05.23.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:52 pm by Administrator
There is a family photo that I treasure. Sitting directly in the middle of it is my great-grandfather, Dr. John Henry Jordan, seemingly fully in command as the photographer steadies his lens. My great-grandmother, Mollie, sits on his right, and my grandfather, Edward, who must have been eight at the time, is sitting on his left. There are also three people standing behind them: my great-grandmother’s sister, Gertie, her husband, Joseph Randolph, and some unknown woman. After all these years, my father and I still haven’t been able to figure out who she is. Hmm, a mystery.
Anyway, I have always loved looking at the photo, but now there is one problem: we can’t find it. It had been in my grandmother’s attic for years, the scary attic that was always dark and dank and looked like a bat might fly out of it at any moment. As kids, my two brothers, sister and I avoided it like the plague. If we went up there, it was only with my dad and always in the daytime. At night, it was a different story. My sister and I sometimes scared ourselves, envisioning my great-grandfather’s ghost plodding down the steep stairs leading up to it. In every photo I’ve seen of him, he always looked so self-assured.
Fortunately, I have a xeroxed copy of the missing family photo only because it, along with an accompanying article about my great-grandfather, was published in a book, History of Coweta County, Georgia. But where is that original photo? It dawned on me this week that maybe the Newnan-Coweta Historical Society, who published the book, might have a copy of the original on a disc. I decided to call them yesterday (thank God for the internet where I found the phone number) and was directed by the nice man who answered the phone to a woman who helped engineer the book project. I was immediately able to call her at home and explain the situation. She figures it could be in either one of two places: the historical society’s files or have possibly been forwarded to the offices of the Newnan Coweta Genealogical Society. She has been kind enough to now take on the task of looking for it. I hope and pray she finds it!
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05.16.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:46 pm by Administrator
When I talk to my grandmother, I think to myself, it must be hard getting old. At least that’s what she says. How can it not be? Not only does your body change in so many ways, but life also changes so quickly around you. My grandmother has talked about the difficulty of seeing so many friends and neighbors die, not counting the relatives. Ironically, my grandmother was born in 1912, the same year my great-grandfather, Dr. John Henry Jordan, died. They even lived in the same town. Newnan, Georgia, was smaller than it is now. I wish I could just have a glimpse back into that time. My grandmother’s father, Joshua Willoughby, or Daddy Willoughby as we called him, knew John Henry Jordan. Their paths crossed early on since John was Daddy Willoughby’s mother’s doctor. Daddy Willoughby highly respected John Henry Jordan, my dad says. Little did either man know that they would almost be related one day when my grandmother, years later, married John Henry Jordan’s only son. Daddy Willoughby must have been tickled pink just thinking about it on their wedding day. My grandmother still regales me with stories of how my grandfather wooed her; taking long train rides to visit her at her parents’ house most evenings (they had moved to another part of Georgia by then). He would sit and talk to them on their front porch or play the piano for them until grandmother arrived home from teaching school. I think Daddy Willoughby was probably in awe of John Henry Jordan. While Daddy Willoughby became a successful, self-taught businessman in his own right, he had an affinity for doctors and even owned a pharmacy. It was puzzling to my dad when on his graduation day from medical school, Daddy Willoughby proudly announced: “This is the happiest day of my life.” It confused my dad, but it makes sense to me. Daddy Willoughby finally had a doctor in the family.
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05.13.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:01 am by Administrator
Oh, I love my mother. Of course, I’m no different than anyone else who thinks their mother is extra special. It’s just that my mother put the “m” in the word, and I’m not saying that just because we just celebrated Mother’s Day. She really is a mother to the “nth” degree I like to say. My mother is one of those naturally high achievers who never takes no for an answer. She left home at the age of 18 to attend college out of state where she knew no one but, fortuitously, met my dad. She achieved her childhood dream of becoming a nurse. Then, as if that weren’t enough, she went back to graduate school while having to take care of four, young children, and barely blinked an eye under the weight of it all. When I ask her now how she managed during those times, she always shrugs her shoulders and says: “you just have to be organized.” Could it really be that simple? And, of course, like any wonderful mother, she is convinced her children can do anything. Her newest catch phrase for me is: “I don’t know why somebody doesn’t just publish your book.” The confidence of a mother who never ceases to have faith in her child. I need to let some of that confidence rub off on me.
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05.03.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:33 am by Administrator
When I think about my Granddaddy, I smile. I can’t help it. He loved his grandchildren. You could tell just by the way he looked at us. Plus, my father always says so. My grandfather really had two sets of grandchildren. Two older grandchildren and six of us younger ones due to the age difference between my dad and his older brother. The last time we all got together was 15 years ago at my grandfather’s funeral. I remember my older cousin talking about how my grandfather often made ice cream when she was a kid. All different flavors. He called it “cream.” My sister and I still like to call it that just for the sake of nostalgia. By the time I was born, my grandfather had stopped making the “cream” anymore, but he still had plenty of hugs and smiles left over for me. The older he got, the more senile he became. He was still sweet though; the most precious man you’d ever meet. My grandmother says my father is like him. I think so too, and I’m glad. I still carry a part of my grandfather with me.
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