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My Aunt's Memories
Mary Lou Coney Love is my Dad's youngest sibling, being the last of nine
children born to Leon Josephus and Ida Augusta Hawkins Coney. Born on
their farm near Ladonia, Texas, she was delivered by her oldest sister,
Ola Jane. Grandpa had gone for the doctor, but Mary Lou couldn't wait.
(After graduating from high school Ola became a registered nurse.)
Mary Lou's memories of growing up in that family have been a treasure trove
for me, since I can check for details of stories I write. At age
eighty-nine she still has a keen sense of humor and a good memory. Her
naturally wavy red hair is mixed with gray now. I remember her as a
feisty, fun-loving girl in her twenties. Shapely and slender, she was a
talented pianist. Grandma and Grandpa held a dance for her when she
graduated from high school in 1937. I learned then that she could dance,
too.
In her last year of high school at Yowell, one of the grade
school teachers became ill. Mary Lou was asked to teach her classes for
the day, a job she thoroughly enjoyed. Among the students in her room
were four of her nieces and nephews, namely James Coney, "Junior"
Browning, my sister Gwen, and me. Mary Lou assigned me to write down the
names of the kids who were bad. James stuck his foot out to trip another
of the kids. Since he was my cousin and her nephew, I didn't know
whether to write his name on the "bad" list or not. When I asked Mary
Lou, she said, "Yes." Gwen thought it was terrible that I would "tattle"
on a relative.
One boy in Mary Lou's high school class took out a
long knife once and slashed Harold Cameron's palm. The woman teacher
whipped him for doing it, but couldn't make him cry. She told the
principal about the incident and he whipped him, too, but never did make
him cry. The boy said later he wished he had left his knife in his
pocket.
In home economics class at Yowell, Mary Lou couldn't get
her treadle sewing machine to run. Trying as hard as she could, she
turned the wheel by hand, and pressed down on the treadle with all her
might, but it wouldn't run. Opening it, she found a mouse. She had
ground it up in the sewing machine gears, killing it.
To finish
high school, the Yowell students went to Ladonia or Commerce for their
senior year. Commerce required that the students had been taught a
foreign language. Since none was taught at Yowell, Mary Lou went to
Ladonia. Typing was taught there, and she typed sixty words per minute
on her final test.
Called "Sister" by her siblings, her memories
of the family are mainly of the youngest, Roy Leon (Buster), Lowell
(Sheep), and Mattie May (B. I.). None of the other kids had nicknames.
When B. I. was leaving to marry Noel "Red" Rucker, Mary Lou remembered
watching her dress. Standing in front of a big mirror on the washstand
in their front hall, she put on a hat with a big plume that curled under
her chin.
Mary Lou was preparing to go to beauty school. Grandpa
wanted her to become a teacher, but she said she was stubborn. Once she
had told them she wanted to be a beautician, she stuck with it, a
decision she later wished that she had not made, since she felt down
deep inside that teaching was what she really wanted to do. But Edgar
Lee, her oldest brother, had become a teacher, which took several years
of attending school. Beauty school would take only six months; besides,
she loved doing people's hair and nails. Enrolling at Neilson Beauty
College in Dallas, she stayed with my mother's sister Itonia Rankin.
My Dad drove her to their house. When cousin Sam McDonnold visited them,
he told Mary Lou about her sister Ruth being in the hospital. Since no
one had told Mary Lou about it, she was very upset. When Ola and her
husband Joe Fife visited a few days later, Mary Lou told them, "I'm
going home with you." Joe said, "Oh, good Lord! Your daddy will kill
me." But when they drove up in Grandpa's yard, he saw her getting out of
the car and said, "Here comes our baby!" Joe said, "We've got it made!
He called her 'our baby.'" After finishing the curriculum at Neilson's
she had to pass a written test to obtain her license. It was mailed to
Austin, and her certificate was mailed back to her.
Turner Love
came into her life soon after she graduated from beauty school in 1937.
She was working in Lemon's Beauty Shop in Commerce. A friend asked her
out on a double date. Turner was with another girl, but it must have
been love at first sight, because he asked Mary Lou to go with him. They
were a couple from then on. A year later, when they told Grandpa and
Granny that they were going to get married, Grandpa wanted her to have a
home wedding. Turner and Mary Lou decided instead to go to Oklahoma nd
get married right away. There was no waiting period in Oklahoma, but
there was in Texas. So on October l, 1938, they went to Hugo, Oklahoma,
and were married by a Baptist Missions preacher, W. D. Ward, with Red
and B. I. as witnesses. Even though they would have loved to have
children, they were never blessed with any. After Granny died, Grandpa
lived with them, as did Turner's dad.
Still as feisty as she was
in her early years, Mary Lou stays active in her church, driving her own
car until recently.
Lowell McCormack
Gainesville, Texas
Published:
November 14,
2005
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