REFLECTING ON 76

 

TODAY I AM 76

Perhaps this should be a day of reflection. My husband and many of my friends have already passed away.  One day this will be a voice to those I leave behind. That happens suddenly and you don't know how soon or how late the voice will be needed.  I know I am blessed. I had a wonderful mother and father. I am close to my sister and brother. God blessed Joe and me with three children and five grandchildren all of whom I am extremely proud. 

My youngest daughter has decided I am (OCD) because I obsess over things. She lists:

1. PHONICS-- I must admit that was a serious focus of my life--to get Systematic, Direct, and Early (SIDE) phonics back in our schools. I ran for chairman of school board twice. I lost once to a doctor who "had a heart for education" (and the backing of the school system which had "too much invested" in the current methodology to change). And once to the president of the university in Dothan who hired the professors who trained our teaches in what they had based their careers upon--Whole Language. Not much hope for change there. One principal told me "they would laugh the teachers off the playground if taught not to say "aint." (And that relates to reading how?)

2.  Somehow reading proficiency became political. I was shocked and amazed at how the powerful political onslaught, a massive offensive appeared and, we discovered, had spread throughout the country. That got me involved in politics and I joined the Republican Women. 

3. FRENCH HANDSEWING--I did manage to create two Christening gowns and several smocked outfits (Mary Strickland and Elizabeth Wheelock were excellent instructors). 

Lily Butterworth on balcony at Wakefield and in Christening gown.

Megan and Molly Evans in Christening gowns I made. 

 My children, Cecily and Drew stand  with Lucy Lee and others whose parents names I remember, but I cannot remember theirs. As I said, I am 76 with an atrophying brain. I am told that is normal. 

Planning for the Fashion Show of Heirloom Clothing.

 

Susan Livingston, Tommy Weatherford and Sharman Ramsey 

Elizabeth Wheelock, Debbie Wilson, Lynn Isler, Margaret Watson, and Sharman Ramsey 

There were many of us handsewing at that time. So, as chairman of the Girls Club Board, I decided that a good fundraiser would be a fashion show of heirloom garments. It was beautiful and quite successful. And it was the beginning of a series of fashion shows that became a bit of a tradition for awhile. I was appointed to the board of the Girls Club originally by the Dothan Service League. Mother had been a member and I was honored to be invited.

4. QUILTING--Great hobby for when one is recuperating from hip or knee surgery.

5. GENEALOGY--So, now my sister and I are members of the the Shawnee Heritage, Magna Charta Dames, Jamestown Society, Mayflower Society, Colonial Dames, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Confederacy, and if there were such an organization, children of WWI and WWII patriots. Though I have tried to get a historical society started, most of those interested have passed away. I was able to access a lot of genealogy books when I went with my attorney husband to take depositions around the South. He would park me in a library where I would happily while away the time until he picked me up to go eat dinner or supper.

6. WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION (Creek Indian family saga), COSY MYSTERIES (MINT JULEP SERIES), CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S FICTION  (CHOICES AND SECRETS), WAKEFIELD PLANTATION: HISTORY AND COOKBOOK, AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES mainly for lifestyle magazines. Oh yes, my website (southern-style.com) and this blog. 

Historical Fiction  THE CREEK FAMILY SAGA

Cozy Mystery

CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S FICTION

6. YOU TUBE--I admit to being obsessed with the Nancy Guthrie Case. I want to know the "rest of the story." For a while I was obsessed with the Karen Read trials. REVENGE WITH MAYA got me hooked, but the  names just got shuffled and the plots shifted from one occupation to another (really just podcasts, but fun to listen to). And now I am watching the DUNCOMBE HOUSE DIARIES (really a fun show in a beautiful part of England). When I need  to just chill, I watch the competition baking shows my granddaughter Molly and I enjoy. 

7. GARDENING-- And now, in my declining years, I am obsessed with gardening. 

I am an avid watcher of GARDEN ANSWER (Laura and Aaron in Eastern Oregon, the mother of all gardening shows),  DIG, PLANT, WATER,  REPEAT (9B IN CALIFORNIA (Janie and Jason). We are 9A in Dothan. GARDENING WITH CREEKSIDE (Jenny and Jerry in North Carolina) grow good Southern plants and work along side Southern Living Plants and Proven Winners. I order a lot of plants from Gardening with Creekside. They are a grower and retail operation close enough to my zone that I feel relatively safe buying from there. 

I also love everything Allen Titmarch does. He has a new house and is now designing his backyard in England (GARDENING WITH ALLEN TITMARCH). HAPPINESS GARDEN is a fantastic place to find curatives to a lot of plant ailments. 

I am growing Amaryllis from seed (they take two to three years to develop bulbs). Yesterday, I started a new flower bed in the back yard by dividing one amaryllis. My shaded, patchy grass is dwindling. 

Look at the Vitex blooms next to the Japanese Magnolia.  So pretty!

My granddaughters love to go to Dothan Nurseries and the Botanical Garden. When my oldest, Lily, comes again, we are going to take a field trip to Ozark to the Neighborhood Daylily Farm. My mother (Jean Gillis Burson) and my grandmother (Eunice Jernigan Gillis) were both gardeners. My mother could do anything but always felt inadequate because she did not go to college. She went to nursing school and won a battle ribbon for her service at the Battle of the Bulge. Then she joined mail order book clubs and read about anything and everything. She was self-educated with intellectual things as well as gifted with creative endeavors. Mother started a children's garden club for me and my friends--the Daffy Dillies. We met in my playhouse a former air conditioner container. She took me with her on her yearly visits to the daylily farm in Headland. I guess that jumpstarted my love of plants. 

I am trying to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Currently, I have only seen a very chubby squirrel, a redbird and his wife.

Do you think the signage with the metal butterfly and caterpillar is enough of an invitation. Maybe the lantana and butterfly weed.

6. One of my favorite Magazines must be SOUTHERN LIVING. Their recent one, April 2026, I guess, is my favorite. It presents Southern food so well! ENGLISH HOME and ENGLISH GARDEN follow a close second.  Now inspired I think I will start cooking these old favorites in my 

my newly painted Blue Kitchen.

 

I love Peter Rabbit! Williams Sonoma

My new blue kitchen

Bird Watching Chair and recipe book collection

Redesigned and painted Pantry/Utility 

Gardening does not end with the back door. 

Oh, I forgot to mention Bridge and Mahjong. The square table reminded me. 

The window above the epergne was Joe's mother's.  She saved it from her mother's home on S. St. Andrews. She and her boys enjoyed watching the Peanut Festival gather on the street in front of that house. 

  I have been in the hospital twice since the beginning of the year (2026) and have just been too tired, and honestly apathetic,  to think of anything worth writing about. But, now, I am inspired by the garden shows I watch and the beauty of God's world which is truly a balm for body and soul. 

7.  SINGING My favorite hymns are those I once sang in church: How Great Thou Art, The King is Coming, The Via Dolorosa, I Come to the Garden Alone, The Prayer, and a new favorite is I Can Only Imagine. I enjoyed leading First Baptist Music classes for preschool children and participating in the Adult Choir for many years before I could not climb the steps any longer.  

8. GOD. Where does God fit into this? I hope I managed to instill the trust in and love of God that I myself know. I depend upon him every day and begin every day with a Bible study on You Tube since my mobility is now limited and I cannot make it to church. He has forgiven me much. 

Oh, yes, I  also led the Brownies and Cub Scouts when my children were young. I started a Legal Auxiliary but one of our presidents let it fizzle. I belong to a garden club founded in 1938. I belong to a luncheon/study club founded around the same time. This was what women of my generation do. 

9. Panama City became a serious obsession when Joe and I bought our townhouse, condo, and little blue house down there and joined the Yacht Club. I started a luncheon group we named BOOBS (BUNCH OF OLD BROADS). 

I served as president of the St. Andrew Bay Yacht Club Auxiliary. I joined the Panama City Women's Club, the Bay Point Women's Club, served on the Bay County Library Foundation Board and Books Alive. Panama City was a wonderful place for Joe and me and brought us many treasured friends. Then came Hurricane Michael, my two hip replacements and one knee replacement and Joe's Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus and Alzheimers that brought us back to our Dothan family. 

He passed away at home on November 20, 2020, the same date and age his own father died. He had predicted it. We had sold our home on Cherokee in 2016. So, coming back to Dothan, no longer lived in the Garden District (an appellation the Garden District Garden Club, which I started, had acquired for our area) where we lived together for 36 years and where Joe had grown up. We had to buy a new home when we returned. I now lived in Grove Park and Cecily, my oldest daughter, having gotten divorced just in time to help me with her father at the end of his life, now lived with me. 

At 76, having fought the good fight, I am tired. My father dealt with Parkinson's, suffered an aortic aneurism, and died at 93.  Mother died of a stroke at 89. I currently deal with peripheral neuropathy and the balance issues it has brought. I think I have Parkinson's but that has not been formally diagnosed. Maybe I am a hypochondriac, but my many falls and myriad of other ailments tell me there is something wrong. My dogs and I find my recliner to be a very good refuge. 

This has many been written mainly for my children. Born in 1950, I experienced half of the 20th century and now, more than a quarter of the 21st. My children and grandchildren live in a totally different world than that I was born into. Don't stop learning and participating, my precious ones. You only get out of life what you put into it.

I have a new laptop. I think I will continue to write and work on genealogy. But, we'll see in 2027 what the God has in store.  I guess He isn't through with me yet.