My Extraordinary Ordinary Life (5 page)

In those days Pancho Villa was roaming the Mexican border, terrorizing Texas settlers. Although Villa never quite reached Mission, he came close enough. Once Papa was showing some property in his Model T, and a bullet went right through his hat, missing his head by a hair. It was a wild time in the valley. Gangs of thieves would break into homes while the owners were off at church. The outlaws would pile the valuables on the bed and make bundles out of the blankets and sheets to carry off the loot.

It was a hardship for Elizabeth, living on the remote, primitive ranch while she was pregnant with their third child. Papa installed, at great expense, a telephone line from town, so that she could call the doctor when her time came to deliver. But when she went into labor, the doctor couldn’t be found anyway. She gave birth to my uncle Newton right on the ranch, with help from her visiting brother-in-law, who happened to be a physician.

As soon as the infant was old enough to travel, she took baby Newton and the older children on the train back home to Mississippi. From there she sent her husband a letter, refusing to return until she had a place to live in town. T-Holl found a house in Mission the next day. After his family returned, Papa moved on from ranching to land trading.

My mother, Virginia, was born in 1917, followed six years later by Wade, the baby of the family. My mom was a beautiful young girl with thick, dark hair, dimples, and a set of slightly crooked front teeth that protruded a bit beneath her upper lip. She begged not to have to wear braces because she had heard that they could rot all her teeth and make them fall out (a realistic fear back in those days). And so all her life Mother had a tiny flaw in her smile that became part of her charm. She was a good student and loved music, but for some reason she hated piano lessons so much that she would hide behind the piano when the teacher arrived. She idolized her siblings and her parents, particularly her father. She told us that when she was a little girl she got God, Santa Claus, and her daddy all mixed up.

The Spilmans were a gracious, happy family even though their lives were complicated and sometimes tragic. When Mother was a toddler, both of her grandfathers decided to ride the train down to Mission to visit the family. As soon as they arrived, T. Holl offered to take everybody out for a spin in the Model T. The story goes that T. Holl was standing in front of the Ford, cranking the engine, when it suddenly caught, and the car lurched forward. Joseph Holliday tried to stop the car and was crushed under its wheels. He died from his injuries a few weeks later. My grandfather broke his leg in the accident and walked with a cane for the rest of his life.

From the stories our mother told us about growing up in that large family, it’s a wonder any of them survived to adulthood. One afternoon Big Mama invited a group of women over for a special tea. Her four young children were instructed to go outside and play, and under no circumstances were they to interrupt while she had company. The kids started playing out in the field where they kept a little mule, and somehow young Newt got on the wrong side of him and was knocked out cold. The other children debated for a while what to do; they had been told not to go into the house under any circumstance. Finally they got up their courage and knocked on the door. “We’re sorry to disturb you, Mama, but Newt’s been knocked unconscious for a long time,” they told Big Mama, who screamed and came running. Somehow Newt survived and lived to a ripe old age.

Wade, the youngest, also had more than his share of close calls. When Mother was about eight years old, she was left to babysit Wade, who was still a toddler. She was trying to get him to sleep, but he kept fussing and fussing, getting out of his crib and asking for a glass of water. Finally she told him, “All right, Wade. I’ll get you a glass of water, but if I do you’ll have to drink every drop of it and then go to bed.” On her way to the kitchen, she saw a glass of water on the mantel, grabbed it, and made him drink it down. But the glass on the mantel wasn’t filled with water like she thought, it was filled with clear coal oil. She shuddered telling us how sick it made that baby, and how he nearly died from the poison. But Wade bounced back and grew up tall and athletic, and never seemed to hold the coal-oil incident against her.

After they moved to Texas, the Spilmans never had much money, but they loved one another, and by all accounts had a wonderful life. T. Holl adored his wife; always gave her a kiss when he left the house and when he returned. They were never known to argue, even about politics, although their views were diametrically opposed. She was a yellow dog Democrat, and he was a Republican. Every Election Day, my grandfather would link his arm in hers and say, “Come, Elizabeth. Let’s go to the polls and cancel each other’s votes.” And that’s just what they did. Even after they lost almost everything, they lived out their lives in threadbare gentility.

T. Holl had invested in land all over the Rio Grande Valley, but he was a notoriously bad businessman. What land he kept was leased out to tenant farmers. He was a generous landlord—some say to a fault. He lent his farm equipment to anyone who needed it. You could see it parked in fields all over the valley. And he didn’t have the heart to kick families off his property for nonpayment. So when the Depression hit, the banks foreclosed on most of his holdings. He ran for justice of the peace in Mission, and his only income during those years was his civil servant’s salary and the small fees he’d charge for marrying couples, usually right in his own living room. They called him “The Marrying Judge.”

My parents met on a blind double date in Mission, Texas, in 1938. My dad was a dashing employee with the South Texas Chamber of Commerce; my mom was a darling, spirited young woman finishing business college. Mother wasn’t even my dad’s date—she had been set up with his friend. Daddy was driving and it was dark, so he only occasionally caught a glimpse of her tucked into the backseat of the car. But once he heard her soft, musical voice, he was smitten. “That’s the girl I’m going to marry,” he told himself. But he was working under a slight disadvantage. It was hot in the valley, and on a dare from a buddy, probably after a drink or two, he’d shaved his head. And he was being transferred to another job, in another town outside of the valley, in two short weeks, so he had to move fast. Fortunately for him, my mother thought his bald head was cute. After a brief courtship, they were married in the Methodist Church in Mission, on a sweltering hot August afternoon. Just as the pastor was asking, “… if any of you know just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace,” the bride and groom were startled to hear one loud crash after another, as the candles arranged behind the pulpit slumped over in the heat and tumbled to the floor.

The newlyweds moved to Abilene, but didn’t stay long. Daddy kept transferring to new positions all over Texas until World War II broke out and he joined the army air corps. While Daddy was in the army, Mother moved back home with her parents in Mission, where my brother Ed was born in 1944. When Ed started talking, he couldn’t understand why his mother was always calling his grandmother “Mama.” So to keep things straight, he called his mother Little Mama and his grandmother Big Mama. Before long, everybody was calling our grandmother “Big Mama.” It must have started sounding like a Tennessee Williams play inside those white clapboard walls.

Mother’s younger brother, Wade, inherited his family’s gentle spirit, good looks, and easy way with people. She was as close to him as I was to Robbie and Ed. Wade was a champion tennis player and a junior at the University of Texas when he volunteered for the infantry. He was sent to the European theater, where he quickly worked his way up the ranks to sergeant. Mother wrote him several times a week, and even got some letters back. Then suddenly his letters stopped coming, and the army sent a telegram declaring him “missing in action.” Big Mama retreated to her bedroom and barely came out for the next five months. Nobody in the family told her when all of their letters were returned in bundles stamped “Deceased” and a telegram confirmed his death. My mother never gave up hope that Wade might be a prisoner, and she would sneak over to a neighbor’s house to listen to ham radio reports of American prisoners being liberated across Germany. Then, in the late spring of 1945, the phone rang and it was Wade, calling from a hospital in France. He was gravely ill but alive. As Mother had hoped, Wade had been rescued from a German POW camp.

After he was shipped home, Wade married his sweetheart, Arlette Fowler, a vivacious, whip-smart girl from Austin. He went on to law school at UT and became an influential member of the Texas State Legislature.

Shortly after he left the service, my dad was offered the job in Quitman as a county agriculture agent with the Texas A&M Extension Service, advising farmers on the best crops to plant and how to eradicate weeds and pests. Quitman was so far north in Texas that Mother’s family teased her about living way up in “Yankeeland.” Our family was a long way from the Mexican border, but every year at Christmas, we would join the whole Spilman family at my grandparents’ home in Mission.

Papa and Big Mama still lived in the rambling old wood frame bungalow where Mother was born. It had been added to piecemeal over the years. When they first moved there, the roads were still dirt. But by the time I arrived on the scene, there were sidewalks and fat palm trees lining the paved street. During our weeklong visits, the whole family slept in a guest room at the front of the house. In the morning we’d wait until we saw the light under the kitchen door that meant Big Mama was already up cooking breakfast. Then we’d creep through the sleeping house, across the breezeway, and into the kitchen.

“Would you all like some orange juice?” she would ask.

We’d all three nod our heads in unison.

“Well then, climb on up in the tree and pick some.”

“Okay, Big Mama,” we’d say, and we’d tear out of the kitchen as fast as we could go.

There were huge orange and grapefruit trees in the yard right by the kitchen door. The best orange tree had low branches that you could climb up like a monkey. We’d each bring back an armful of fruit and watch Big Mama squeeze it right in front of us. Sometimes she’d slice up some grapefruit that we’d scoop out with the silver spoons she kept in a special glass in the middle of the table. Now I have that glass of spoons in my kitchen in Virginia. It was the thing I wanted most to remind me of Big Mama.

The kitchen table was enormous—to us kids it seemed as long as an aircraft carrier. All the family could fit around it, and we’d gather there for every meal.

I loved my aunt Arlette dearly—and still do—but there was a time when we locked horns over a tray of Christmas cookies. Every year Big Mama slaved in the kitchen making her Southern delicacies for the family to enjoy—biscuits, fried chicken, roasts, and pies. Every afternoon after the family dinner Big Mama set out trays of homemade sweets. As Arlette tells the story, I would come by, pick up a cookie or piece of cake, take one bite, and put it back. One day, after I had ruined four or five cookies and was coming back for more, Arlette decided to put a stop to it.

“Sissy,” she said, “Big Mama has worked her fingers to the bone to make those for us. Eat as many as you want, but if you taste one, you have to finish it.”

I looked at her sideways, then picked up a piece of fruitcake.

“I’m telling you, if you bite that, we’re gonna sit here until you’re done eating it.”

We were eye to eye. I nibbled a small piece, then put it down, never taking my eyes off of her.

“Okay, Sissy. You and I are going to sit here until that’s eaten.”

I sat down. The rest of the family cleared out, but Arlette and I sat there, the piece of fruitcake between us. It was like the Old West and we were gunslingers. An hour went by. Finally Arlette gave up in defeat. Little did she know that if it had been a sugar cookie, she would have worn me down in seconds. But I hate fruitcake and always have.

Big Mama loved all children and drew them to her like a magnet. She saved us bowls of trinkets that she’d collect from cereal boxes and would have them waiting for us by the front door as soon as we walked in. My brothers and I would fight for position next to her when she read us stories from
Boys’ Life
magazine. I was so little, I used to just lay on top of her while we all snuggled on the couch.

Papa was fifteen years older than Big Mama, and was going blind from glaucoma toward the end of his life. What I remember best about him were his hands, which danced lightly over my face and ponytail whenever I ran up to greet him. It was his way of seeing me. Because Papa was so much older than Big Mama, he never expected to outlive her. And nobody could believe it when she died after a short illness at age sixty-one. I traveled with my mother down to Mission to see her before she died. Big Mama always had beautiful long hair, but when she took to her sickbed she cut it off into a blunt bob. It looked so strange to me. That’s probably why I never want to cut my own hair. I remember her looking up from her bed and smiling at me, and that was the last time I saw her. Papa died a year and a half later.

I was too young to really understand what death was when I lost three of my grandparents, all within a couple of years. I just knew that for a while I had them, and then they were gone. During this time, my mother also lost two babies. Yet I never remember her complaining, or even being cross with us. She had a strong faith, but not a completely conventional one. Even though we attended church every Sunday, my mother never bought into the traditional view that God was an external deity who ruled his kingdom from above. She always told me, “The kingdom of heaven is within,” and “God is love,” not restricted to any religion. A thumb-worn copy of Norman Vincent Peale’s
The Power of Positive Thinking
was always nearby. She believed that what happens to you in this world isn’t as important as how you respond to it. She could find God in the daily routines of life, and I must have absorbed those lessons from her, because it’s what I believe. I find the divine in the ordinary, a miracle in every breath. And like her, I try to keep things simple.