Momma and Her Friends

Irene Limbrick
1933-1998

In the small farming community of Peachtree where I grew up, my mother had two good friends; Mary Lee and Hazel. Momma, Mary Lee, and Hazel had children about the same ages. They were often pregnant at the same time, and they were faced with the same challenges in their community. They spent their early mornings preparing hardy lunches for their husbands who worked at the sawmills or hauling pulpwood. Then they prepared breakfast for their children who were loaded onto the school bus before 7:30 each morning. The younger children who weren't old enough for school were then fed and sent outside to play. 

Hazel Armstrong
1933-1999

The women then washed the dishes, made beds, swept floors, and did other household chores. After the morning housework was done they gathered to talk, laugh, and gossip. In the year round heat of southeast Texas, it always seemed the windows were raised and and a humid breeze from the not so distant Gulf of Mexico flirted with the curtains. The voices of the young mothers floated on the breeze and the fluttering curtains seemed to danced to their laughter. You would have thought they didn't have a care in the world. 

After some time Mary Lee and her family moved to another nearby community. Momma and Hazel grew closer. They became best friends. Later in their lives, when the women were in their fifties, my parents moved fifty miles away. Momma's friend, Hazel, drove the fifty miles everyday to work with them in their small business. 

In 1998 my mother passed away. Hazel was devastated. She came to the funeral home and asked if she could take a picture of her friend. Of course no one objected. I later learned that she kept the picture on the nightstand near her bed. Three months later Hazel passed away as well. Mary Lee lived until 2010. 

 I hope they are all having a good laugh and the curtains are dancing in the breeze.