Times have surely changed

Marlena Adams Holbrook with her three children, Luke, Lauren and Lane. Lauren celebrated her 18th birthday on the 5th.

I have typed and retyped parts of this column so many times this week and have decided to just delete all my negative comments about what is happening right now in our country. So, I am going to try to just stay positive for awhile here this evening and get this column ready. I usually don’t watch the news, but here at Mom’s she watches it and it lures me in. What I see on Facebook is enough to make me mad. Our pastor Bill Jones’s sermon yesterday was about not letting this world and what’s going on in it right now make us live in fear. I guess I should think about this instead of what’s being told on the news.

My husband and I had a conversation with our pastor Sunday after church about our precious mommies. We told him we were taking Mommy her Sunday dinner and he said, “Well, that’s good, she’s done her share of cooking for her family.” We then started comparing our precious mommies.

My mother-in-law, Evelyn Mullins Yonts, and my mom both were stay at home homemakers their whole married lives. Breakfast was put on the table before we got up in the mornings. When we came home from school supper was waiting on us. And these meals weren’t just cereal or something fast. We had homemade biscuits and gravy with just about every breakfast, fresh eggs and home ground sausage or bacon. Our suppers usually consisted of cornbread and garden canned green beans, corn, or potatoes with some kind of meat. I’m sure sometimes she didn’t feel like cooking, but I don’t remember a time not having a meal on the table when we sat down. Can you imagine having to cook and do laundry for seven people?

Linda Cornett with one of her granddaughters Kelli Adams. Linda Cornett had a birthday on the 8th.

Our chores were washing the dishes, hanging the clothes out on the line and bringing them in, then they had to be starched and ironed. Many times you would open the refrigerator and find a big bag of clothes that had been starched and were waiting on us to iron.

Other chores were sweeping and dusting the house. I can’t remember how old I was when we got an electric washer and dryer, but I remember thinking how amazing it was that I could wash something and dry it and wear it the next day. Times surely have changed.

Carol Begley celebrated her birthday on the 9th. She’s pictured her with all of her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren except for one of her great-grandsons, Caiden. Grandkids are Derek, Devin, Keith, Faith and Hope, great-grandkids are Hunter, Jase, Tucker, Lyla, Carson, Kash and Sylvia.

I’m sure lots of our seniors can remember this way of living, too. I would love to be able to listen to Estel Taylor or Lizzie Mae Wright sit and tell of their experiences growing up.

Estel told me one time he was living in his car until Rueben Watts managed to get him an apartment in the housing project. Lizzie Mae told me one time that after her daddy died, her mom took in people’s washing and ironing to get money to raise her kids. I surely do miss Lizzie Mae.

Some of the prayer chain calls that came through today at Mom’s were for Jonathon Richardson, Lesley Richardson, their boys Drew and Clay Richardson, Billie June Craft Richardson and Tom Richardson, all with COVID-19. Jonathon was admitted to WARH Monday evening and Johnny Greene also has been readmitted to the hospital with COVID-19. People that are members of our church, but didn’t contract it there, are Steve and Phyllis Adams and their daughters, Jack Taylor, and Jeff Breeding. It was so good to see Rocky and Denise Yonts, Teresa Caudill Bentley, Kevin Breeding and Bill Frazier back in church Sunday after recuperating from the virus.

April and Carlos Ramirez with their daughter Kassandra. Kassandra turned 18 on the 8th.

Another call was for Joseph Webb; this is Joey Webb’s son. He has been on the prayer chain for a long time. I’m not sure what is wrong with him, but it is serious. Also, Caldonia and Fred Adams’s daughter, Peggy, is in desperate need of our prayers. The families of June Craft, Alpha Profitt Moore, Dan Lucas, and Georgia Adams (we always called her Tootler) really need our prayers too.

Birthdays I saw on Facebook this week were Lauren Holbrook and Betty Frazier on the 5th, Sally Taylor on the 7th, Kassandra Ramirez and Linda Cornett on the 8th, Carol Reynolds Begley on the 9th, and Kelli Lucas Pease and Karen McCauley on the 10th, and Melissa Bates on the 11th.

Remember our pastor and his family and also all the church members.