Ollie D. Caldwell
Born 2 August 1923  in Gladstone, Garland Co AR
Died 2 May 2009 in Malvern, Clark Co AR

Dorothy Farmer Caldwell
Born 22 October 1923 in Cornersville, Lincoln Co AR
Died 8 June 2007 in Malvern, Clark Co AR