Mother's Day and Birthdays

 Nana Jones

Mother's Day gets me to thinking about my son who made me a mother for the second time on Mother's Day weekend thirty-six years ago. So Mother's Day and birthdays have a conjoined significance.

We've had a healthy dose of birthdays here on Layton (as well as a healthy dose of mothers) for over 80 years . . . five generations worth . . . all kinds of parties for every decade marker and all the milestone ages in between. I distinctly remember an Olympics birthday for the Mother's Day son sometime in the '80s that had me constructing a challenge course around the entire yard. And who can forget the 16th photo scavenger hunt birthday party that had us driving teenagers throughout the area?

One of the most memorable birthdays here on Layton was Nana Jones's 80th. Nana Jones, my dad's mother, entered the world with the turn of the twentieth century, 1900, in Liverpool, England.  Recalling her age was never difficult as she rolled on in age with the year. So in 1980 I determined to give her a "girl" party for her 80th birthday, a party with best friends.

Nana (Winnie) Jones also lived on Layton about a quarter mile up the road. Almost all of her lady friends had spent their lives on this half mile of country road between the Mt. Bethel Baptist Church, where they attended, and Justus Corners. They raised their children and grandchildren together, they ran Old Home Day every year at Mt. Bethel, they crocheted granny block afghans, knitted sweaters, hats and mittens, cooked up a whirlwind for covered dish dinners, worked with the Ladies Auxiliary of the Justus Fire Company, and enjoyed visiting back and forth to rock on the front porch glider and finish off a pot of tea.

I knew all of her friends well. We lived in the extended family of a country village and attended the same church. Our lives intersected at every point.

Florence James was Nana Jones's best friend. Florence lived just two houses away from my grandmother. Short and petitely built, Florence was the antithesis of my grandmother's tall, strongly-built physique. I can't ever remember Winnie and Florence wearing anything except house dresses, always lightly flowered and neat, even when weeding their gardens.

Betty Priest lived in the house right next to my grandmother. Their back doors were separated by no more than 20 yards. Mrs. Priest came over my grandmother's almost every day for tea. Nana Jones never lost her British affection for tea with milk and a few biscuits. As a child I was fascinated by her skill of reading the tea leaves left in the cup. Good friends until Betty died, leaving a gap in my grandmother's life, they never called each other anything except Mrs. Priest and Mrs. Jones.

The Von Storch family, the premier farming family in Justus, lived just around the corner, and Minerva, the matriarch of the family, had raised a bevy of boys who romped the countryside with my dad and the Evans and Lewis boys. She knew how to handle rowdy teens and how to make the best pies in Justus. At a church dinner we vied for Mrs. Von Storch's desserts.

Mildred Baker lived on Layton but further up the big hill, and Beatrice White, of the legendary White clan who originally settled the area, lived over on Fairview. The women were united by age, family, church, the Justus Volunteer Fire Company, the Depression and the War. They survived as friends.

Florence, Betty, Minerva, Mildred and Beatrice (although I would never have considered calling them anything but "Mrs. ...) composed my guest list of best friends for Nana Jones's 80th birthday party - A Who's Who of 20th Century Mothers in Justus.

Held in my front parlor, an appropriate synonym for my living room, the party featured chicken salad sandwiches and several rounds of BINGO. But it was the conversation that intrigued me.

As the ladies arrived and sat around my parlor, the reflections about the house began. "I haven't been here since Ethel died . . . Oh, it was long before that since I've been here . . . We used to come often to play cards . . . I'll never forget the night of the funeral . . ."

I'd heard the story before from my mother and grandmother, but here sat the mothers of the neighborhood recalling an event in 1950 that left an indelible community impression - a funeral.

"The roof nearly collapsed . . .Water poured into this room . . .  The men had to get up on the roof in the rain and patch it up - quick . . . One of the worst storms . . . The casket sat right over there."

And the recollections continued of my Grandfather Evans's funeral. Grandpa Evans built this house on Layton. When he died suddenly of a heart attack on the cellar steps of the house he loved, his body was prepared for "viewing" and "laid out" here in the front room, probably very close to where I'm sitting now. Traditional custom of the day had people "viewed" in their own homes, rather than at a funeral home. A disconcerting thought, as the rest of the family lay upstairs in bed. It's not a custom that has carried into the 21st century. Thankfully.

The night of the "viewing," a storm hit that blew off the shingles, ripped up part of the roof, and brought gallons of water gushing down the walls to the parlor, and . . . into my grandfather's casket. The men of the family and the neighborhood rushed into action through pelting rain and wind, climbing to the roof and re-boarding and covering the holes. I didn't ask how they dealt with damage to the coffin and . . . Grandpa Evans.

The guests at Nana Jones's birthday party had attended the "viewing" here in my parlor, and they relished every detail in the retelling. Thirty years after the event, and it still made a great story for the neighborhood.

Mother's Day, birthdays . . . death days - all part of life here on Layton.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Trev, from your Mom. You are a Mother's Day gift.