this is what I know
about my mom
Some hard facts, some stories I heard growing up,
and some memories that Mom and I
think we have
Compiled by Becky Fendley, Mary Jo Martin's daughter
December, 2008
Revised and updated November, 2010
Mary Jo Wilkerson was born on October 21, 1919, in Hearne, Texas (this is a fact), the second of four children born to Herman and Ella (Neyland) Wilkerson. She lived in Hearne until she graduated from Hearne High School in 1936. It would be easy to say that my mom had an “ordinary” childhood and leave it at that, but I do know a few specific facts and some stories about her growing-up years.
Here’s a fact: Mom and her younger sister Joyce just hated having to take their little brother Wallace to the movies on Saturday afternoons. Every time there was a scary part, he would scream at the top of his lungs and hide under the seat, and everyone would look at Mary Jo and Joyce.
Here’s another fact. Mom had her first cigarette when she was 5 with her brother Robert who was 6. A teenager gave them the cigarettes. Mom did not continue smoking.
In may of 2009, Joe Kolb visited with Mary Jo and sent me this email about Mom’s childhood:
Sent: Monday, May 4, 2009 7:03:23 AM
Subject: Joyce and Mary Jo - speech problems as kids
Jo Beth and I stopped by to see Aunt Mary Jo yesterday afternoon. She was very clear-headed!
She mentioned (for some reason that I forget) that both she and Joyce (Mom) had speech problems as kids, “You know, tongue tied.” She said that Granny sent them to a private kindergarten (in Hearne, Texas) because she knew that the teacher would let them talk and help them with their speech. She didn’t remember how long Joyce continued but Mary Jo stayed for two years (Did I get this right, Jo Beth?). She said that at the beginning of 3rd grade the teacher could not understand her when she asked the name of each student. After several tries at telling her her name was Mary Jo and the teacher not understanding, Mary Jo called to her male cousin across the room, Francis Blackstone, “Francis, tell her what my name is.”
Mary Jo said that Uncle Si [her husband] helped her over the years with her speech as she encountered words that she struggled to pronounce.
Joe W. Kolb
[P.S. to the email: Frances Blackstone is a female cousin about whom stories are included below.]
When Mom was about 10 or 12, the Wilkerson house burned. Mom was awakened on a Sunday night by her parents who told everyone to get out of the house, and she and the family stood in the front yard while the house burned to the ground. When he was sure that everyone was out of the house, Mary Jo's dad Herman ran down to the fire station, about 4 or 5 blocks, and drove the fire truck back to the house. By that time, other volunteer firemen had arrived to put out the fire, but the house was a total loss. This was Easter Sunday night, and the family lost all of their new Easter clothes. Mom saved a doll and part of a tea set that I have. The family spent the night with Aunt Fannie. On Monday, a little girl from Mom's class and her mother took Mom some clothes to wear to school. Bad wiring got the blame for the fire.
The Wilkersons lived in a house with a long, straight driveway. My mom learned to drive by backing out of the driveway and pulling back in, backing out of the driveway and pulling back in, backing out of the driveway and. . . This was long before anyone had to get a driver’s license to drive a car. You started driving when you knew how to drive. One Saturday when Mary Jo was 10 or 12, she was visiting with her aunt Lola Wall, Granny’s oldest sister, at her house in Centerville. Aunt Lola loaded everyone into the car and went to town, crossing a dry creek bed on the way. While they were in town, the rain came, and on the way home Aunt Lola found the “dry” creek bed impassable. She went down to a bridge crossing—six planks laid across the creek bed, three for each side of the car—but declared herself completely incapable of aiming the tires at those planks to get across. Enter the invincible Mary Jo! “I’ll drive.” Everyone got out of the car while Mom drove across, then they walked across, got back in the car, and Aunt Lola drove on home.
When in junior high school, Mom was part of a home economics class that was asked to prepare a meal for some special occasion. Under the direction of the teacher, the girls had penned four chickens to be cooked. When the time to cook came, the teacher sent a girl down to get the janitor (this was before public buildings had “custodians”) to wring the chickens’ necks. The janitor came down, picked his first victim, and began twirling it around. All of a sudden, an egg flew out of the chicken! The girls collapsed in waves of laughter, and it was some time before the cooking could continue.
Mom’s childhood was shared in every way possible with her cousin Frances Blackstone whose brother Ralph is the father of Jeannie Almany, a cousin I was friends with as an adult when I lived in Groves, Texas. Mom and Frances went to school together, played together, celebrated holidays together. Anyway, Frances’ family somehow got into the Methodist camp even though everyone else in the extended family was Baptist. In the summer before her junior year of high school when she was 15, the Methodist youth group planned a trip to Monterrey, Mexico. When it became apparent that there would be an extra seat on the bus, Mary Jo got the call to go along. Thank goodness her parents had $15 to pay for the trip! She got to go! The bus was fitted out with wooden benches around the inside walls with a center bench where passengers sat back-to-back. No, it was not air-conditioned. The youth group spent the one night on the road at a Methodist church in Columbus, Texas. It was on this trip that Mary Jo drank her first goat milk. Now there’s a life passage for you! I have some teeny little baskets and a “Mexican yo-yo” that Mom bought as souvenirs on this trip.
Mary Jo and Frances made another trip together in the rumble seat of their aunt and uncle’s car. Julia and Ed Vaughn (Julia was Granddan’s sister) lived in Calvert, in Robinson County. The four of them set off for a few days in Galveston. By noon, Mom and Frances were so sunburned, they had to squeeze into the car for the rest of the trip.
Mom and Frances double-dated to their senior prom. They had dates with "two old boys" whose names Mary Jo doesn't remember. They were not "boyfriends." The prom was being held in the gym at A&M, and these two swanks knew a shortcut to College Station. The four set off from Hearne, took a turn down a dirt road to cut through Mumford, and got stuck. The boys got out and pushed. Then they pushed some more. They rolled up their pants and pushed some more. Mom and Frances and their dates got to the prom in time for the last two dances. Way to go, guys! I'm impressed! These guys didn't stay in the picture very long. Mom had already found out who she would marry when a Ouija board spelled out "Martin." Mom knew that she wasn't going to marry a Martin! The only Martin she knew was some old boy down the road, and she would never marry him! Believe this or not!
Mary Jo and Frances continued their shenanigans at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville where they enrolled after high school. So that they could afford for Mom to go to college, the Wilkerson family moved to Huntsville and opened a boarding house for girls. The family lived on the first floor, and about 16 or 18 girls lived upstairs. Mary Jo and Joyce shared a bedroom. They helped serve meals, but an employee ran the kitchen, so they didn’t cook or wash dishes.
One day while walking around the campus, Mary Jo and Frances stopped to read a poster asking students to join the band. “Let’s join,” says Frances. Never mind that neither of them played an instrument. Mom knew how to read music by virtue of the piano lessons her mom had had her take (“Every young lady should know how to play a little piano.”) The two of them signed up. Mary Jo took up the French horn, and Frances learned to play the trombone! Mom remembers the band escorting the governor’s daughter in a parade, possibly an azalea festival. She’s not sure of the occasion.
Huntsville is near College Station, so the girls always had dates with Aggies. That’s all I know about that.
Sometime during her junior year, Mary Jo and her friends pitched in $10-15 each and bought a car. “What kind of car?” I’ve asked. Mom says, “A Ford. Wasn’t every car a Ford?” The girls painted the car yellow with orange trim and called her Shasta. Shasta have gas and oil, Shasta to be washed, Shasta have proper air pressure in the tires. You get the picture. They took turns using the car, but Mom never drove it much. It was about that time that she met my dad, and she kind of lost interest in the car.
In 1939, Mary Jo had a date with a grad student named Weyman Martin. She had seen him daily as she went to class, passing the windows of the classroom where he was teaching, and she thought he was really cute. Apparently, he noticed her too. He somehow got her name and phone number and called her up and asked her out. Two weeks after their first date, Weyman asked Mary Jo to marry him. She said yes, and she maintains to this day that, had he asked her on their first date, she would have said yes then too. In 1939, a woman's education was pretty much finished when she started being a wife. Married women just didn’t go to college. With this in mind, Weyman and Mary Jo delayed their marriage a year so that Mary Jo could finish her degree.
Remember that Mary Jo was in the Sam Houston band? When Sam Houston played Rice University, the band went early so that everyone could shop in Houston. The band gathered in the Rice Hotel on the second floor before being turned loose on Houston. It was on this second floor before the game that Weyman gave Mary Jo her engagement ring. Mom doesn't remember whether Dad went to the game or whether they did anything special after the game. Mom does remember one after-game event: The band sat in chairs on the sidelines during the game because the stadium was too small to hold them. After the game, which Sam Houston won, the fans all threw their rented stadium pillows (25¢ each) into the air. One hit Mom in the back. Startled, she hollered and started crying, then began laughing when she realized what had happened. A band member, a boy, went over to see if she was OK, and reaching into Mom's uniform pocket, pulled out not a hankie or kleenex, but a stocking that she had on hand for trying on shoes.
As a home economics major, Mary Jo was required to live in the “home demonstration house" for one semester to prove that she could run a house. The students rotated housekeeping tasks. Mom’s turn to cook dinner came around, and Weyman Martin was her guest. The professor, who was known to be very strict in grading, even going so far as to check the trash can for waste, was to be on hand to grade the dinner. Then the cheese burned! What to do? Not a problem. Mom dug a hole in the back yard and buried the cheese so that the prof wouldn’t find it in the trash. Problem solved!
Mary Jo and Weyman were married on August 23, 1940, in the Baptist church in Hearne. Mary Jo’s sister Joyce was her maid of honor. The music teacher at Anahuac High School, Fred Mers, was Weyman’s best man. After the wedding, guests visited with the bride and groom at Aunt Fannie’s (Frances’) house. Mom remembers that punch was served, but she doesn’t remember a cake or other refreshments.
Mary Jo and Weyman kept their eyes on the clock during the wedding reception, knowing that “the boys” would be tinkering with the car. Mom suspected that Frances would also be involved. When they felt they could leave politely, they found that the car had been very tinkered with. A short way down the road, Weyman stopped, got out some pliers, and cut off the tin cans. When they found a gas station, the attendant let Weyman borrow a water hose to wash off all the “just married’s.” But “the boys” had been sly. When Mary Jo and Weyman stopped for gas, Weyman raised the hood to check the oil and found “just married” written on the underside of the hood.
The couple set off for New Orleans. They spent their first night in Lake Charles. Mom remembers sitting on the lakeshore. On the second night of the honeymoon, in Lafayette, Weyman learned that the father of his sister-in-lay, Mildred Ellis Martin, married to Roscoe, had died in Lufkin. Weyman felt he should be at the funeral, so the honeymoon plans were cancelled, and Weyman and Mary Jo drove to Lufkin.
Mary Jo and Weyman made their first home in Anahuac, a small Gulf Coast town at the mouth of the Trinity River in Chambers County, Texas, where Weyman was the high school principal. The couple’s first major purchase for their home was a radio. When the radio salesman found out that they were newlyweds, he gave them a table for the radio as a wedding gift. I grew up with the table, and it is at my house now, having still been in service at Mom’s assisted living residence.
The first year of their marriage, Mary Jo directed the county’s food program for impoverished children. At the beginning of the next school year, a 2nd grade teaching job opened. Mary Jo took the job and spent a lot of time in the restroom between the first and second grade classrooms learning how to teach from the first grade teacher! When school started the next year, she began teaching high school home economics. So that means that my dad was my mom’s principal. She never worked for anyone else.
As a first-year home ec teacher, Mary Jo had a lot to learn. The day came for her students to learn to cut up a chicken. The girls gathered around the table where Mom would demonstrate. She got out a monstrous butcher knife. She made the first cut—and nothing happened. The chicken part didn’t come off. After several failed attempts, a student, a country girl, offered to show everyone how to cut up a chicken. The lesson was saved!
On April 16, 1947, Anahuac High School was racked by the explosion of the Grandcamp, a French ship docked at Texas City, about 25 miles from Anahuac. The ship was carrying 17,000,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive substance used in the manufacturing of fertilizer and in making bombs. Without a clue as to what had happened, Mary Jo had her students got under their desks. She looked into the hall, hoping to find someone who knew what had happened. The principal (her husband) was hurrying to the boiler room across the hall from the home ec classroom, but the boilers were not the problem. It was hours before the citizens of Anahuac got news of the explosion.
Mary Jo and Weyman’s best friends in Anahuac were Bill and Alice Hughes, friends I grew up calling Uncle Bill and Aunt Alice. Mom remembers spending Saturdays with them in the big city of Beaumont where, for $5.00, she could eat lunch, see a movie, and do a little shopping. She has only recently told me that, when she drove to and from Beaumont alone, she smoked to stay awake. This problem with staying awake plagues all the women in our family.
During World War II, my mom knitted sweaters for soldiers one stitch at a time. The woman who recruited volunteers taught her how to knit so that she could help. Mom and Dad also had a weekly one-hour shift with Bill and Alice during which they volunteered with the U.S. Army Air Forces III Fighter Command Aircraft Warning Service. The four of them would climb a ladder to the top of the county court house from which they scanned the skies with binoculars, looking for enemy aircraft. I don’t know how long they did this volunteer work, but I do know that in all their time, they only had to report one suspicious plane. As it turned out, it wasn’t the Japs or the Nazis. I have Dad’s CAP pin and certificates thanking Mom and Dad for their service.
It was also as a young newlywed that Mary Jo took up painting. She never had any formal lessons, but ordered "a little kit" from Sears & Roebuck and followed the directions. I have two oil paintings that she completed before moving on to another hobby.
Mary Jo and Weyman’s first child was born in September, 1949. Mary Joyce, their little daughter, lived only a few hours. Weyman and Mary Jo had been en route to Beaumont for the baby’s delivery (Weyman’s Uncle Johnny Martin who practiced medicine in Beaumont was Mary Jo’s doctor), when it became obvious that they wouldn’t make it. They stopped at the small community hospital in Liberty, and there Mary Joyce was born. (When I was a young woman, my Aunt Mildred Ellis Martin [married to my uncle Roscoe] told me that Uncle Johnny had driven to Liberty when he got word that the baby had been born, and that, at a glance, he knew that something was wrong. Uncle Johnny and Weyman headed to Beaumont with the baby in Weyman’s arms, and she died on the way. My mom doesn’t remember this, so who knows.) Mary Joyce is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont.
One year later, Mary Jo and Weyman had a second daughter, Rebecca Sue (Becky--me), born in October, 1950. In August, Mary Jo and Weyman had moved to Kountze where Weyman had been named superintendent of schools. They lived in a walk-up apartment across the street from the school. Later, they (and I) moved into a very big white frame house that we rented from Connie McElroy and Dolie Bevil, two sisters who lived next door. Connie was the first person I ever knew who was divorced (!). Dolie had never married. In the winter, we all slept in the front bedroom of the house. It was considered the warmest, and we had electric blankets. In the summer, we slept in a big bedroom that had 8 or 10 windows at the back of the house, the cooler room. Mom never put me in the church nursery because she didn’t want to take a turn baby-sitting other people’s kids (Way to go, Mom!).
In 1952, on our way home from a relative’s funeral, our car was broadsided by a drunk driver who ran a stop sign. The car rolled 2 ½ times, and Mary Jo was thrown through the windshield. She spent weeks in a hospital bed at Granny’s house, recovering from a broken pelvis. She continued to complain about her heels hurting. Finally, someone paid attention, and when (s)he looked found gravel imbedded in Mary Jo’s heels. When Weyman was told that she would never walk again, he responded, “You don’t know my wife.” She walked.
In the small town of Kountze, the superintendent and his wife were included in many social events, and Mom was a hostess in return. I guess that from the time I was born until we moved to Orange, Mom had a Christmas open house every year and invited half the town. She made fruitcakes for the occasion and stored them in a giant crock with an apple to keep them moist. She roasted and salted pecans that she and I gathered from the pecan trees in our yard (This sounds very idyllic. Better put this in the fuzzy memories category.). Everyone dressed in holiday clothes and came to call, men and women. When I was five, Mom went back to school at Lamar College in Beaumont to get certified to teach elementary school.
Mary Jo and Weyman’s third child, Weyman Earl, Jr., was born in February of 1958. At about this time, MJ and Weyman built a new house in Kountze on a lot they bought from Connie and Dolie across the street from the big frame house. An architect in Beaumont drew the plans, and Mr. Work, who lived out on Village Mills Road, was the contractor. In the year that I began second grade, Mom started teaching first grade. When I was in second grade, she started a troop of Brownies. I think that 8 girls were in the group. I remember Celeste, of course, Kay Kelley, Valda Hendrix. When we all got to 5th grade, we turned into Girl Scouts. As a Brownie, I crocheted red slippers and made a ditty bag. We took a penny hike around our neighborhood. Celeste credits her unusual knowledge of Texas flora to the scrapbook of leaves we gathered and identified.
Do you think that my mom gathered any stress points during this time? Let’s see, new house, new baby, new job, new Brownies troop. How did she do this?
In 1962, the family moved to Orange, and Weyman became the superintendent of the Little Cypress Independent School District. At that time, Mary Jo began teaching first grade, the job from which she retired after 30+ years of teaching. When Weyman, Jr. started school, the elementary principal and the superintendent (Dad) decided that it would be easiest all the way around for him to be in Mom’s class. So he was. Mom's influence in Weyman's life continued into high school as she encouraged him to complete the requirements for Eagle Scout.
My mom is a champion at anything that's done with a needle. She could make a set of eight place mats with matching coasters in a day, then use the scraps to cover anything that needed covering: the calculator, toaster, frying pan handle, outside ceiling fan blades, outdoor furniture, the grill. Probably best known for sewing, she made every formal gown I ever wore beginning with the dresses Celeste and I wore as flower girls in Paula Kay Bracken's wedding in Kountze when we were three years old. She made dresses again for Celeste and Susan Coats and me when we were about eight, again for the May Fete celebration, though neither Celeste nor I can remember our roles. When I was in fourth grade, I was a May Fete duchess, then when we moved to Orange in my seventh grade year, I was some kind of duchess in some kind of event. For every single one of these occasions, ending with a yellow semi-formal dress copied from a Gus Mayer ad in the Beaumont Enterprise when I was a high school junior, Mom copied a picture from a newspaper or magazine and pretty much made my dresses from scratch. For my junior and senior year proms, she sewed from Vogue patterns, but when it was time for a wedding dress, it was back to a magazine picture. Of course she made all my clothes until I began sewing for myself as an adult, and she made all of her clothes. In addition, Mom crocheted, did needlepoint and cross stitch and embroidery, and knitted. She crocheted a rag rug, probably 10 feet in diameter, for the new house in Orange when we moved there. When I was in my late twenties, Mom announced that she was tired of whatever handwork she was doing at the time and thought she'd try knitting, which she hadn't done since World War II. She not only picked it right up, but within a few weeks had joined an advanced knitting class in Beaumont taught by a church friend of mine. She completed several sweaters which I wore for years before she moved on to something different.
When Mom was 80, she let it be known that "some new talent" would be revealed at Christmas. We were all floored when I opened a small gift and found an angel. Mom had taken up carving! She learned about different kinds of wood, found a hobbyist in Orange to mentor her, and began producing carvings for the whole family. Amazing! As people began to hear about her carving, they asked to see it, and several asked her to make specific pieces for them to buy. She never did any commissioned work, preferring to do what she wanted to do and to give the pieces away. On one occasion, she did an exhibit at the Methodist church where she talked to a women's group about her work. She did her last carving at about age 88 when her arthritic hands made it too difficult to continue. It was at this time that she began crocheting again. All of the family and many of our friends now wear Mom's caps in many different styles and colors. Several boxes of caps went to M.D. Anderson for cancer patients, and several boxes went to Boston for the "hat tree" at a friend's church.
After Mom retired and had time to do other things, she put together stamp collections for Kate and Madeline and Andrew, her grandchildren. She collected all the states quarters from 2004 through 2008 for them. She reorganized photos into archival quality albums, and, mostly, she took care of my dad, her senior by eight years.
In 2004, with her own health failing and Dad's continuing decline, Mom moved to Columbus with Dad as Dave and I built a new house south of town. At first, most of her time was spent caring for Dad. Following his death, she rediscovered reading, became an avid domino player, and continued handwork, most notably crocheting. In May of 2008, she drove her car for the last time, having become a less confident driver and finding it more and more difficult to get in and out of the car. I credit her with wonderfully good sense in recognizing when it was time to give up driving.
Mom's greatest influence was undoubtedly on my brother Weyman and me, but she was also widely remembered by her students. While still living in Orange, she would regularly be stopped in the grocery store by a former student who recognized her and wanted to reminisce about his days in first grade. In 2008, as I write this, she still receives phone calls and cards from former students of Anahuac High School, though she has outlived most of them.
Mom and Dad were life partners in every way. Mom never had a close friend as I think of close friends except for Dad, but she had an active social life and many people admired her. They saw her as quiet and kind and gracious. She was all of that but with an iron will that few people ever saw. She had strong opinions that were seldom expressed. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I heard her say “damn” on one occasion, proving that she was as human as the rest of us.
Mom aged with grace and good humor, laughing easily about the goofy things she said and did as her memory failed. She terrorized the residents at assisted living with her motorized wheelchair and once pinned me to the wall when she backed up. I did not take this graciously. When I chided her about paying attention to what was behind her and stopping sooner so that she didn’t run into and damage antique furniture and tear off door facings, she commented that running into something was her signal to stop! One of my life’s goals is to emulate her grace in growing old and to laugh at myself for as long as I can. It certainly worked for my mom.
Mary Jo would have made a good pioneer. She could find a good, practical solution to any problem. She lost her home to fire, she lost a child at birth, she rebounded from a serious accident and walked again after being told she never would. She made clothes and cooked and made a great home for her family. She endured pain at the end of her life with inner strength and grace. I can almost see her riding across the prairie in a covered wagon, taking one day at a time and dealing with each vicissitude of travel with spirit and determination.
Mary Jo Wilkerson Martin died on November 18, 2010, in Columbus, Texas at the age of 91.
