ALSO KNOWN AS:
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She grew up on the farm, as a child of the times around the turn of the century, and enjoyed playing with the many children of other families in the immediate neighborhood, including the Holloway, Lewis, Cobb, Brown, Dyer and Strickland children.
She was the oldest child in a family of five children. Consequently, she did household chores and helped to "see after" the younger children. She attended school when growing up and was well educated. She also became proficient in playing the organ. As pictures of the time will attest, she was a beautiful young lady.
On Sunday, 13 August, 1911, at the age of 16, she married Jim Brooks, and moved into a farm house 1/4 mile from her parents. Jim farmed here for several years and they began to raise a family.
For their children and their several moves, see the Jim Brooks Page..
We were living in the Section House in town (1932) when I (Gordon) first had memories of Ma Ma and they are sketchy, at best......... However, here are some of my memories of her from that time on.
At one time we had a dog that went 'MAD' (had rabies) and had a "fit", acting crazy and foaming at the mouth. When Mama saw him, she herded all us kids in the kitchen and locked the door. Looking out the window, we could see the dog running up and down the back steps and around on the back porch. Scared us almost to death. I think the dog was "dispatched" when Daddy got home.
Mama always washed clothes on Monday. She used a type of lye soap that she made with the help of a colored woman who lived across the street. We lived by the peanut mill on the edge of colored town.
She worked in the yard and had pretty flowers. She and a colored woman a block and a half away swapped flowers. (I ran into this colored lady many years later. She remembered me and I recognized her)
Mama was pregnant and gave birth to June while we lived at the Section
House.
Mama was something of a practical joker and loved to have fun. See one of
her escapades
at
Annie
Lou's page. Use BACK button to return here.
Mama was a social person and we regularly visited friends and relatives.
Especially, after we moved on First Street, down from the station, the
ladies in the neighborhood would visit back and forth in the afternoon after
the house work was done.
Our home on First Street was in the mist of several other
Brooks/Holloway families.
At one time or another the following families lived close by:
Uncle Olen , Daddy's brother, and Aunt Carrabell Brooks, and children, Margaret and Walter,
lived in the first house on the left of our street by the Methodist Church
and later in the second to last house on the left on the other end of same
street. They were living there when Grandpa Tom Brooks, who was living with
them, died.
Beside Uncle Olen, lived the McClendon family. They had several children but
the only two I remember were Gloria and Colleen, who were about my age. After
they moved back to Cairo, Uncle Sid McCorkle (Annie Lou Brooks' uncle) and
Aunt Bonnie (Mama's cousin) lived there.
Directly across the street from our house, lived Earnest Beckham and wife, Gladys, Mama's
cousin. He died of pneumonia just before Christmas around 1935. We
were over there the day he died so Mama could help out. Someone, I don't
remember who, began teasing me, I was about 6 or 7 at that time, pointing to
Cousin Earnest's boots beside the
fireplace and saying over and over again, that those are a "dead man boots"
and laughing. Scared me half to death. I got out of there and didn't go back
until those boots were gone.
Earnest Beckham was a big squirrel hunter. He was a small person so he could move through the woods easily and quietly. One morning, a few days before he died, he went hunting with a few friends. The day was wet and cold. He already had a cold and when he came in at noon his wife could tell he was much worst off.
She begged him not to go back in the afternoon but he ignored her caution and went again anyway. The next day he had a bad case of pneumonia. There was little that could be done for a person with pneumonia in those days. Three days later he died. Some times it pays to listen to the wife. (Made some points with that comment.)
A good friend of Mama's, Mrs. Mamie Wiggins, lived in the next house on the
left and visited everyday after Mama had her a stroke. A super nice lady.
She rented an apartment from the Davis family..
Next door to our house, lived Surry Beckham and after he left, Thomas and
Lilia Blackshere, their daughter, Betty Jean and Lila's mother moved in.
A word about Surry Beckham. He was a bachelor and a peculiar kind of fellow. He didn't want the neighhood children riding their bicycles on the sidewalk in front of his house. In fact, I remember one Sunday afternoon he tried to poke a stick in the spokes of the wheels as they rode by.
He was a veteran of World War I, and when WWll started he knew that gasoline would be scarce, so he sold his car and bought a two-horse wagon and a pair of mules. I can remember only a few times that he had them out, he could walk any place in town faster than he could go with a wagon.
I don't remember the details but apparently, he and Daddy didn't get along to well. When Mr. Surry put up a fence between our houses, Daddy put up one right along beside it. So there were two fences between the houses, side by side.
Next to him, at different times, lived Albert and Annie Lou, J. R.. and Rushie, and Uncle Willie and Aunt Pearl Holloway.
Mama loved to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon for the cowboy movies.
Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, she loved them all, but I think
that Gene was her favorite.
She was in the theater one Saturday afternoon when she had her first stroke.
It happened around 5 O'clock. She said that it felt like someone had hit her
on her forehead with a hammer and, of course, it effected her thinking. One thing I
remember vividly was, she keep insisting that someone go out and spend the
night with the cow.
She had several more small strokes after that and was partially paralyzed
on her left side. She could not talk plainly but most of the time we could
get the jest of what she was thinking. She could walk slowly with a walker
or with someone holding her arm. This was the situation for the last several
years of her life. It is sad to see a loved one in that condition - really
sad.
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