Grandmothers - I didn't know them until now.

Today is Mother’s Day. I read that the lady who promoted this special day for mothers came to regret it. She hated that it turned into a commercial day for retailers and not what she had hoped it would be.

In this post, I want to explore the lives of mothers that I never knew – my grandmothers. My mother’s mother had a typical old fashioned name, Malula Jones. It was shortened to Lula and that is what she was called most of her life. If not for a tragedy that befell Lula’s sister cousin, Ida, Lula would not have been my grandmother.

My grandfather, William Henry Robison first married Lula’s cousin sister. While pregnant she fell and lost her life and the baby. 

Soon after, William married her sister cousin, Malula Jones, and she birthed ten children, three boys and five girls. One of those girls was my mother, Lois, who named me Glenda Lou, after her beloved mother. 

My aunt Mildred once said to my mother, “You shouldn't name your child after Mama. She can’t ever live up to that name.”

I was exceedingly proud when Mother told me shortly before she died that I had never disappointed her, and I had lived up to my grandmother’s name. I just wish her name had not been Lula because I hated that name. When, after researching the Robison family line, I found out she had actually been named Malula, I was greatly relieved. How awful if my name had been Glenda Malula.

See the photo below of William Henry and Malula (Lula) Jones Robison.

My father’s mother was an exceedingly hardy woman who also raised a big family, ten children. Her oldest son died when he was fifteen years old. She worked on the farm after her marriage for almost twenty years. Her name was Sarah Brock, but nicknamed Sallie. Born in Leon County, Tallahassee, Florida she married Tom Council in 1877 or 1878, and they farmed land given to Tom by his father, John Cecil Council in Wakulla County Florida.

My grandmother, Sallie, had already lived a difficult life before she met Tom. Her parents died when she was a small child.  Sallie was placed in the home of a wealthy Jewish couple who adored her and wanted to adopt her. When she was a baby, the couple carried her and protected her so well they would not let her feet touch the ground. Sallie would have grown up with loving parents who gave her all the luxuries of life. But she had a step brother, Alonzo White, who heard of the couple’s intention to adopt the little girl. As he was her next of kin, he took the child and gave her to his aunt who already had a large family and little wealth. Sallie’s life became drudgery after that.

Having worked hard growing up, Sallie was used to persevering in tough times. Her youngest child, my father, Coy Lee, was born in 1900 around the time the industrialists from up north began building factories in the south where labor was cheap.  Sallie and Tom moved their family to the little town of Pelham, Georgia when Coy was a small boy. Tom and his older sons packed two covered wagons pulled by horses and the family walked most of the way of the two-day trip from Crawfordville, Florida.

They built a house with a large wrap-around porch just outside the village where houses were provided for workers.Tom's family didn't want to live in Mr. Hand's village. The house they built is still standing I believe. 

Although his family happily settled in and all went to work for J.L. Hand who owned the mill there, Tom did not like that life. He left Sallie alone with the unmarried children who were still at home and he went back to the farm.

Sallie often opened her house to boarders who needed a place to sleep and eat. That helped her make ends meet. Twice a year, her husband came up from Florida with a wagon loaded with cured meat and vegetables she could can for the winter. By 1910, Tom was ill and unable to continue to farm alone. He came to live and be cared for by Sallie. 

In 1911, April 18, Tom died and left Sallie a widow at the age of 49. She probably still had five children who were not married and lived at home. The three girls, ages 13 – 19, worked every day and gave their wages to their mother. My father, who loved his mother so dearly, was the last to leave the nest. No matter where he worked, he always sent part of his pay check to his mother back in Pelham.

Read more about the Council family in Profiles and Pedigrees, Tom Council and his Descendants 1858 - 1911 by Glenda Council Beall

For the last ten years of her life, Sallie lived with some of her children in Florida where they had made homes for themselves. She lived seventeen years as a widow and raised her children with good moral values, pride in themselves and with excellent work ethics.

I’ve heard that she was a “hard-shell” Baptist, whatever that means. I believe she lived by the Ten Commandments and my father, who grew up without his father, echoed his mother’s lessons. He taught by example what he had learned at her knee. He always tried to be fair in his business dealings. He believed in honesty in his work and his personal life. 

Family Photo - Sallie is on back row between two of her sons, Coy and Charlie. Little ones are her grandchildren.

Sallie was also known for her sense of humor. She loved playing tricks on her kids, finding ways to scare them. Then she laughed heartily at their reactions. I wish I had known her. I believe I would have liked her. I hope she would have liked me.

The two grandmothers I know the most about, Lula Jones Robison and Sallie Brock Council, are perfect examples of strong, resilient women of the early twentieth century. I am not surprised that my mother inherited those qualities. My sisters and some of my older cousins also have those traits. Without ever laying eyes on my grandmothers, I learned the values they respected. 

My mother, Lois Robison Council, holds the crown for the most loving and giving parent I have ever known. Because I had the best example of what a mother should be, I feel sad for anyone who did not have that kind of relationship. If the world was left to good mothers to run, I feel sure we would all live in a better, more peaceful world.

The Older I Get the More I Think

The older I get the more I think that the most important subjects we should be taught in school are parenting and how to manage money. 

I saw a very young couple yesterday with a tiny baby in a local restaurant. It came to me as I watched them how inexperienced in life they were. I wondered what kind of parents the couple would be imitating as they raised the little girl.

Will they use corporal punishment when she misbehaves? Will he be a loving father who listens to her childish concerns? Will they be overprotective or neglectful? Will they read to her and will they teach her how to love a pet and share with her sisters and brothers? Will she always feel safe?

Reading an article today on Thirteen Things A High School Coach
Won't Tell You, number seven touched me. The coach says parents should not go over and over every play of the game in which their child plays. Just tell the child you enjoyed watching him/her play. He said he once found a girl in an almost dark gym after a game shooting baskets. She said she was waiting as long as possible to go home in hopes that her father would be in bed and she wouldn't have to talk to him about the game. 

Some parents take winning far more seriously than the kids, and have no idea how much pressure they put on their children. In the structured life of today's children, they seldom get to play just for fun. 

My mother and father raised seven kids. They certainly had no special training and they made mistakes. But I have heard horrendous stories of parenting and abuse, cold and uncaring mothers, addiction and dysfunction, from people who are now grandmothers and grandfathers, and they have never forgotten their upbringing. 

I find it odd that the most important job we have as human beings is to care for and raise our young if we have any, but no one prepares us for that challenge. 

My mother used to say about children who had negligent parents, "They just grew up like Topsy." I don't know where that saying came from, but it meant that the kids had no one looking after them. They were on their own most of the time.

Some hospitals try to fill in the gap with young mothers by teaching parenting classes, but I wonder how many take advantage of them. And sadly, fathers need parenting classes as much or more than mothers. 

My mother had patented her parenting skills by the time I came along, number six, and I am forever grateful she learned from a good and kind father, William Henry Robison, as well as a loving mother, Malula Jones Robison.

My father 's methods were harsh and his temper often short due to stress and strain of making a living for all of us. His mind was not on two little girls, my sister and me, but on his sons who were older and worked with him on the farm each day. Those four boys, when they were young, endured whippings with a belt on many occasions, but they never seemed to resent him.

Having been a teacher of little children, it was easy to see what kind of parenting was done in their home. When a small boy came to school with bruises and each time he explained them he told a different story, I knew, and it saddened me.

One little girl developed emotional problems about halfway through the school year and sat in my lap each morning and cried. She told me that her mother, she and her brother knelt beside their beds at night for hours and prayed for her father to come back home. The child had taken on the responsibility of her father's leaving and blamed herself because he had not come back after all the praying.

When we have no money management skills we can lose our homes, but when we have no parenting skills, we can lose our children in many different ways, the worst being that they will perpetuate our mistakes for generations to come.