In 1909, Sarah Lawson was a widow and mother of 9 children. She’d already lost her husband and four of those children. She ran a boarding house in McMinn County, Tennessee to make ends meet. There was a telegraph office nearby in which men came to work, and Sarah’s boarding house stayed full.
Sarah’s daughter, Sally, was 20-years-old at the time, living at home with her mother. Sometime in 1909, a man named Everett, began boarding at Sarah’s boarding house. In December of 1909, he “took advantage” of Sally, and the young woman ended up expecting a baby.
The men in Sally’s family took out the shotgun and were ready to make the man “do right by Sally” and marry her. But Sally had no desire to be married to the man who had pushed himself on her. In September of 1910, Sally gave birth to a little girl who she named Thelma. Thelma was a spunky little girl who took to the piano at age 3 and taught herself how to play.
In 1914, Sally married a telegraph operator named Adolphus who became the only father Thelma would ever know. With Adolphus, Sally gave birth to a son and two more daughters.
Thelma grew up to be quite the adventurous soul. She learned to drive at 12-years-old, had her own car in her later teens, and played ragtime in a local silent movie house. She loved the great outdoors and cooking delicious food. She fell in love with a handsome young man named Eugene, and they were married in 1929.
Thelma gave birth to my mother – Betty Jean in 1933 via c-section with no anesthetic! She also had a son and three more daughters.
Thelma was a kind and gentle soul, who I never heard say a bad word about anyone. In fact, I never heard her say a bad word … period! She worked at American Uniform in Cleveland, Tennessee for 25 years, sewing aprons; and Eugene ran his own shoe repair shop. My grandfather, Eugene, passed away suddenly of a heart attack in 1970, at only 65 years of age.
Thelma (my Granny) never remarried. She spent her later years cooking big Sunday dinners for her children and grandchildren. We’d cram 40 people, eating in shifts, into her little single wide trailer. There was a lot of love and delicious food in that tiny trailer! I always said Granny had flavor in her fingertips.
In my opinion, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better soul than my Granny. I have fond memories of her visiting our home and playing ragtime piano while we gathered around, mesmerized by her stylings.
A lot of good people have come through my Granny’s lineage … a lot of people who simply would not exist if Sally had been born a few decades later and made the popular choice of terminating a rape pregnancy. Among us, we have dozens of loving fathers and mothers, nurses, a forest ranger, a physicist/inventor, businesspeople, several artists and teachers, an accountant, medical techs, preacher’s wives, an author, numerous missionaries, singers, musicians, nature-lovers and more.
I often wonder how many people are not with us on this planet because so many babies were never given the chance at life. How many scientists, doctors, inventors, and more are we missing?
Would we have a cure for cancer by now if someone hadn’t been snuffed out of existence? Would we have solutions to the world’s most pressing problems if some little girl or boy was allowed their turn on earth?
Just something to think about…
Photo: Thelma with three of her grandchildren: The artisan, the physicist/inventor, and the author (me).