When Dad was in the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC's) he was on the crew that built this stone watchtower.  It provides excellent views of surrounding forrest lands from which dangerous fires could be seen early enough to prevent significant devastation.  This is the observation platform but down below there is a room with a stone inlay floor in the form of a compass.  I'd love to see that tower again to see if the floor my dad laid is still there after nearly 80 years.

 Mother wrote: "I may have the mind of a child but I hope it never grows older for it seems to be the one good part of me.  To stand at a distance and feel inspired by the beauty of springtime, to feel the pulse of quickening life, to write poetry and sing songs (which seems to me as beauty) though my hands be full of suds.

A tune kept repeating itself to me last week and it may be the tune to an old song, I don't know, but the words are mine and I was just 16 again and Marvin 24.

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Mother had written a Thanksgiving hymn and I believe she copywrited it. I have a copy.

Mother was like a child ... wide eyed with astonishment and wonder at this achievement..It was February 2, 1960.  These are her words.

"Watching Col John Glen go around the world in orbit I was thinking how speed writing, reading and speaking now must keep up with this amazing speed as it is an awesome thing.  Where is man's limit?  

He is across the US before a newsman can tell about it...he is now in second orbit and I sit in awe as he is described as going over the Atlantic, Africa, Indian Ocean, Australia, the great Pacific Ocean and even hearing his voice describe it.

I wish I was young to see more of man's ideas in action."

(She was only 35 years old but felt like all the adventure in life had passed her by.) 

 I don't remember her this young.  It must have been taken before I was born (which would make her about 16 or 17), but there is no mistaking that face and I think her name was on the back of the original (which my brother now has).  The flowers are just as I remember my grandmother's front yard (always full of blooms -mostly daisies).  

Evenings will never again be as peaceful as those I remember on Grandmother's porch as the daylight faded and the whippoorwills began to call from the deep woods across the road and the little frogs began to hop about among the flowers in hopes of making a meal of an unlucky butterfly.

The pan with soapy water was passed from one family member to another till all feet were clean and feeling fresh... ready for a good night's rest after a long day plowing (or cutting wood or whatever).

Aw, Daddy, do I have to go in?

One of mother's poems

‘Twas not for the patience or worthiness shown,

            My Father in Heaven, he knows how I roam,

But I’m sure ‘twas his love for this old house of clay,

            That a golden-haired angel three times came to stay.

Oh golden-haired angel I love you my dear.

            Oh, who spun the gold for your beautiful hair?

The blue of your eyes did it come from above?

            Is the warmth of your body the warmth of his love?

You call me your mother, but why my dear?

            I could not have fashioned your features so clear.

From the depth of my being I can not spin gold,

            Or breathe in your nostrils the life of your soul.

I could not have squeezed out a tear from you eye,

            But GOD in his wisdom knew how and why.

Like the dew from above it was all in his plan,

            And He carefully fashioned each sweet little hand.

As David of old, I can see the great care,

            That the maker has wrought in your features so fair,

For you are so fearfully, wonderfully made,

            No one but my Father this plan could have laid.

O thank you my Father, for these Earthly joys,

            For sending me three golden-haired baby boys,

To ask of me favors, so small and so dear;

            To cling to my bosom when danger is near.

My mother, Dartha Jean (Higgins) Chance was married to William Marvin Chance.   They had their ups and downs and there were periods of blessed ordinary joys.  Dartha, who was known to all her family and friends as “Dot”, experienced everything in magnified dimensions, first as a raw event and again as she reflected on it.  She often put her reflections into written form and this poem is one such example that must have been composed shortly after the birth of her fifth son (third to survive) Donald Mark, April 1956. 

I guess mother had asked her mother about what her life was like as she was expected, arrived and toddled as a very young child.  This is the way she wrote about her early life.  She couldn't bring herself to use her own name so she called herself Lucy in her narrative but I'll substitute her real name, "Dartha".

"It was a cold day for November.  Lola went about the simple task of keeping a small home for her husband and herself in the booming industrial city of Birmingham, Ala.  There was enough to eat and coal was cheap in this coal mining area, so the little house was warm.

Myrtie, her oldest sister had come to stay until the birth of Lola's second child.  2 years before Lola had journeyed home to Georgia to be with relatives when her first baby arrived.  It was a lovely little dead baby girl.  They named it Francis and it was buried in the Church cemetery.  Lola always believed the slow and shaky ride home by train, which she felt in some way had harmed her unborn child, for she had felt its lively movements at the beginning of her journey.  This time she would not go home but would invite one of their sisters to come and stay for 2 weeks until she felt well enough to take care of her baby and some few chores.

Lola's ma and pa (as she called them) had felt that Myrtie, the oldest should go, although Myrtie was married with two children of her own and a husband and home to care for.  Her sister needed her and she would go.  Myrtie was a talker, free with advice, so Myrtie needed little entertaining.  She swept and cleaned and starched and ironed and with a critical eye inspected every crack and corner.  Lola's house was clean for the children had naturally taken to cleanliness but Myrtie had been known to wash sheets that were already clean and put on the shelf just to say she had a big washing and for the neighbors to see she was not lazy.  So Myrtie found things to do.  During her pregnancy, Lola had crocheted doilies around large sheets for spreads.  Like most women of her time her handiwork was in every ?????? and these were starched and put on the beds and furniture and the bare and humble little house was shining when Lola's husband came home from the large dairy where he worked a swing shift.

He was a handsome and intelligent man.  Young and lean with clear blue eyes and brown hair.  One eye was glass from a baseball accident in early childhood but with the other he could pierce the truth in the inner part of you.  It was uncanny the way he looked at you as if to say "Why the pretense?  I know who you are."   At the same time you respected him, admired him, even loved him for in his young and brilliant face you could see no sign of hate or contempt for whatever you might be.  He loved all of life and you were a part of it.  Here was clearly a man who could do more than milk cows, yet he had no yen, no desire to push another man out of the way.  The aggressiveness might come as the needs of his family grew.... (her record of her mother's early life and recollections of mother's daddy continues for several pages.  Here's a picture of her dad.)

My family lived diagonally across from my mother's parents.  That distance was probably 75 yards and it was another 50 yards from grama's house to her barn.  Well we sometimes stored excess building materials in that barn to keep it out of the weather.  Ok, so one day mother tells her 16 year old son, "I want you to go get those long boards from momma's."  I did of course but it wasn't long before mother was pulling her share of the boards just like me.

A few hours passed and mother wasn't feeling too well...then she got to hurting and it was bad enough to call the doctor from Villa Rica.  (That was when doctors still made house calls.)  I think his name was Powell but I guess he's dead by now.  Anyway, he couldn't find the cause of her discomfort and prescribed bed rest and probably aspirin but before nightfall the pain was so bad that she had to be taken to the hospital in Villa Rica.  Her stomach had swelled so that she looked she was pregnant.

Her appendix had burst and infection had run rampant in her abdominal cavity.  It was a wonder that she survived that episode.  She didn't help me pull heavy boards any more.  But that's ok.