From left to right: Anna Belle Giggy Chamberlain, my great-grandmother; Ethel Maude Skidgel Chamberlain, my grandmother; LaVeita Joy Chamberlain Welch, my mother; and Bonnie Ruth Chamberlain Schamber, my aunt. In the summer of 1959, when I was ten years old, I took a road trip to Oklahoma and Texas in the company of my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my aunt. Mother and Aunt Bonnie sat in the front of our station wagon, Grandma and Little Granny sat in the second seat, and I rode in the back with the luggage.
I had no idea at the time how lucky I was to have those days in their company, and I wish I remembered more about that trip. I recall a lot of laughter and singing, but I have forgotten the family stories and gossip. Worse, I have forgotten their voices. I spent the long drive reading a book or staring mindlessly out the window. I took their presence for granted. They had always been in my life, and I expected they always would be.
For the first 13 years of my life, I was never more than a short walk from my great-grandmother. Born during the Civil War, she told stories that awakened my love of history—stories like how bushwhackers killed her Uncle Alex for his new gun, and how they left her, a frightened five-year-old, alone to drive the wagon home. She outlived two husbands and all three of her sons, and she wanted to live long enough to put a silver dollar—one penny for each of her 100 years—in the collection plate at church. She missed it by just one year.
My grandmother lived until she was 88, and I was 30. In some ways I was closer to her than mother. I went to her with my secrets, and in the battles with my mother, she always took my side. Until I started school, she took care of me while my mother worked, and, after my grandpa died in 1958, she and Little Granny lived in a small trailer in front of our house. It was there I would sit for hours, listening to stories about how Grandma raised seven children while picking cotton in the Rio Grand Valley and fighting the dust bowl in Oklahoma. She was the soft lap and the big arms of my childhood, and when I try to remember the voices of those women in the car, hers is the one I hear, singing hymns loudly and off-key.
My mother died 12 years ago, and Aunt Bonnie has been gone 23 years. It is only now, in their absence, I realize how blessed I was to have so many mother figures in my life. They disciplined me and loved me and helped me sort myself out, and I miss them almost more than I can bear. If I could have just one wish this Mother’s Day, it would be to take another road trip with LaVeita and Bonnie and Ethel and Anna Belle. And this time, I would pay attention.
For the first 13 years of my life, I was never more than a short walk from my great-grandmother. Born during the Civil War, she told stories that awakened my love of history—stories like how bushwhackers killed her Uncle Alex for his new gun, and how they left her, a frightened five-year-old, alone to drive the wagon home. She outlived two husbands and all three of her sons, and she wanted to live long enough to put a silver dollar—one penny for each of her 100 years—in the collection plate at church. She missed it by just one year.
My grandmother lived until she was 88, and I was 30. In some ways I was closer to her than mother. I went to her with my secrets, and in the battles with my mother, she always took my side. Until I started school, she took care of me while my mother worked, and, after my grandpa died in 1958, she and Little Granny lived in a small trailer in front of our house. It was there I would sit for hours, listening to stories about how Grandma raised seven children while picking cotton in the Rio Grand Valley and fighting the dust bowl in Oklahoma. She was the soft lap and the big arms of my childhood, and when I try to remember the voices of those women in the car, hers is the one I hear, singing hymns loudly and off-key.
My mother died 12 years ago, and Aunt Bonnie has been gone 23 years. It is only now, in their absence, I realize how blessed I was to have so many mother figures in my life. They disciplined me and loved me and helped me sort myself out, and I miss them almost more than I can bear. If I could have just one wish this Mother’s Day, it would be to take another road trip with LaVeita and Bonnie and Ethel and Anna Belle. And this time, I would pay attention.
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