Love Lost and Found in 1913

The girl, Bessie Smith

Since Aunt Bessie was 18 when she married DeWitt Brown, the year would have been 1913. But that first marriage lasted only so far as Dallas, TX where Bessie got off the train bound for California and returned east to Marshall, TX. DeWitt journeyed on, the marriage later annulled.

Here follows the rest of the story, as I know it, that I called "The Ballad of Bessie Brown."

A poem that the second Mrs. Brown, Lillie, sent to Bessie is not dated. The envelope is lost and so too the picture she enclosed to show and tell my mother's Aunt Bessie about the life that Bessie could have had in sunny California.

It astonishes me, however, that Lillie spent the time, the creative trouble and the postage to tell Aunt Bessie, Who's Sorry Now? Only Lillie titled her poem "The Cord That Bound Three Hearts, The Will That Severed Two––To Miss Bessie Smith" [sic]. Or rather sick? Or syrupy sweet?

Page 1 of 6

 

 

Girl Meets Boy

Thou once wert young and fair,
As sweet as girl could be, 
Thine eyes were like the summer skies,
Or like the deep blue sea …

The man was young and brave, 
A noble man was he;
His face was sweet, his heart was true,
As honest as could be.

Page 2 of 6

Thou sat'st his heart aflame

With love's bright glowing blaze;

For hearts like his will melt so soon

Beneath his lover's gaze.

The cord of love soon spun

Her web around each heart;

And verry [sic] soon the tie was made, 

Until death doth us part …

On page 3, the story heats up. How Bessie's heart turned to stone, stone De Witt's love could not penetrate.

He pled with thee, my child, 

to turn and do the right; 

But thou wouldest not, and so soon 

Despised him in thy sight…

… But hardened in thy ways, 

Thy proud heart harder still;

E'ne tears of grief and words of love

Could never break thy will.

 Boy Loses Girl

 On page 4, God enters the picture:

And God in heaven knows

The day the deed was done, 

When in thy wrath the cord was cut

Which bound thee to this one. 

Alas poor man he wept, 

Thy love had proved untrue;

When this one hasty step ye took, 

Which many others do …

Looks like Lillie means to curse Bessie:

God grant you may escape

The awful pain he bore;

But Bessie, I'm afraid, my girl

It's coming to your door. 

Boy Gets Better Girl

 Page 5 recounts the truer love heartbroken Dewitt found in Lillie.

This love will ne'er be quenched

As God is on his throne;

'Tis burned so deep within two hearts, 

It never can be known. 

That's stickin' it to her, Lillie. Turn that knife and make her bleed. The letter is tattered, suggesting that Aunt Bessie read this tome many times.

Page 6, a summary: He's mine now.

… The love thou shouldst have known,  

The joy that should be thine, 

A darling husband's tender care

Has turned and now is mine …

… May God forgive you, Dear

The mistake of your life;

For He was merciful and kind, 

And gave DeWitt a wife.  ––Mrs. Lillie Brown
 

Epilogue

Although Bessie married again, three more times in fact, I wonder if she wondered what her life would have looked like had she gotten on that train to California in 1913.

This picture tells more than a thousand words for it looks as if Lillie continued to rub it in. Lillie sent Bessie several such pictures of the happy couple. 

I wonder if the Browns ever had kids. Aunt Bessie didn't.

Bringing in the sheaves

The Ballad of Bessie Brown

Aunt Bessie’s death stunned the family when she died at age 79, 3 weeks short of her 80th birthday. Not that she wasn’t old—she had always seemed old to me—but she insisted she would live until the Rapture. “Jesus is going to come back while I’m alive,” I must have heard Aunt Bessie say so a hundred times. But He didn’t, and the house where she lived in East Texas, where she had perched herself high on the pillared porch to look down on passersby, that house burned down. Only the slab sits to recollect the years of her life––so exalted, settled and secure.

 A Woman of Influence

My mother's Aunt Bessie in Galveston

Aunt Bessie––the eldest of eight children, the progeny of Ma and Papa, who had until she died lived the longest––weaved a tangling web of influence on all her siblings and demanded strict adherence to standards she herself did not keep. 
My mother's mother, Prudie, died from a ruptured appendix at age 26, when my mom was 7-years-old, her younger sister, Joyce, was 5, and "the baby"––as they called her until she died at age 43––Syble was 16-months-old.
Aunt Bessie's funeral in Marshall marked the last time my mother and her sisters would ever spend together. They all got drunk.

Aunt Bessie, despite multiple marriages had no children, so instead she manipulated and shaped her nieces to fit her own design. 

A Bundle of Inconsistencies

Aunt Bessie smelled of talcum and splashed rosewater on her neck before putting on her pearls. She stuffed her bulging body into a corset with drawstrings in back, her bosom inflated but soft like a roasted marshmallow. I might never have known how she managed such a shape but for seeing her get ready for bed the times I slept on a pallet in her bedroom. 
It surprised me every time I saw her let down her hair—thin, silver-gray tresses that reached to her waist got bound and pinned each day in a bun, her crowning glory. Before bed, Bessie would sit on a bench facing the dresser mirror, count aloud 100 strokes using a tarnished silver brush. A rigorous routine. Religious.

Sitting down at the dining table, Aunt Bessie prayed, her eyes closed but her left hand raised, sputtering unintelligible words sprinkled with "Thank you, Jesus," words that passed her lips before the food got passed to eat. And when the noon meal was over, Aunt Bessie put a cloth over the table, covering the leftovers that would serve as supper. 

After the last meal I ever ate at Aunt Bessie's, I slept in the small room off of her bedroom––suffocating without a fan or windows––and I had nightmares that night, visions that danced on the ceiling, made me afraid to be in that place, afraid that demons had in this house found a host. 

Aunt Bessie's religious beliefs allowed her to impose a self-righteous pietism that “’llowed a little” for her indiscretions but drew sharp distinctions around the sins of others. My mother baulked at the incongruities. My mother's experiences colored my own impressions of Aunt Bessie.

When my mother was a young girl, she got to sew stitches in a quilt stretched over a frame suspended from the ceiling in Aunt Bessie’s parlor. The frame hung ready for the weekly quilting circle where other women encouraged my mother to learn to quilt and imparted a lifelong love for handmade quilts. But Aunt Bessie removed Loretta's stitches right after she got sent to bed. 

This is me with my great-aunt Bessie and Aunt Syble's Yorkie, Cindy

Marriages not made in heaven

Aunt Bessie reigned over three husbands; all died leaving her more property than she had had before they married—a farm, a grocery store and a house in town. Except her second husband, 20-years younger than she, married her for her money and they divorced in 1946. Divorce was a scandal for everyone except Aunt Bessie.

A ledger would fail to account for the difficulty I have imagining Bessie as the object of anyone’s passion, her breasts heaving beneath any man’s head, let alone three or four or more different men. I knew her only when she was old, wearing print dresses she had made for herself where she ‘llowed a little on account of the “little dab of leftovers, not enough to keep,” which Aunt Bessie would rather eat than save.    

 Aunt Bessie sewed dresses and skirts for me, too, ones that she 'llowed a little too much fabric––ill-fitting, so that I felt tacky wearing these creations that she boasted about making without a pattern. As they say in East Texas, I looked like something the cat dragged in. 
But in deference to my mother's Aunt Bessie, who made an annual trek from East Texas by train or bus to visit us in Las Vegas, I wore these dresses to school and to church. Like it or not.

A Marriage Annulled

At age 18, Aunt Bessie married DeWitt Brown who took her by train to live in California. The couple got as far as Dallas and Aunt Bessie turned back, went home to Marshall where that marriage was annulled. A record of this scandal––for it truly was scandalous at the time––might not have survived but for the letter the second Mrs. Brown wrote to Aunt Bessie. 

A gloating letter––thank you very much for breaking his heart but now he has me and we’re rich. The new Mrs. Brown enclosed a picture of Dewitt and herself wearing a mink coat and a wide-brimmed hat like those worn by First Class passengers on the Titanic. She also wrote a poem capturing in curly cursive, rhyming stanzas this romantic saga which she titled “The Cord That Bound Three Hearts––The Will That Severed Two.” I call it “The Ballad of Bessie Brown.” 

I also call it an act of vengeance. But that Aunt Bessie kept the letter that told the tale tells me that she did, after all, have a heart. 

Next time, excerpts from the letter.

The Time of My Life

A Fall Retreat

Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven." But I never know for sure when I put something on my calendar whether that planned time and activity will come to pass.

In December, when invited to speak at the Melonie Park Women's Retreat scheduled the last weekend in September, those dates seemed like a mirage––the kind I used to see when walking across the Las Vegas, NV desert between grade school and home. Now that far off weekend has come and gone. And now I can give thanks for both the invitation and every provision along the way that made this special experience a part of my story.

As promised, because I got so many requests for the song lyrics I "sang" (to the tune of "My Favorite Things") and wrote to go along with an emphasis on reading, here you go. Thank you for the cheers and applause. I had no idea I'd written a hit.

 

My Favorite Books

Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina

Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia

To Kill a Mockingbird has what it took:

These are a few of my favorite books.

Gone with the Wind and A Room With a View

All of Jane Austen, What else could I do?

Look Homeward Angel, End of the Affair

Brideshead Revisited at least once a year.

Seabiscuit, Lindbergh, and Gift from the Sea

Gilead and Home and Cold Sassy Tree

Wuthering Heights and Angle of Repose

These are just some of my favorite prose.

When the rain comes

When the day’s long

When I’m feeling blue

I simply remember my favorite books

And then I know what to do.

At the retreat, I talked about time, and story and creativity. Soon, look for postings on my website, Footnotes to Stories, summaries of the 3 sessions covered in the workbook. "The Time of My Life––Ecclesiastes as Story," will continue to benefit from the comments and feedback I receive.

People

Thank you, Melonie Park Church, for the privilege of sharing with you at this annual event. And thanks too for the gracious hospitality extended to others who came from beyond Lubbock. Wonder if anyone got more sleep in the cabins than they would have at home?

Places

The conference center at Ceta Canyon made a wonderful backdrop for a weekend getaway. It even rained, giving us cooler temperatures and that first bite of fall.

Things to Do

A Minute-to-win-it: Empty a box of Kleenex with one hand.

Creative method: hold the box down with body parts, but not the other hand. Clever girl.

Another Minute-to-Win-It

I'm forever blowing bubbles …

 … first person to empty the bottle wins.

These girls had to bounce out 8 ping pong balls from the box tied to their hips. Wiggle, wiggle, hop, hop.

Because women have to keep so many balls in the air, here, try this.

That's my girl, daughter Erin. So competitive.

Of course, I wasn't surprised that Erin won.

Retreat is a Treat

And beside quiet times and hikes and meals and snacks and crafts, hours of conversation filled every free moment. So much scope for the imagination. So many stories to tell. And hear.

Time, the way we spend it, reveals what we value.

The Last Book Sale

Summer Serendipity

Archer City, TX city limits, as of 2010, population 1,834 in the whole county

County Court House means this town is the county seat.

Crossing the street between Booked Up No. 1 and No. 2

On a lark, my husband and I drove from Lubbock to Archer City, TX near Wichita Falls, to check out the auction called The Last Book Sale of more than 300,000 books, gathered over the course of 40 years by antiquarian book collector, Larry McMurtry.

What I didn't know about book auctions soon became apparent. If only I had read Larry McMurtry's memoir, Books, before the sale instead of after, I could have better appreciated this experience. But then, being there was 80%.

A steady stream of people sat in those chairs to hear McMurtry (wearing suspenders) spin his stories.

Book buyers from all over the country came early in the week to scope out titles and to determine which lots and how much to bid for the books McMurtry had decided to part with. He's keeping Booked Up No. 1 open with an inventory of about 120,000 books, plus he has 28,000 books in his personal library at home. 

"I'm proud of my carefully selected twenty-eight-thousand-volume library and am not joking when I say that I regard its formation as one of my most notable achievements," he said in Books.

Before that weekend, my husband would give me a hard time for my book purchases, but that weekend he bought several books, which he has since read, and now he talks about getting a couple more bookcases for the room in our house we call the library.

A Writer on Writing

While I thought it was amazing enough that Larry McMurtry has written 29 novels, 3 memoirs and more than 30 screenplays, seeing that many books collected, sitting on shelves in 4 buildings in this tiny town felt like a visit to the Library of Congress or the British Museum, where books sit in silent judgment on those who enter, almost daring a person to take and read.

When I read Lonesome Dove soon after watching the television production, I sent a copy to my mother, who sent it back to me saying it was trash. Her reaction shocked me at the time because she was a reader who read widely, and in some cases, wildly. 

I always tell people when loaning or recommending a book that "A book is only as good as it is timely," my own caveat for whether or not someone else will respond to a book as I did. In my mother's case, bad timing.

Lonesome Dove is perhaps McMurtry's best known work, and if so, the iconic characters, Captain Call and Gus, portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval in the television production had a lot to do with the book's success. Given the time constraints of film, Lonesome Dove as a mini-series brought to life the dying of the Old West. "We don't sell pigs."

 But Larry McMurtry does sell books.

"One reason I've hung onto book selling is that it's progressive––the opposite of writing, pretty much. Eventually all novelists, if they persist too long, get worse. No reason to name names, since no one is spared. Writing great fiction involves some combination of energy and imagination that cannot be energized or realized forever. Strong talents can simply exhaust their gift, and they do." McMurtry said this in his memoir called Books (1 of 3 memoirs he has written).

View of movie theater in Archer City linked to McMurtry's breakout novel and screenplay, The Last Picture Show

A Reader on Reading 

"What depressed me most in D.C. was that the various great houses I was invited to contained so few books … In our thirty-two years in Georgetown, we sold only one real book to a member of Congress …."

This he said in the context of his 1972 success of the movie version of his novel, The Last Picture Show, a success that afforded both the means as well as continuing opportunities to write both books and screenplays.

"In the cyber revolution that we're now in the midst of, where do readers stand?

I am not fully convinced that the big chain stores … draw off that many readers from the secondhand shops, and if they do, there's a rapid flow-through factor. Since, as nearly as I can tell, few young people are forming personal libraries today, the books bought new at the chains soon trickle back into the secondhand market …

What does any of this say about the most important factor of all, when it comes to books: reading? Book selling will never quite expire unless reading expires first." (Books, by LM)

He also made a point to emphasize at the sale and in Books, the importance of purging books, what he calls being "a junk rejecter." His "iron rule is that good books do not pull bad books up: bad books pull good books down."

That leaves me facing more to do than buy and read books. The Last Book Sale marks a time for me to select and reject too.

This store will remain open to house 120,000 books for sale.

Books, books and more books

"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body," said the writer of Ecclesiastes. Now I have seen what a half million books looks like––stacks floor to ceiling in 4 bookstores in the tiny Texas town of Archer City.

Auctioneers cleared the inventory in 2 days of bidding.

These books, sold in lots of 100–200, are all gone.

And so are these. These books are now somewhere else, but not in Archer City.

My Storyline Experience

  

At the Storyline conference my husband and I attended in June, Donald Miller made numerous references to what he calls “inciting incidents.” The term describes those events or circumstances in our lives that actuate change. From my seat on the front row, I wanted to ask him if attending this conference counted as an inciting incident. I had just read the book The War of Art that describes how when a character wants something, they must overcome obstacles to get it.

I wanted to attend the Storyline conference. I had to overcome numerous obstacles just to be there on the campus of Westmont College in Santa Barbara to even attend to the message Donald shares about story, and how each of us can actually live a better story than the one we are living now. Which, by the way, being there was 80%. Santa Barbara is glorious. Things grow there. And places on campus looked like the garden at Giverny that inspired some of Monet's paintings.

 

Hydrangeas bloomed as big as inflated balloons. 

 

 And during breaks, people soaked in surroundings that encouraged reflection.

"You too can live a better story."

But actually, a few weeks later an inciting incident occurred, one that has the potential to help me live a better story. At the wedding reception for a friend, a conversation with a younger woman who is better acquainted with my daughter than with me led up to and ended with a challenge. She and her husband ride bikes. In fact, to celebrate their 50^th birthdays this year, they took a bike tour of New Zealand. Some serious bike-riders.

And this couple actually glows. I see this aura of health surrounding each of them. They make me want to be a better person.

Imagine my chagrin when she said that she and her husband expect my husband and me to start riding with them on September 1. 

"We know where you live," she said. "We will come for you on September 1. Be ready."

So, my husband got our bikes out of mothballs, and then decided I needed a new bike. And yesterday he bought me a new bike––entry level, hybrid (street and mountain bike, based on the type of riding we plan to do), a Giant bicycle, vastly superior to my cruiser––so that I have incentive as well as inspiration.

What they say about riding a bicycle, well, I remember how to pedal. When Greg, the owner of the bike shop, asked what prompted our purchase––not hard to tell that it’s been a while since I’ve ridden a bike––ping! I knew I had had an inciting incident. 

During this morning’s ride, whole new vistas have opened: First, Texas Tech campus, and perhaps Palo Duro Canyon and Big Bend in the fall. I hope so. 

 

Donald Miller would be proud.

A Bee Gees and Rita Hayworth Mashup

Better late than never, I just came across this YouTube video. Worth 5 minutes to watch Rita Hayworth and a host of great dance partners "Stayin' Alive." A terrific blend of music and video editing, makes me wish Hollywood would bring back musicals to film.

If seeing this doesn't make you want to dance, then at least watch one of Rita's old movies. She is best known for "Gilda." Rita Hayworth said, "Whatever you write about me, don`t make it sad." 

Reading Between the Lines

When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great thinker who gets outside the box to probe ideas. Validates my own intuition about subjects she discussed.

View all my reviews