Essay: My Mother(s)

I was born on June 7, 1941, to Stella Coffman Nored.  My mother was one of 5 children and the only girl.  I have only a faint memory of her as she died when I was two years old.  I do know she was an intelligent and popular young women.  

I went to the same school she did during my first and second grade–Prairie Valley School.  From entries in the Nocona News, our nearest town, she was  on the honor roll in every school year.  She was the assistant editor of  the school newspaper, a member of what we would know as the Homemaking club, and was in the school plays.  She graduated valedictorian of her class.

It is noted her parents, Ed and Willie Mae Coffman, never went past the 5th grade.  They encouraged education for their children. My mother used her valedictorian scholarship money to go Denton to what became Texas Women’s university.  She went to the first year at Texas Women’s university.   I am note sure when she started, but she also was the secretary of the Nocona Newspaper in Nocona.  She was a reporter as well. 

I know she seemed rather popular and had girls who were best friends of hers ( from my grandmother and my mother’s pictures).  She went to various receptions and parties  listed in the paper.  She took trips to Lubbock, El Paso and Dallas.

She was working at the newspaper when she became sick with tuberculosis.  She was married to my father, Artis B. Nored who was a barber. In this period, there was no cure or medicine for TB.  After she became too sick, she wrote a note in the newspaper indicating she no longer had the strength to work there.

My grandparents were farmers on rented farmland near Red River — the river between Texas and Oklahoma– near the principle town of Nocona.  They sold out and moved to Nocona to take care of my mother.  My dad was not elgible for the draft ( dont know why). Though my dad was a barber he was working in Ft Worth during the war.  

When my mother did not get better, they moved with her to El Paso, Texas, thinking the dry climate would be better.  It wasn’t.  She died there in Aug. 1943.  My grandparents moved back to the Nocona area shortly thereafter.

My mother asked my grandmother, Moma, to me to raise me. Moma said she would if she could, but of course my Dad had to agree.  After we moved back to Nocona my Dad took me.  Shortly thereafter he gave me to his aunt.  I became sick and the aunt contacted Moma.  Moma asked “Is he sick?”  When answered in the affirmative she said “Well, bring him on.”

Moma was a very intelligent women, though with little education.  I remember her reading books to me before I was school age.  She was very people smart.   She encouraged education. She cried when her younger boys dropped out of school.  I always new I was expected to go to college.

She was a hard worker.  I am told she would can 500 quarts of vegetables for all to make it through the winter time.  She made her own clothes from feed sacks. She made quilts — hand sewing all.  These quilts were not for show but to keep us warm in the winter.  She feed us all and worked in the fields as well. 

We would raise 200 chickens at a time both for meat and to sell the eggs.  Most times on Sundays when we had young “fryers” growing, we would have fried chicken.  She could wring the necks off two at a time. Besides canning, we would butcher and process hogs about November.  Of course she did most of the butchering and meat processing. She made her own lye soap. 

Moma was extremely clean in her person and in the house.  You could have eaten off of her floors. She did not wear make-up.  Her hair was always in braids on top of her head.

In church she didn’t speak out ( not part of their generation).  She didn’t sing in church ( she had been told growing up she couldn’t).  I knew she could as she would sing when she was alone and working. 

During those times, we had no electricity nor running water ( no electricity untill the 7th grade and no running water until high school). Initially clothes would be washed on a rub board. Later, we went to town and washed in a wringer type of washing machine.

When they finally could not make a living farming, Pa ( my grandfather) asked “What are e going to do?’ Moma immediately said, “I know what I am going to do. I am going to the laundry in Nocona and get a job washing clothes.” And she did.  Later, the owner of the large cafe came to Moma and asked her to come andbe her main dishwasher.  She did this while I was in college until she finally retired when she turned 65.

Moma was kind.  She never spoke negatively about any others.  She was a joyous and happy person in spite of the very hard life that was her lot.  I credit so much of what I am and the life my wife and have been able to live to the values and example she provided