ForeverMissed
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This memorial website was created  in memory of my dear mother, Dartha Jean (Higgins) Chance for her children, grandchildren and friends.  Dot (as she was known to her family and friends) was born on November 17, 1925 and passed away on July 2, 1966.  

She is interred in the Old Carrolton Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery in the Sand Hill Community east of Carrollton. Her funeral was held at Martin Hightower Funeral Home who made the arrangements.  She was survived by her three sons, William Daniel Chance of Douglasville, Michael David Chance of Carrollton and Donald Mark Chance of Carrollton and by her husband William Marvin Chance or Carrollton.

Her thinking was not clouded by dogmas or doctrines.  Her perspective of the world migrated from the innocent believer to the hardened agnostic.  What she saw of nature gave her pleasure.  What she saw of man and his institutions, saddened, perplexed, angered and hurt her.

When taking a course for her LPN certification, the class was assigned to write about themselves.  She wrote "I was born in Birmingham Alabama, November 17, 1925, the second child of Houston Higgins and Lola Boatright Higgins.  My father worked for Baker's Dairy in Birmingham for several years pryor to my birth.  Soon after I was born he went to work for a construction company building a dam in Chattanooga, TN.  There he took cold which resulted in pneumonia and his death.  I was two months old when mother and I came home to live with Grandfather and Grandmother, their two unmarried children and three orphaned grandchildren.  Home was forty or fifty acres of red farm land and farm house with four rooms - three of which were surely the coldest south of Canada.  I can still see the cracks in the walls and floors, and remember having the croup most of the winter - the remedy for which was dripping a lightered knot (piece of heart pine) and mixing the drippings with kerosene or terpentine.  But the warmth of the room with the fireplace  was worth the cold of the other three for there we gather and warmed and talked with the family, the neighbors and especially grandpa.

I was very small but I can remember lean times but we didn't know there was any other kind of time so with Grandma's worry and work and Grandpa work and lack of worry the table was always full.  The two unmarried children were married before I was six and momma married the bachelor down the road who was twenty years her senior when I was seven.  

This was at the height of the depression and lean times did not cease.  He owned his home and a few acres of land but we never seemed to have hardly enough there was quietness here but a depressing quietness.  I was close enough to visit Grandma and Grandpa daily which I did but the three grandchildren soon went away.  They were much older than I. The girl(s?) married.  The boy(s?) went away to work in Macon where their mother had remarried.  As I visited, I helped with a few chores and the last crop Grandpa made, I hire to him to pick all the cotton and I finished one snowy day in December.  This is the way I made money to buy my clothes.

I picked berries, and raised little droves of chickens.  Our little school had been consolidated and I have finished seventh grade and was to go to Villa Rica which I did for a few weeks but I disliked the place.  It was so big, so foreign to our way oflife that I persuaded mama to let me go to Hulett (another small school) telling her I didn't know it well enough, so I walked two miles to meet the bus and back again through the dense woods to keep from going to Villa Rica, a place where I felt so insecure.  In the fields and woods I felt secure.  The year at Hulett was a waste of time.  I just played through it...and at the end of the course I was promoted to the 8th grade again, which meant Villa Rica.  I endured almost a whole year of it.  I think I tried to get into the swing of things but I had no close friends.  Others were going places and doing things that I was not allowed to do.  They giggled and talked of proms and boys and in their cruel way ignored me.  I persuaded moma to let me wear my best clothes - the ones I called my "Sunday" ones and I worked hard at odd jobs spending it all with Sears, Roebuck to make myself one of the crowd - but to no avail.

I had two teachers who didn't help matters.  One I was scared to death of,  a Mr. Hagood, who taught math.  I knew math was necessary but it extremely hard and I felt he was a hard man to please.  I dreaded even a look in my direction.  Another was Mrs Kennerly, the Baptist preacher's wife, who was short, fat and mean.  Her black eyes could cut you if she wished.  Once our assignment was to write a poem, which came easy to me and I wrote a fairly long one.  She read this and thought it was storebought as she called it.  She read it to the english class and they thought so too, so I don't remember the grade I received, I think it was fairly low.  I dearly love poetry but I do not remotely care for higher mathmatics, except that it might help me understand nature and other things I ask myself but cannot answer.

So I quit a month before school was out and went to work in a hosiery mill, which is the only type work I have done outside housework.  I married when I was 16.  Dan was born when I was 17.  (He is now in college.)  I have two other sons, Mike 11 and Mark almost 6.  We live in a white frame house located between the two houses I grew up in.

As far as nursing is concerned, it would be naive to say that I have always wanted to be a nurse.  Medicine in general has interested me and as I grow older, psychology interests me even more.  I hold no membership in any church, school or community organization, but it is my ambition to be a worthy member of the human race.  I can not stand intolerance, whether it be church vs church, nation against nation or white against black.  Christianity and other great religions teach us to look out for the welfare of the other fellow, and we do look out it seems but in the reverse, what does he have that I can get my hands on.  Where is the contentment that the apostle Paul spoke of? Where...the peace of Mahatma Ghandi?  

I fear we are using a small amount of knowledge for a symbol of prestige.   When you meet a really honest person, understanding flows from him.  You need not see his credentials to know that he will help you if you need help.

Sure I am for education.  Only a fool would cease to learn.  I would to God I could have crammed my brain with facts for with facts we find the x in the equation and oh! I envy a college graduate.  I want my boys to go as high as possible...but even then the answer can come out wrong if we place one fact in the wrong perspective.  

If I were really educated, this would be my motto - "If I were in his shoes".  The rest of education is filled in daily with facts and understanding.  

I hope to pay cash for my training if the cash holds out.  I know you said to make it short but this is short as I look back over 36 years.

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She only lived another seven years.

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A memorial for her mother can be found at http://www.forevermissed.com/lola-ball/#about

A memorial for her grandfather can be found at http://www.forevermissed.com/hiram-boatright/

A memorial for her husband can be found at http://www.forevermissed.com/marvin-chance/

July 2, 2014
July 2, 2014
I think of you often and hope my doctrine is wrong. My heart breaks to think of your pain. Jesus did promise there would be a comfort for those who mourn.I need it Jesus.
July 2, 2013
July 2, 2013
You were a wonderful Mom. All of your children took you for granted. When you needed help I didn't know how. Sorry.
July 2, 2012
July 2, 2012
Sometimes my loss seems greater than I can bear. I remember you singing as you worked around the house. Thank you for the memory.
May 8, 2011
May 8, 2011
It's Mother's Day and I wish I could visit with you. You might not be able to make your wonderful Sunday meal but by now I could help. I miss you so much. Thanks for leaving the treasures of your writing.
May 8, 2011
May 8, 2011
I knew you not but yet I DO know you from your beautiful writings. What a wonderful Mother you was for your precious son, Dan! He is truly a good man with a beautiful heart. Thank you for him.

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Recent Tributes
July 2, 2014
July 2, 2014
I think of you often and hope my doctrine is wrong. My heart breaks to think of your pain. Jesus did promise there would be a comfort for those who mourn.I need it Jesus.
July 2, 2013
July 2, 2013
You were a wonderful Mom. All of your children took you for granted. When you needed help I didn't know how. Sorry.
Recent stories

Wayah Bald NC

September 7, 2011

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.

My Mind Walks In Beauty

October 4, 2010

 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.

Colonel Glen Circles the Earth

October 4, 2010

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.) 

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