Down in Jackson, Fannie and Howard McGhee have marked Mother's passing with a memorial gift to the Old Ladies Home of that city, a gesture which takes on added significance when we recall how close this institution was to Mother's heart.
For many years, she and the late Mrs. A. G. Payne plugged the cause of the home, solicited funds and, if we go back far enough, staged an annual Children's Fancy Dress Ball at the local Elks Club, with the proceeds going to the Old Ladies Home in Jackson.
So we know Mother would be pleased by this gift from the McGehees, and a similar one by Edwina and Jimmy Blackmon.
Fannie May McGehee is a member of the board of directors and spends considerable time at board meetings as well as making personal visits to the dear ladies themselves. Four of whom are special pets of hers, and all four of them are Presbyterians!
She lists them as the Vaughan Sisters from the Gulf Coast, Miss Susie and Miss Fannie, cultured, aristocratic, and interesting, both in their eighties; Mrs. Winfield (E. B. Kitchens will remember her), whose husband once headed Gulf Coast Military Academy; and Miss Annie Dowd, who is something extra special to Mrs. McGehee (and to Old Stuff too), being how she's 95 and, though blind, the happiest person Fannie has ever known, and still going strong.
We quote:
"Miss Annie is a blessing to the Old Ladies Home, and the calming influence of her gentle, radiant spirit affects all those around her." end quote.
All this comes home to Old Stuff because Miss Annie Dowd was a Presbyterian missionary to the Far East for at least half of her life and her brother. Mr. Frank Dowd who was Daddy's friend, was similarly dedicated. Our beloved Cousin Margaret Powel of Hernando was engaged to marry Frank Dowd, who died not long before their wedding day. Had his life been spared, Cousin Margaret would have gone with him to the mission field.
Incidentally, when Wade and Mary Helen Howell were stationed on the West Coast during the war, they had some service friends named Clark, and Mrs. Clark, before her marriage, had been Mary Lee Dowd, a niece of the Miss Annie aforesaid.
Speaking of 98, our friend Mr. Sterling Price Reynolds of Caruthersville, Missouri, passed that identical milestone himself on Monday last and still blessed, by the Giver of Every Perfect Gift, with all his faculties.
Chief Engineer of his Levee Board and Little River Drainage District, "Danny" (for S. P.) ought to be Missouri U's oldest living graduate even if he isn't, He was a classmate of Greenville's Eli Everette Bass, and a frat brother (Beta Theta Pi) to boot. And he has flesh and blood in Greenville, in his daughter Kathryn (Mrs. Lyman) Reed and her son Clarke.
Clarke Reed carries A memory of his grandfather which isn't far out of line with the legends of Paul Bunyan. It was some year's back that Clarke was with a survey party, clearing right of way for Pemiscoll County's levee board, when Danny gave him a demonstration in the proper handling a Kyzer blade.
Mr. Reynolds was past eighty at the time. He drew a bead on a four-inch pecan sprout and felled it with one stroke of his blade.
And speaking of birthdays, another fine old friend is celebrating her's this same week in Memphis. We refer to Mrs. Margaret (for "Maw') Winsett, well-known in Greenville as a frequent guest in the home of her daughter Mary Nell (and "Bones") Barcroft.
Mrs. Winsett raised a family of nice children, all of whom will he honoring her as she reaches for the middle nineties this week, and there will be grard- and great-grandchildren there too.
-BC.
