Meddye's Mettle

Considering the Lilies, and Meddye’s Mettle

A few mornings ago, after deciding which bills had to be paid now and which ones could wait till the next paycheck, I posted my Facebook status as “considering the lilies.” Immediately, one friend replied, “they toil not, neither do they spin” and another responded with a YouTube video of the beautiful British actress Lillie Langtry (1853-1929).
As I pondered my own situation, I thought about my godmother, Meddye Willis (born Aug. 5, 1891), just as elegant, though not as scandalous, as Lillie Langtry. Her life wasn’t always easy, but I never saw her spin and toil. She was a gracious lady not just in the eyes of the Gracious Ladies of Georgia committee who named her an official one of them in 1983, but in the eyes of all of us in Lower Russell County who looked up to her and depended on her.
After her legs were injured badly in a wreck – thanks to her penchant for multi-tasking, she had a few of those -- she wore long skirts and Victorian blouses with high necks; her hair was always pinned up and her face was always “made.” In appearance, she reminded me of Charles Dickens’ Miss Haversham. Dressed in her matriarchal finery, she ran Jernigan Methodist Church from a chair at her big cluttered desk in the large sunroom of her lovely home. No matter how little money there was in the church bank account, she always managed to raise enough donations to keep Jernigan Methodist up and running, though it had only a dozen living members. She never let a little thing like lack of funding hold her down or close the church.
I don’t know much about her early life. Mama tells me she was born in Oklahoma, Meddye Tipton. At some point, she came from Texas to Columbus in a wagon and ended up in what used to be Hog Island or Loftin, Alabama, an area between Cottonton and Fort Mitchell. She had the resolution of a ninja. Mama laughs about a younger Meddye moving an R.C. Cola truck out of the parking space she wanted one day when they were in Columbus. Apparently, the truck had parked in the space Meddye usually used, so she got out of her car, climbed up into the R.C. truck and moved it, freeing her parking space. That was typical Meddye.
She was married to Otis Alonza Willis, called “Cap’n Otis” by everyone who knew him. Apparently, he inherited the house and land they lived on from his family. Being young, I never thought to ask about their pasts. What mattered to me as a child was that he always snuck me chewing gum at church, and that he got in trouble sometimes with Meddye for reading the newspaper and eating peanuts during the preacher’s sermon. Even though he died when I was still quite young, I remember his white, white hair. For a time, Meddye taught school and also had a country grocery store on the dirt road behind their house. She was a self-taught businesswoman: Daddy remembers her taking “a bunch of collard greens and an old rooster named Buddy” as collateral for some money she loaned somebody. She did just fine without an MBA.
When twelve-year-old best friends, Lynne and I, joined Jernigan Methodist Church, she stood between us with an arm around each of us. At that awkward age, we had a tendency to be silly and to find everything around us funny. That day was no different. But once Meddy got her arms around us, if we so much as looked at each other or seemed tempted to giggle or take lightly what we were entering into, she bore her fingers into us in that tender area under our arms. After the ceremony, she gave us each a gift -- to keep safe in our Hope Chests till our honeymoons, she said. She handed us lacey pillowcases, along with instructions on how we were to dress in beautiful negligees and fix our hair while waiting for our grooms to come out of the bathroom after our weddings. When she called them ‘virgin pillowcases,” we were both dumbstruck. Something finally overwhelmed us enough to make us behave for the rest of the day, although we whispered and giggled hysterically later about those unexpected pillowcases.
Meddye’s house, originally a log house, was the prettiest house I have ever seen, every room of it. Yet nothing in it was particularly expensive, nothing ostentatious, nothing from a “matched set.” Her kitchen was pink. Her sunroom was filled with plants, palms, ferns, and vines that trailed along and around windows and walls. Her dining room was formal, and when she set the long shiny dining room table, it was with fine china and silver, but what made it outstanding was that though each element on the table was fine, nothing matched. She set each place with a different china pattern, and used different silver patterns at each place setting. Everything complemented everything else. In her bedrooms, the stuffed chairs had little pleated skirts, as did the dressing tables. Nothing was “pre-coordinated,” but everything was pretty. The pictures on the walls in her hall were originals – painted by Meddye herself. Her daughter Mildred gave me one of them after her mother died. It hangs in my own sunroom now as do two china plates, the only two remaining pieces of her china that came with her from Texas in the wagon. She asked me when I married what gift I would like from her, and I asked for something that was hers, nothing bought. She gave me the plates.
Meddye simplified things. Once when I complained in Sunday school that the Bible was confusing to me, she told me, “for now, just read what’s in red then.” She didn’t get bogged down. She always named her dogs “Peggy” or “Cindy.” She mastered life. It didn’t get the best of her, regardless of circumstances. Even her advice was simple and easy to follow, such as “always choose a chair to sit on that complements your outfit.” I long ago forgot Boyle’s Law and what Pi stands for but I still scan the upholstery upon entering a room before I take a seat.
When she was in her 90s, she said that one of the advantages of getting old was that the young men could kiss her now without their wives getting jealous. And kiss her they did! At her request, we sang “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” at her funeral.
So I considered the lilies of the field and I remembered Meddye and her fortitude, and I got up to meet the day.
Copyright: Marian Carcache November 5, 2009