Mama Hattie stood a scant five feet. She never learned to drive. She didn’t go to college. She stuck around the community—a cluster of houses and stores alongside a bend in the road. But she towers in my memory because of the magical summers spent with her in the north Georgia mountains.
Category: Women
Space Enough for God, Mama Hattie, and a Whale (Part One)
It’s the small things that keep a person alive. Take my grandmother, Mama Hattie. She made it to ninety-five. She was born in a wagon-and-mule era and died the day an astronaut stepped from the space shuttle to test heating devices in the toe caps of his boots.
Her obituary said she was somebody’s wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, and aunt. But she was so much more.
A Mom to Love: Wonder Woman Without the Skimpy Suit
My clearest memory is my mother’s crescent-shaped blue eyes dancing while we taste freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and sip from cool glasses of milk. I feel her gathering me onto her lap because the boy I loved broke up with me. I hear the mellow dinner bell ringing in the backyard and her voice at twilight calling us to come in for supper. Her love did not overlook. Not one of us. Not once.
Keep This Table Now and in Our Hearts
My thoughts turn to a fundamental ritual: the family table. After dinner on Sunday, three generations leaned into conversations, propping our elbows on the kitchen table that stood for decades through years of mischief, arguments, tears, and joy. Wherever you take a meal this holiday, I wish you sweet memories.
Spunk and Spark: Nannie Rewrote the Rules for Love and Marriage
From day one, Nannie was in charge. In 1915, she demanded driving lessons. She played basketball in finishing school and supported herself as a stenographer after a stint in business school. Her rules after marriage: 1) two children only; 2) her own car; 3) an annual bridge party vacation with “the girls” on St. Simons Island (no family, no questions).