Nothing by chance…

​Sometimes a young girl has been told a story so often that she feels like she lived it herself. Such is this tale of how my grandparents met. At one time I was lucky enough to have a little pink corduroy diary written in the up-and-down, spiky handwriting of my gramma. Minnie Samantha Syester was 19 years old when she traveled with her sister-in-law Lula to visit with Lula‘s husband and gramma‘s brother Jimmy. I have no idea how they made the trip from Brazil, Indiana, to Louisville, Kentucky, but the heart of the story begins in Louisville. The two young women took a tram through Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville with instructions to arrive at the barracks or tent of my uncle. Then fate, Kismet, God, chance, coincidence stepped in, and these two accidentally got off the tram at the wrong corner. Lost in a sea of soldiers and identical buildings, I’m sure my grandma was overwhelmed. That’s when my Paw-paw , Emanuel Herrington, stepped up to be a courteous, young gentleman.

My grandfather decided he would like to help these two lost women, and he accompanied them to find Jimmy Syester waiting somewhere in his own tent or barrack. However, my grandfather didn’t stop there. Emanuel went that extra mile and lingered while the three others met, hugged, exchanged  news of the family, and decided to go have some supper at a local eating place. Well, yes, my grandfather believed he could. That is, he waited long enough for them to finally include him in their nightly plans. According to the little diary, Minnie and Emmanuel talked long into the night.  The camp was very near the Ohio River, so they walked down beside the water and watched the moon rise over the countryside. My grandma wrote that they fell in love that night.

There is no record of the two corresponding, visiting, or seeing each other until September 1, 1919. On that day Emmanuel Herrington arrived in Centerpoint, Indiana, and he must have asked my gramma to marry him that day. The two wandered off from the rest of her family, boarded a mail hack, and headed into the little town in Indiana. Wandering still, they looked for a judge who said he could marry them right then. Inside the judge’s chambers, my grandparents discovered they needed something. They needed witnesses, and of course,they had left an entire family at home. So they had none. The judge stepped out of his home and into the alley behind, and he called down the street to two men who were unloading coal for the city. Well, yes, the two strangers agreed to be witnesses for my grandparents – coal dust and all. 

I used to have the large, beautiful marriage certificate they acquired that day. Grandma and Pawpaw, Mr. and Mrs. Emmanuel Herrington, returned to my grandma‘s childhood kitchen. Here my gramma expressed just a tiny bit of understanding for her own mother. She wrote that during supper her younger brother found the marriage license rolled into the pocket of Pawpaw‘s coat. He flashed the wedding certificate around through the hands of her family, and my great grandmother, Candace Valera Morgan Syester, began to cry. This woman with the beautiful name was no doubt crying because she missed the wedding, she didn’t know my grandfather, she understood that the couple would probably move to Missouri, and it was just too big of a surprise for a daughter to keep from her mother. 

Gramma and Pawpaw lived in Moberly, Missouri, for a while before moving to Terre Haute, Indiana for many years. My mother was born in Terre Haute, and my grandfather hauled ice for the Home Ice Company there. Finally, when my mom was in her senior year of high school, the family moved to Excello area to be with Emmanuel‘s family in Jacksonville, Missouri, where they lived the rest of their lives on a farm with cattle, chickens and eventually a darling little granddaughter named Gayla. Minnie and Emmanuel were married until his death in 1971.

So … whether or not a person believes in love it first sight, Kismet, or a Divine Plan, I certainly have a story that fills all the blanks. Getting off a horse-drawn tram a stop or two  early changed my life by allowing two people to fall in love. No wonder I’m such a romantic. Happy Anniversary , Gramma and Pawpaw.

Never worked and never will

It’s back-to-school time again.

The buses roll along dusty country roads.First-day pictures appear everywhere—little children stand on porches with backpacks almost as big as they are, holding signs announcing a new grade, while mothers and grandmothers wonder how another summer disappeared so quickly.

And every year at about this time, some part of me goes back to school, too.

This year, I found myself remembering a story I first read when I was probably seven or eight years old. It was called “Never Worked and Never Will,” by Margaret Wise Brown—the same Margaret Wise Brown who wrote Goodnight Moon.

I had no idea who she was then. I only knew I loved that story.
It was about an old woodcarver named Jim Bailey who made wooden ducks and wild geese. Above the door of his shop hung a sign:

NEVER WORKED AND NEVER WILL.

That sign puzzled people because Jim Bailey worked all day. He carved and painted and made beautiful things with his hands. Children watched him and wondered how a man who worked so hard could possibly claim that he had never worked a day in his life.
Eventually, some of the children understood his secret.
He loved what he was doing so much that, to him, it did not feel like work.
You can read Margaret Wise Brown’s story here: Never Worked and Never Will⁠

That little story caught my imagination in a way I could never have explained at seven years old.

I remember choosing it when our class was asked to speak at a PTA program for our parents. We were supposed to tell about a book or story we especially enjoyed about school.

I chose Never Worked and Never Will.
Unfortunately, when it was my turn to speak, I also chose to giggle.
I have a vague memory that a boy nearby started it, and apparently I was highly susceptible to contagious laughter that evening. My mother was not amused. To the best of my recollection, that may have been my first and last episode as a public giggler
But I never forgot the story. 

Many years later, when I was asked to say a few words at my first retirement party, I remembered that old woodcarver again.
By then I had spent years in a classroom. Teaching had certainly required effort. There had been long days, papers and plans, meetings, problems to solve, children to worry about, lessons to invent, and more work brought home than I could ever count.
But I had loved it.

And I realized that somehow I had managed to live the life that had appealed so deeply to that little girl reading about Jim Bailey.
I ended my retirement remarks by remembering his sign.
After all those years of teaching, I could say that I had been fortunate enough to spend my working life doing something I loved.
So, in Jim Bailey’s sense of the words, I have never worked.
And since that happened to be my retirement day, I supposed I never will.
I still love that idea.

Retirement and age have changed what I am able to do, and these days accomplishments are considerably smaller than they once were. But I think the old lesson still holds.

There is something wonderful about finding the things that make us lose track of the distinction between work and pleasure—the things we make, teach, write, grow, mend, cook, crochet, arrange, learn, or share simply because something inside us comes alive while we are doing them.

Maybe that is why, after all these years, I still remember an old man carving wooden ducks in a story from an elementary-school reader.
He knew something worth learning very young:

A good life is not necessarily a life without effort.

Sometimes we live a life filled with endeavors that we love. For me, teaching proved to be just that.
So I never worked and I never will!

For those of you who are lucky enough to be headed back to school or hugging a child who’s looking forward to a day in the classroom, have a great year.